Tessa/Sage and Frost & Xavier as Retro-Continuity

[Syzygy]

As I’m new to the forum here, this is my first post. I’ve searched for a thread like it, but haven’t found one. If I’ve missed such, please don’t flame me, all you guys and gals with thousands of posts under your belt. Hopefully, even if what I say isn’t new, I’ll say it in a new, interesting, and worthwhile way.

Basically, the issue I want to raise is the lunacy of Tessa/Sage being a spy for Xavier all along. To ask us to believe in this is just sheer lunacy on Claremont’s part. In my opinion, it is perhaps the worst retrofit of all X-time. I hate it. But I’m going to back into this issue by first discussing Marvel’s current biggest retrofit, Deadly Genesis, and the Xavier-meets-Frost backstory in issue #5.

So here’s what I have in mind:

1) Some thoughts about Deadly Genesis, not plot or story-wise, but as a retro-continuity concept generally.

2) The obvious, fatal-flaws of the Xavier-meets-Frost backstory in issue #5.

3) The utter madness of asking us to believe Tessa/sage was ever Xavier’s “spy”.

4) Some further remarks on how horribly the Sage character turned out.

These will be a long postings, relatively speaking, but I will try to make it worth everyone’s while. After all, these issues have been eating away at me for a while now (in regard to “Sage”), so I've thought about them rather much.

Also, most of these comments are pasted in from “negative” letters I wrote to Marvel, either recently (Deadly Genesis), or several years ago.

Peace,
Syzygy

[Syzygy]

While the writing and the art were excellent, I have mixed feelings. Certain parts of a character’s history, especially his origin, ought to remain sacrosanct. If you tamper with them too much, you change the character in essential ways. Mr. Brubaker seems to have made this his stock in trade. First, by bringing Bucky back from the dead, and then again by tampering with the origin of the New X-Men.

I think it’s a cheap shot, however technically skilled the art and writing. Certainly, any skilled writer can come up with a story about, say, Superman’s secret older brother, or have Batman discover that his parents are still alive. But I do not think these things should be done. I’d rather take a character’s origin as given, and move forwards, not backwards.

Origins, by their very nature, are steeped in myth. Myths are unavoidably mysterious. It is often best therefore not to pry into them too deeply, but leave them as they are and proceed onward. If you pry into too deeply into mystery, the magic disappears. For example, IMO, the “Enterprise” TV series was canceled because they made the mistake of going backwards, not forwards.

Another problem with the “secret history” approach is that it often wreaks havoc upon certain essential stories in the characters’ continuity. So when the reader goes back to read those stories, he finds hopeless logical knots. I’m not sure how to read the origin of the New X-Men now. Never mind Professor X!

Yeah, Professor X is certainly getting a bad rap lately: He imprisons a sentient computer (the Danger Room), sends a young mutant girl into the corrupt bowels of Hellfire Club as a spy (Tessa), and now, we learn, is responsible for the death of a whole team of secret X-Men. He’s the mutant patriarch writers love to tear down.

Peace,
Syzygy

[Syzygy]

This secret history/first encounter story is tremendously problematical. I can tell you guys didn’t think it through at all. [Remeber, I'm writing this to Marvel...I don't mean my fellow fanboys!] If you read the Dark Phoenix Saga, Uncanny #129-137, you’d know what I mean. Let’s start.

In issue #129 we see Frost leaving Katherine Pryde’s house. Meanwhile, Xavier, Storm, Colossus, and Wolverine are coming up the front walk. They pass by one another by.

From Wolverine, a reaction. His thoughts are “Nice lookin' frail. Somethin’ about her scent though—raises the hackles on my neck. Wonder why?”

Xavier, having a mind link with his students, would certainly hear this thought. I would expect him to say, “That’s Emma Frost, an evil telepath who works with the corrupt, power-seeking organization known as the Hellfire Club. Guard your thoughts my students! The level of danger here rises substantially if she is involved.”

But of course, he says nothing.

Later, Xavier sends Storm, Wolverine, Colossus and Pryde away to a “malt shoppe” while he remains with the Prydes. This virtually insures that they are all vulnerable to mental assault, and that he, himself, loses protection versus physical assault. Predictably, shortly thereafter, everybody gets attacked and captured, the X-Men by Frost’s psychic assault, and Xavier, presumably, by a physical one.

Should Xavier have known better than to do this under the circumstances?

