Comics Bulletin logo
Search
  • Columns
    Random
    • Top 10 Bronze Age Writers

      Mark Stack
      October 19, 2010
      Columns, Top 10
    Recent
    • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 2

      Daniel Gehen
      December 4, 2020
    • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 1

      Daniel Gehen
      October 30, 2020
    • Comictober 2020: DRACULA MOTHERF**KER

      Daniel Gehen
      October 27, 2020
    • What Looks Good
    • Comics Bulletin Soapbox
    • The Full Run
    • Leading Question
    • Top 10
    • The Long-Form
    • Jumping On
    • Comics in Color
    • Slouches Towards Comics
  • Big Two
    Random
    • The Full Run: 'Thriller' #7 by Robert Loren Fleming and Trevor Von Eeden

      Mark Stack
      May 16, 2013
      Columns, DC Comics, The Full Run, The Long-Form
    Recent
    • 4.5

      DCeased: Dead Planet #7 Presents a Hopeful Future (Review)

      Daniel Gehen
      January 22, 2021
    • Retro Review: Detective Comics #826 Remains a Holiday Classic

      Daniel Gehen
      December 3, 2020
    • Stan Lee

      nguyen ly
      November 7, 2020
    • DC Comics
    • Big Two Reviews
    • Marvel Comics
  • Indie
    Random
    • 4.0

      Micro Review: Port of Earth #1

      Mark Stack
      November 13, 2017
      Image, Indie, Reviews, Top Cow
    Recent
    • Review: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist

      Daniel Gehen
      December 14, 2020
    • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 2

      Daniel Gehen
      December 4, 2020
    • 4.5

      TMNT: The Last Ronin #1 Lives Up to the Hype (Review)

      Daniel Gehen
      October 29, 2020
    • Reviews
    • Archie Comics
    • Boom! Studios
    • Dark Horse
    • IDW
    • Image
    • Oni Press
    • Valiant
  • Reviews
    Random
    • 4.5

      Hope: The Hero Initiative

      Mark Stack
      April 20, 2011
      Reviews
    Recent
    • 4.5

      DCeased: Dead Planet #7 Presents a Hopeful Future (Review)

      Daniel Gehen
      January 22, 2021
    • Review: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist

      Daniel Gehen
      December 14, 2020
    • Retro Review: Detective Comics #826 Remains a Holiday Classic

      Daniel Gehen
      December 3, 2020
    • Singles Going Steady
    • Slugfest
    • Manga
      • Reviews
    • Small Press
      • Reviews
      • ICYMI
      • Tiny Pages Made of Ashes
  • Interviews
    Random
    • Interview: Jason Copland and Fabian Rangel Jr.: Santos: Crime Noir on the Rio Grande

      Mark Stack
      May 5, 2016
      Indie, Interviews
    Recent
    • Interview: Jon Davis-Hunt Talks SHADOWMAN

      Daniel Gehen
      June 8, 2020
    • Interview: Becky Cloonan talks DARK AGNES and Her Personal Influences

      Mike Nickells
      March 4, 2020
    • Simon Roy

      Interview: Simon Roy on His Inspirations and Collaborations on PROTECTOR

      Mike Nickells
      January 29, 2020
    • Audio Interview
    • Video Interview
  • Classic Comics
    Random
    • The Story Behind 'Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali'

      Mark Stack
      June 5, 2016
      Classic Comics, Classic Comics Cavalcade
    Recent
    • Countdown to the King: Marvel’s Godzilla

      Daniel Gehen
      May 29, 2019
    • Honoring A Legend: Fantagraphics To Resurrect Tomi Ungerer Classics

      Daniel Gehen
      February 15, 2019
    • Reliving the Craziest Decade in Comics History: An interview with Jason Sacks

      Mark Stack
      January 2, 2019
    • Classic Comics Cavalcade
    • Classic Interviews
  • News
    Random
    • Kickstarter Spotlight: Leave Something Witchy

      Mark Stack
      August 13, 2019
      Kickstarter Spotlight, News
    Recent
    • 2020 Ringo Awards Winners Announced

      Daniel Gehen
      October 26, 2020
    • BAD IDEA Announces 2021 Publishing Slate

      Daniel Gehen
      September 29, 2020
    • A Full Replay of NCSFest 2020 is now Available

