E-Man Vs. X-Men?

As the never-ending Avengers Vs. X-Men plods on, many of us in the comics blogosphere haven taken to recounting earlier appearances of the Phoenix.

But we missed one:

Oh dear.

In First's E-Man #3 (1983), writer/plotter Martin Pasko and Joe Staton decided to do a fairly savage satire of the X-Men, the Dark Phoenix saga, Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Stan Lee, fans who were digging the X-Men...every single panel of this issue is a pretty harsh dig at someone, and it's fairly amazing to read with 30 years of hindsight.

Especially when E-Man meets...The F-Men!!

Don't worry, I'll blow up those intro captions for you...






Now, many of us remember the scene, from X-Men #132 (1980), where Scott and Jean have a tender moment...




So of course...



And we get some withering parodies of Claremont's emoting characters:



Of course, Jean Beige gets transformed from Albatross into...





And the "creator" and leader of the F-Men, Ford Fairmont?

Pasko and Staton manage to cram the entire Dark Phoenix saga into one issue, and still find room to smack around Marvel brass a little (OK, a lot).


It is fascinating to see such sharp and specific attacks on particular stories and creators. Could it happen again today? Dark Albatross can never truly die...