I think so. After all, Xavier knows who Frost is, and through Tessa he’s been following her career (Tessa, his “spy”, helped Shaw and Frost takeover the circle). So splitting up the team in this fashion, under these circumstances, is a novice-level tactical error. Would Xavier, super-brain, make such an obvious mistake in basic strategy? No way.

If Xavier doesn’t know who Frost is (as I think was Claremont’s intention at the time #129 was written) then Xavier’s lack of warning and failure to keep the team together are understandable. He got surprised by previously unknown forces.

Yet the Frost/Xavier backstory would have me conclude that there was no surprise. Xavier knew of Frost, should have warned his students (but didn’t), should have been aware of danger (but wasn’t), and made an amateurish mistake worthy only of a first year New Mutant novice: he split up the team, and split it up along exactly the wrong lines (resulting in everybody’s capture, including his own).

So if the Frost/Xavier backstory is true, Xavier is a tactical numskull, which I find difficult to believe, considering we know he’s got a super-brain. It’s the back story that’s wrong.

Take another example. In Uncanny #132 Cyclops, after the team’s encounter with Emma Frost, takes the X-Men not back to the mansion, but to the Angel’s property in New Mexico. He then talks privately with Angel:

CYCLOPS: Someone’s after the X-Men.

ANGEL: So what else is new. Someone’s always after the X-Men.

CYCLOPS: This is different. Last week, our mutant detecting computer, Cerebro, picked up two new contacts. Professor X took Storm, Colossus, and Wolverine with him to check out the one in Chicago.

They were attacked, and captured, by a foe who knew everything about their powers and how to defeat them. She was a telepath who called herself the White Queen.

[Note that Xavier still hasn’t told Cyclops he knows her.]

In the confusion, the Chicago neo-mutant, a teenager named Kitty Pryde, managed to slip away long enough to call the rest of us in New York for help.

Unfortunately, her warning came just as Nightcrawler, Jean and I—and our neo-mutant disco singer called Dazzler—were being ambushed ourselves. If it hadn’t been for Dazzler, we’d have been captured too.

We headed for Chicago and, with Kitty and Dazzler’s aid, rescued the others.

Jean—Phoenix—fought the White Queen in a psychic duel. I wanted her taken alive for questioning, but in the end she preferred death to capture.

Phoenix mind-scanned a guard and learned that the White Queen belonged to a group of industrialists out to rule the world. They see mutantkind—and the X-Men—as a means to achieving that goal.

They call themselves the Hellfire Club.

[Note that Xavier still hasn’t told Cyclops he knows who and what the Club is. He’s letting Cyclops grope about in the dark on an essential matter of team safety.]

ANGEL: Are you sure? I’m a member of the Hellfire Club. So’s Candy. I inherited the membership along with Worthington Industries, when my folks passed away. It’s an old, very stuffy, yet risqué, establishment club.

[Note: Angel and his girlfriend are members of the club, yet Xavier has never warned them of it’s true nature.]

Candy and I visited it once before I told the world I was Angel. We didn’t like it. We never went back. Whatever your White Queen learned, it wasn’t from me.

CYCLOPS: There has to be a leak somewhere. Warren, these people knew our powers, our plans, the way we fight, the way we think!

[Note that the Hellfire Club has been spying on the X-Men (they have had Cerebro bugged by Warhawk since Uncanny #110). Xavier must know his team has been compromised, yet he doesn’t even the playing field by telling the X-Men the least bit about them.]

So I think you can see why I have a real problem with the Emma Frost/Xavier first encounter story. If it’s true, then Xavier knows of both Frost and the Club, yet, inexplicably, tells Cyclops absolutely nothing. Why? There seems to be no logical reason...except the magic-breaking reason. The way this story was originally written, Xavier didn’t know of either Frost or the Hellfire Club. Read this way, the story makes perfect sense. Yet, if I read the Frost/Xavier backstory and assume that it’s true, Xavier’s motives become not only inexplicable, but virtually schizophrenic.

Could things get any worse? Oh, yes. Because Cyclops isn’t going to rest easy until he learns the truth. He organizes a covert penetration into the Hellfire Club:

Peace,
Syzygy

[The Sword Is Drawn]

I do have some problems with Tessa/Sage, yes. It is well known that Tessa WAS intended to be a possible X-Men 'Spy-within' character from her conception, but it was a plot which was never followed up on and properly shaped. Therefore, when it came to Sage, things were pretty difficult to believe in.