      Daniel Gehen
      September 15, 2020
    • Press Release
    • Kickstarter Spotlight
  • Books
    Random
    • Collecting Profile: NFL Superpro

      Mark Stack
      August 31, 2019
      Books, Collectibles, Collecting Profile, Columns, Marvel Comics
    Recent
    • Collecting Profile: Disney Frozen

      CB Staff
      November 22, 2019
    • Collecting Profile: NFL Superpro

      CB Staff
      August 31, 2019
    • “THE BEST OF WITZEND” is a Wonderful Celebration of Artistic Freedom

      Daniel Gehen
      September 15, 2018
    • Review: ‘Machete Squad’ is a Disappointing Afghan Memoir

      Jason Sacks
      July 31, 2018
    • Review: ‘Out of Nothing’ is the Antidote to Our Sick Times

      Jason Sacks
      July 23, 2018
    • Review: ‘Bizarre Romance’ Shows Rough Edges in the Early Days of a New Marriage

      Jason Sacks
      July 10, 2018
What's New
  • Collecting Profile: If I win Powerball, I will buy Amazing Fantasy 15
  • DCeased: Dead Planet #7 Presents a Hopeful Future (Review)
  • Collecting Profile: Batwoman
  • Collecting Profile: Daredevil
  • Collecting Profile: Floronic Man
  • Review of Cheetah in Wonder Woman 1984
  • RSS Feed
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Contact Us
  • Write for us!
  • Visit Video Game Break!
Home
Big Two

Leading Questions: Heart’Sunfire, Strong Desire

Mark Stack
March 23, 2017
Big Two, Columns, Leading Question, Marvel Comics

Every week in a new installment of “Leading Questions”, the young, lantern jawed Publisher of Comics Bulletin Mark Stack will ask Co-Managing Editor Chase Magnett a question he must answer. Except for these next few weeks. The tables have turned onto the other foot as Chase prepares for his impending nuptials, and it falls to him to question and Mark to answer. Chase doesn’t plan on taking it easy on Mark. In fact, he might just ask him about things he knows nothing about just to watch him squirm.

Why don’t we see how this first at-bat is going?


The X-Men didn’t really become the popular franchise we understand today until Giant-Size X-Men #1 where it introduced banner characters like Storm, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler. Why is it that the biggest disappointment in the wake of that issue is the under-utilization of another member from the team: Sunfire?

Logan’s in theaters and on-track to make a billion dollars based on how many stoked teens I saw in my screening and this is appearing on a website called “Comics Bulletin,” so I don’t have to bother explaining who the X-Men are here. If you clicked this link then you bought a ticket already, and this isn’t Dune so we’re not handing out a glossary before the show.

Chris Claremont gets the credit for revitalizing the X-Men, so I occasionally forget that he wasn’t the writer behind Giant-Size. Hold a gun to my head and ask me who created Wolverine or Storm and I might say “Claire Chrismont” in a panic before screaming “LEN WEIN!” at the top of my soon to be still lungs. Then I’d be shot to death because I forgot to credit Dave Cockrum, too. Art cred matters. Anyway, Len Wein was handed the task of bringing the X-Men back, and he had a new hook in mind for the team: diversity. The team would now feature characters from all around the globe. Of course, it was still 1975 so a lot of this diversity was of the Scottish or German accent variety, but you still had Storm, Thunderbird, and – our man of the hour – Sunfire being brought into the fold.

Not-Pictured: SUNFIRE
(Cover by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum.)

Storm has remained an important part of the X-Men’s fabric. She’ll be appearing in Marvel comics until that publisher finds a way to finally make the Inhumans happen for real this time. However, what started as a pretty diverse team gets a whole lot whiter following Giant-Size. Thunderbird? Well, he’s shown up sporadically over the years, but that’s been hampered by the fact the fact that he died in his third appearance with the team because a gruff loner needed to die and it wasn’t going to be Wolverine. And Sunfire? Well, he was written out less violently when he voluntarily left the team in the issue immediately following Giant-Size #1. He wasn’t even on the cover, so can you really blame the (entirely fictional) guy? No, you can’t. You have to blame the (mostly non-fictional) creators.