[Syzygy]

CYCLOPS: Professor, if you haven’t heard from us by midnight, we’ve run into trouble.

PROFESSOR X: Scott, I do not like the idea of you and the X-Men blithely walking into a potential deathtrap.

[It becomes even more of a potential deathtrap on account of Xavier not telling his students what he knows about the Club.]

CYCLOPS: Neither do I, really. But I can’t see any alternative.

[The alternative is the Professor telling Cyclops what he knows. But Xavier evidently prefers to “blithely” send his students into a potential deathtrap rather than just tell them what they’re going to find out anyway when they move against the Club.]

CYCLOPS: We have no hard evidence connecting the White Queen’s outfit with this Hellfire Club, other than the name. And we can’t afford to make a mistake. We need proof, one way or the other.

[Ah, so! The purpose of the expedition is to discover if there’s a connection between the White Queen and the Hellfire Club! Xavier could settle this with a word, but instead, inexplicably, he sends his students “blithely walking into a potential deathtrap”.]

CYCLOPS: If they do turn out to be the same gang, and if they’re ready for us, at least you’ll be safe in New Mexico. You and Angel will be free to deal with them. Wish us luck Professor. Cyclops out.

ANGEL: You don’t approve of Scott’s plan, Professor?

PROFESSOR X: It’s not that. I’m still unable to reestablish my psychic rapport with the X-Men. They’re going into action, and I won’t be able to help, or guide them.

{What’s this? He could have helped them by giving them the game program instead of keeping mum. Crazy!]

So it’s pretty clear that Xavier’s actions here are inexplicable if he knows of Frost and the Club. There is no reason on Earth for Xavier not to tell them what they’re going to find out anyway if left to their own devices. He allows them to take a tremendous, life-threatening risk for no good reason at all. Not only that, but he lies through his teeth while doing it. Only if Xavier doesn’t already know about Frost and the Club does this dialogue—this story—make any sense.

If you’re not with me yet, read this snippet of dialouge from Uncanny #133, but read it from the point of view that Xavier and Frost have met before, and perhaps also from the point of view that Tessa is Xavier’s deep-cover agent. Read, but go and get your barf-bag first, because you’ll need it.

ANGEL: Professor, you’ve been on edge ever since Cyclops took the X-Men to New York to confront the Hellfire Club. He left you behind—is that what’s bugging you?

PROFESSOR X: He had good reason. If the team is following a false lead, then no harm’s done. If they hit paydirt—and, heaven forbid, run into trouble—you’ll be safe, free to carry on the fight.

I should be with the X-Men Angel, monitoring their progress, aiding them in battle, as I did with the original X-Men.

I feel so helpless! I cannot re-establish my mental rapport with the team. I won’t know what’s happening until it’s too late!

From the beginning, I’ve trained Cyclops to take my place as leader of the X-Men. But when the day finally came, I found I resented it. And him. That resentment caused me to make some terrible mistakes, angel.

I fear innocent people will suffer because of them.

Gak!

“If the team is following a false lead....” Barf me a river! You know it isn’t a false lead!

“I feel so helpless!” Just tell the X-Men the truth, baldy!

“I’ve trained Cyclops to take my place...when the day came, I found I resented it.” Yeah, you must have. You sent him “blithely walking into a potential deathtrap.” I’d say that qualifies as resentment, you lying Loki-lipped fiend.

To reiterate: only if Xavier doesn’t already know about Frost and the Club does this dialogue—this story—make any sense. Unless Professor Xavier has been replaced by Mystique or Mister Sinister.

So this is why I am generally so opposed to “secret histories” or “secret first meetings” or “revised origins.” They almost always cause a whole host of previous stories to lose their inner logic and coherence. When that previous story is something as important as the Dark Phoenix Saga, it becomes a logical nightmare. Reading the Dark Phoenix Saga from the point of view that Xavier knows of both Frost and the Club, as the Deadly Genesis #5 backstory reveals, is a futile task. It is like trying to comprehend the false equation of “two plus two equals five”.

Peace,
Syzygy

[Syzygy]

TESSA/SAGE AS XAVIER’S “SPY”:

This has to be the worst retrofitted history ever. I’ll just give you guys the basics, then I’ll attach part of letter I wrote on the matter, oh, maybe a year and a half ago.

1) Warhawk bugs Cerebro in Uncanny #110. Yet in Uncanny #129, we see that the bug is still functioning, and Shaw and others are spying on Xavier audio-visually. Wouldn’t Tessa have told Xavier of this?

2) Frost outfits Mastermind with the mindtap mechanism to corrupt Jean Grey and convert her to evil. Frost is Shaw’s agent, and Shaw would have consulted Tessa on the matter. Wouldn’t Tessa have contacted Xavier and said, “Mastermind is tampering with Grey’s psyche”? Wouldn’t Xavier have put a stop to that right at the beginning?

3) In Uncanny #132 Cyclops learns, too late, that Mastermind has joined the Hellfire Club. Wouldn’t Tessa have told Xavier? Wouldn’t Xavier have warned Cyclops?

4) In Uncanny #132, Colossus hits Shaw, not once, but twice. If Tessa was Xavier’s spy, wouldn’t Xavier know the specific nature of Shaw’s absorption power? Wouldn’t Xavier have warned the X-Men of Shaw’s specific mutant power before they encountered him? Does Xavier want the X-Men to be killed by Shaw? He must realize Shaw will probably be at the Club that night.

5) In a later issue, around #151, I think, Frost and Shaw lure Storm into a trap, and Frost exchanges bodies with Storm in order to steal her powers and capture the X-Men totally by surprise. The plan works. Only Amanda Sefton’s previously hidden sorcerous powers manage to save everybody’s lives. But Tessa would have known of this plan, and warned Xavier. Is Xavier attempting to commit suicide by not acting on the information Tessa passes to him?

The whole spy thing is utterly crazy given the Club’s ability to continually blindside the X-Men. This is part of the letter I wrote on this matter previously:

This has got to be the most illogical storyline of any Claremont comic, ever. The bottom line is: it just doesn’t work. I’ve read the Dark Phoenix Saga, and know that the Hellfire Club took the X-Men completely by surprise, including Xavier. It is simply impossible to read those stories from the point of view that Tessa is a spy for Xavier. There’s even a scene where Cyclops talks to Angel about the attacks launched against them by the “mysterious” group known as the Hellfire Club, and it is clear that Xavier still hasn’t told them anything at all about the Hellfire Club (Uncanny #132). Outrageous! Since Xavier sent Tessa to the Hellfire Club, it meant Xavier himself should know of them, especially Shaw. Why would Charles send his X-Men into battle against Shaw without briefing them on Shaw’s powers? And he didn’t brief them—read the Dark Phoenix Saga; Colossus attacks Shaw knowing nothing about how Shaw’s power works.

It is perfectly clear to any longtime reader that Tessa was retrofitted as a spy, and that no matter how the storyline is finessed and juggled, it is too illogical and absurd to work.

Consider only the worst, most troubling aspect of this poorly conceived retrofit:

Mastermind is using the mindtap mechanism to undermine Jean Grey’s psyche (or, if you prefer, the entity everybody—even the writers—believed to actually be Jean Grey at the time). Xavier knows how dangerous such corrupting influences can be to a high level psi, but he doesn’t warn the X-Men of the threat, nor does he take action to shut the scheme down right at the very start. Why? Wouldn’t Tessa have told him? There are three possibilities here:

1. Tessa herself didn’t know about the plot: This is ultra-improbable. Shaw, concerned about Mastermind as a rival (as Shaw’s thought balloons indicate), would have consulted Tessa in regard to a number of concerns: Mastermind’s powers; his ambitions; could he really seduce Jean Grey—what’s the probability? Can he be trusted with Emma’s mindtap mechanism, and how powerful will he become with it? These are exactly the kinds of questions Shaw would have used his human computer for. Conclusion: oh, yes, Tessa knew.

2. Tessa told Xavier and Xavier did nothing: This too is vastly implausible, and would ruin the Xavier character completely. Xavier was concerned about Phoenix’s ability to control her power levels, already sky-high. Furthermore, he knows about the danger of psychic corruption in psis, and would certainly have wanted to protect Jean from this problem, especially with Mastermind in the driver’s seat. (Even before Onslaught his dark side once manifested and troubled the original X-Men.) If Xavier had known, he would have stopped the plot cold. He didn’t. Conclusion: Xavier didn’t know Mastermind was corrupting Jean.

3. Tessa knew but did nothing: This is the only reasonable answer. Anything else is so implausible as to be utterly absurd. But why wouldn’t Tessa tell Xavier the Hellfire Club was about to attack the X-Men and psychically corrupt Phoenix?