Sunfire didn’t disappear entirely after that. He showed up every now and then for a crossover, co-headlined a miniseries with Big Hero 6, became a Horseman of Apocalypse, and all that jazz. You couldn’t accuse him of being a major character, but he stuck around long enough to be a member of the Uncanny Avengers when their book launched after Avengers vs. X-Men. Reading Uncanny Avengers, you’d be forgiven for thinking absolutely nothing had happened with him in the years between. He’s still proud, independent, and unwavering. Even though he helps out with saving the day, that book still didn’t center him as a character with anything resembling an arc. The emotional weight falls on other, whiter mutants, and that’s sort of the problem.

Sunfire had take orders from this clown.
(Excerpt from Uncanny Avengers #5 written by Rick Remender with art by Olivier Coipel.)

Sunfire’s not a team player. He’s a protagonist waiting to happen. That’s not to say that he couldn’t have worked in the X-Men and eventually become a fully developed character. No, the reason that never could have happened is because Wolverine was on the team. The Giant-Size team was launched but then creative suddenly realized that three self-interested loners was two too many. The proud, non-white men were ditched and Wolverine was allowed to develop into a breakout character under future-writer Chris Claremont. And, fun fact, Chris Claremont would take Japanese culture and make it an important element of Wolverine’s character. When you take “X-Men” and add “Japan” that equals out to Wolverine instead of Sunfire, and that’s fucked the fuck up. I’m placing a lot of emphasis on the race of these characters because it’s impossible to ignore it when discussing which one was given an opportunity to take hold.

Marvel Comics wasn’t ready for Sunfire. With no room for him in the X-Men outside of guest-star appearances, he would have needed a back-up or ongoing series to establish himself. As much credit as Marvel Comics gets for being a progressive force in their early history, there’s no fucking way they were going to give a series to an anti-America anti-hero whose mother died from radiation poisoning brought about by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. That’s some pretty heavy subject matter that you might think would interest a franchise focused on an oppressed group that holds a Holocaust survivor among its core cast (the result of a retcon that occurred long after Sunfire’s debut). The Holocaust and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are among the darkest acts ever committed. Marvel Comics and the X-Men would grapple with the former.

(Excerpt from Uncanny Avengers #8 written by Rick Remender with art by Daniel Acuña)

This isn’t a high school history class, so I’ll keep this very short: America has not truly confronted the evils it committed on the Japanese and Japanese-Americans during World War II. Sunfire’s origins, as established by co-creator Roy Thomas, are rooted in the outcome of these terrible acts and they demand addressing. Having a white American writer be the one to do it, though? Hard pass. I don’t want to see that. No one needs to. They could have the most nuanced and sympathetic take in the world, and it still wouldn’t be appropriate to have them tell a story about a Japanese character’s relationship to America after he’s been so affected by this nation’s crimes. Marvel Comics would have to hire a Japanese or Japanese-American writer to tackle that. And so Sunfire remains obscure. A character in want of a story, a story in need of a creator.

So why is the under-utilization of Sunfire a Giant-Size disappointment? Because he represents a squandered opportunity to bring in the right talent to tell a unique story. And that neeeever happens anymore…

Giant-Size X-Men #1SunfireX-Men

Share On:
Tweet
Preview: Generation Zero #8
Dan Murray of Skybound: Games Build Community

About The Author

<a href="http://comicsbulletin.com/byline/mark-stack/" rel="tag">Mark Stack</a>
Mark Stack
Publisher

Mark Stack aspires to be a professional amateur. You can e-mail me at markstack.cb@gmail.com.

Related Posts

  • What Looks Good for the Week of July 29, 2020

    Daniel Gehen, Jason Jeffords Jr.
    July 27, 2020
  • 4.5

    X-MEN/FANTASTIC FOUR #4 is a Finale of Moral Questions

    Daniel Gehen
    July 22, 2020

Support Us!

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Friends of the Site

  • SOLRAD
  • Your Chicken Enemy
  • Psycho Drive-In
  • Women Write About Comics
  • The Beat
  • Loser City
RSSTwitterFacebookgoogleplusinstagramtumblr

Comics Bulletin is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for website owners to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, audible.com, and any other website that may be affiliated with Amazon Service LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, Comics Bulletin earns from qualifying purchases.

All content on this site (c) 2018 The Respective Copyright Holders