Why betray Xavier when he needed her most? I can think of only four possible reasons:

a. It was not Tessa’s job to warn Xavier of surprise attacks: The first duty of any spy is to warn the home team of impending surprise attacks. Imagine that Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary was a Nazi spy. Can you imagine her failing to warn Hitler of the Normandy invasion? Tessa was under an obligation to report back to Xavier. Even if her duties didn’t include warning Xavier of attacks (?!?), Tessa would have still told Xavier if she were loyal. Since Tessa would have known about Phoenix’s extraordinary power, her computer mind would have instantly recognized the global threat of a corrupted Phoenix, and done the logical thing: warn Xavier anyway. Conclusion: it was Tessa’s job to warn.

b. Tessa hates Jean Grey: Tessa didn’t warn Xavier because she’s jealous of Jean Grey. While Jean was going to school with Scott, Warren, Hank, and Bobby, all of whom fawned over her, Charles kept Tessa locked in the basement training for her license to kill. Jean was the popular girl, she was the uncool reject, not even allowed to associate with the other students. Plausible.

c. Tessa really went bad: Tessa was originally Xavier’s student and spy, but then she started to really buy into the Hellfire Club philosophy, went truly bad, and stopped reporting in. Later, Storm rescued her from Bogan, and she rejoined camp Xavier. This is possible, but if so, what’s to stop her from turning again? This Tessa switches sides too often to be trusted. At the very least, this would explain the narrator’s box in the New Mutant’s Premier, where we are told that Xavier “doesn’t trust Tessa, or her masters in the Hellfire Club.” (Yes, that’s there; look it up.) Xavier must have known by that point that Tessa was only pretending to spy for him, throwing him a bone to assuage her conscience now and again, but not really telling him anything truly important.

d. The current Tessa is not the original: Xavier trained Tessa to fool Shaw, but later got fooled by Mister Sinister, who cloned his own Tessa to fool both Xavier and Shaw. This is plausible, and it also would help to rehabilitate the character, if the X-Men were to find a younger, original, uncorrupted Tessa in cryogenic storage somewhere.

I kind of like the idea that Tessa was really working for Mister Sinister. However, it occurs to me that there could be a different explanation. Namely, that Tessa was never Charles’ spy and never worked for Xavier at all. Xavier was caught by surprise by the Club because he didn’t know of them when they attacked for the first time in Uncanny #129. Later, Tessa says she doesn’t want to work for Shaw anymore, she wants to switch sides. So she and Xavier (or she and Storm) came up with a “cover story” that she was actually working for Xavier all along. Presumably, they did this to smooth things over with the other X-Men in the hopes that they would accept her.

Those two possibilities are the best I can come up with to salvage this horrid situation.

Otherwise, how am I to read these original stories? If Xavier has a previous Frost connection, if Tessa was a spy, then it looks like Xavier is trying to undermine his own team by not informing them of the Hellfire threat.

Peace,
Syzygy

[Syzygy]

1) Sage’s arsenal of powers: Sage has enough powers for five mutants. Any one of these powers would be enough to qualify as an X-Man: computation, telepathy, cybertelepathy, photographic reflexes, and mutation manipulation. Psylocke, Fabian Cortez, and the Taskmaster have done very well for themselves with only one of these powers each. What accounts for Sage getting all five anyway? Usually, a mutant’s power is based around a consistent theme, and what requires the X-Men to work as a team is that their powers are limited individually, but great collectively. That’s why they stress teamwork. Also, having just one or two powers keeps character conception clear and makes them more interesting to the readers, since the characters have to constantly stretch their limited abilities to overcome obstacles.

But now look at Sage’s arsenal. If the Mad Thinker can accomplish so much with merely computation, and if the Leader can accomplish so much with the twin powers of computation and telepathy, why does Sage even need to be part of a team at all? Why would someone with such enormous potential ever consent to be a lowly spy or secretary? I find it impossible to believe that a mutant this powerful would remain in such a passive role as Xavier’s spy or Shaw’s secretary. Computation alone would have allowed her to play the market and acquire a vast fortune of her own.

2) Sage nearly killed Rogue: In an issue of X-Treme X-Men, Rogue (without the protection of her invulnerability) startles Sage and is attacked. The battles goes on as they struggle for two whole pages, when Sage puts a loaded pistol in Rogue’s face. Fortunately, Gambit interrupts Sage before she can fire. So Sage nearly murdered Rogue by putting a bullet in her face. (Never mind that Sage, with all her powers, shouldn’t need to use guns.) Whereas this behavior might be excusable in a mutant struggling to control her animal based powers (i.e., Wolvesbane, Feral, etc.), a mutant with a supercomputer for a mind would have been able to both perceive and process that Rogue was not an enemy within mere split-seconds! IMO, Chris hasn’t a clue as to what a supercomputer mind is all about.

So it is absolutely inexcusable for a mutant with computation, and fully trained in the use of her powers, to go berserk as Sage did. Sabertooth, Marrow, Catseye, Callisto, and other wild, barbarian characters might have such a reaction, but not a Xavier-trained mentat. How do I explain what happened?

The real explanation is that Mr. Claremont eventually turns most of his female leads into “barbarian warrior women” regardless of whether or not it fits. Obviously, there is no way Sage could have controlled herself for years in the Hellfire Club if she’s subject to such barbarian rages.

3) A young Tessa met Xavier after his legs were first crushed. X-Treme X-Men has this meeting taking place in Afghanistan. The picture shows Xavier lying on the floor of a cave in Afghanistan with crushed legs, Tessa pointing a rifle at him (this is from memory, my comics are in storage). Well, Xavier lost the use of his legs in Tibet, not Afghanistan. Please see the non-retrofitable X-Men #20 by Roy Thomas. How did Xavier get from Tibet to Afghanistan with crushed legs? In fact, in #20 he has a group of human freedom fighter as allies who certainly would have taken him to a hospital. Chuckie certainly wouldn’t have let them carry him to Afghanistan and deposit him in a cave.

4) Team Suicide: Sage manipulates Magma into incinerating the X-Men as a contingency plan should the attack on Bogan go wrong. This is not X-Man thinking. Never, ever, have the X-men attempted suicide simply because they got captured. They’ve always broken free of their enemy’s psionic control on their own. The X-Men would have all died out long ago if they committed suicide as soon as they were captured. That Sage attempts such an act indicates that she does not have the faith required to be an X-Man. More importantly, Sage never sought out the team’s consent for such a maneuver. She made the decision to sacrifice them all on her own. That she views the X-Men as expendable tools towards a goal is reminiscent not of Xavier, but Mr. Sinister’s monstrous immoral viewpoint.

(While Xavier once threatened to shoot himself in order to ward off Cassandra Nova, the difference is that it was only he, himself, that he threatened to kill.)

The worst part of the writing is that none of the other Extremes take offense at being misused and mislead in such a fashion! Even Kitty Pryde isn’t bothered by this. What rubbish! I’ve been reading Kitty Pryde for twenty-five years, and I know she would have been the first to confront Sage over this issue. And not gently, but with the kind of righteous temper-tantrum she’s become so famous for.

5) Planetary Genocide: If Tessa had only done her duty as a spy and reported Mastermind’s machinations to Xavier, He could have stopped Phoenix’s corruption, and Dark Phoenix would never have destroyed the B’Dari sun. Five billion innocent sentients would still be alive. Tessa’s dereliction of duty, or defection from duty, makes her an accessory to genocide. Who among Marvel villains can match such a body count? Not Dr. Doom, Magneto, Selene, Apocalypse, Leader, or Red Skull. Not Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Ghengis Khan. When the mass murderers get together, Sage may claim a seat at the head of the table, right next to Thanos, the Grey Khan, and Galactus.

6) The Sentinels: Any sufficiently complex artificial intelligence will eventually become sentient, self-programming, and self-designing. Once that happens to the Sentinels, nobody will be able to control them. Even before Rachel Summers came to Earth-616, Tessa’s computer mind would have been able to foresee this eventuality. Assisting Shaw in his Sentinel projects while knowing full well that they cannot be controlled by either man or mutant is inexplicable, unless she had a hidden agenda.

7) The Missing Motive: In one of the most galling instances of writer misjudgment in all Chris’ history, he has forgotten to supply Tessa/Sage with a motive for changing sides. We know, for example, that Emma Frost was with the Hellfire Club 100%, endured a traumatic experience—the deaths of her students—and then changed. She is now with the school 100%, and we as readers can understand why. But what accounts for Tessa/Sage “rejoining” the school? Indignantly, she refuses to give any explanation for why she apparently waffles back and forth between the two sides. Absent an explanation, we might as well believe Apocalypse himself has switched sides. Why not? Without a satisfactory explanation, it’s just as plausible.

8) Face-Paint and Boogie-Men: This is so dumb, I can’t help bringing it up. Tessa never had facial tattoos before. When Pierce neutralized her powers in the New Mutant Premier issue, she couldn’t have used Telepathy to cover them up. Why is it even necessary to retrofit a detail like this? Can’t Chris just work with the character as is, and go from there without rewriting X-man history all the time? If Tessa has never been seen with facial tattoos, then to suddenly say she always had them seems contrived. It breaks the illusion that this is a continuing story that makes a certain logical sense, even if by comic-book rules, and reminds me that these characters are not really alive, but just the puppets of some guy at a word processor who’s just rattling stuff off to meet his deadline.

Okay, rant over. Obviously, I’m pretty disappointed that Chris tried to pull this one over on us. Well, I’m disappointed that he suceeded. I just expected better, that’s all.

And it’s painful to go back and read those old stories knowing that, in “reality”, Tessa is Xavier’s spy, and the Professor is just shooting his own team in the foot. Kind of breaks the magic for me, y’know?

Peace,
Syzygy

[Syzygy]

I do have some problems with Tessa/Sage, yes. It is well known that Tessa WAS intended to be a possible X-Men 'Spy-within' character from her conception, but it was a plot which was never followed up on and properly shaped. Therefore, when it came to Sage, things were pretty difficult to believe in.

It isn't well-known by me, and I've been following the X-Men since 1979.

When Kitty Pryde was first introduced, both of us were thirteen years old. Now, I'm thirty-nine, and she's maybe, oh, twenty or twenty-one.

I'd be most curious as to what fanzine you read this in. Did Claremont say it? Cause I have real trouble believing it, even if he did.

Anyway, IMO, a writer's "intent" doesn't count as far as literary criticism goes. As a reader, I have to judge the work as the text that is presented to me. And what's been presented stinks.

It can be fun to know the writer's "original intent", but if the story itself fails, it still fails. And this one fails real bad, IMO.

At least, I've collected as much data as I could to make my point. I believe the Dark Phoenix Saga only reads coherently if you assume Xavier didn't know of the Club, and was taken entirely by surprise. My intent here is to hammer a stake in the heart of the opposite viewpoint.

Peace,
Syzygy

[The Sword Is Drawn]

It isn't well-known by me, and I've been following the X-Men since 1979.

When Kitty Pryde was first introduced, both of us were thirteen years old. Now, I'm thirty-nine, and she's maybe, oh, twenty or twenty-one.

I'd be most curious as to what fanzine you read this in. Did Claremont say it? Cause I have real trouble believing it, even if he did.

Anyway, IMO, a writer's "intent" doesn't count as far as literary criticism goes. As a reader, I have to judge the work as the text that is presented to me. And what's been presented stinks.

It can be fun to know the writer's "original intent", but if the story itself fails, it still fails. And this one fails real bad, IMO.

At least, I've collected as much data as I could to make my point. I believe the Dark Phoenix Saga only reads coherently if you assume Xavier didn't know of the Club, and was taken entirely by surprise. My intent here is to hammer a stake in the heart of the opposite viewpoint.

Peace,
Syzygy

It's been mentioned a few times on this board, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's an urban myth... :D I'm sure Fishtaco can elaborate.

As far as I know Claremont claims she was planned all along, but he never got around to activating her, while he was on the book.

Even if she was planned, Sage is almost certainly totally different in character to what was originally intended.

[Novaya Havoc]

Syzygy:

I love you so much, it hurts. Rock on. Great deconstruction.

This is really my biggest beef with the character of Sage. Not only are her powers ridiculous, but the retconning to legitimize her as this all-important character is out-and-out redonkulous.

[DDM]

TESSA/SAGE AS XAVIER’S “SPY”:

This has to be the worst retrofitted history ever. I’ll just give you guys the basics, then I’ll attach part of letter I wrote on the matter, oh, maybe a year and a half ago.




The whole spy thing is utterly crazy given the Club’s ability to continually blindside the X-Men. This is part of the letter I wrote on this matter previously:



Why betray Xavier when he needed her most? I can think of only four possible reasons:



I kind of like the idea that Tessa was really working for Mister Sinister. However, it occurs to me that there could be a different explanation. Namely, that Tessa was never Charles’ spy and never worked for Xavier at all. Xavier was caught by surprise by the Club because he didn’t know of them when they attacked for the first time in Uncanny #129. Later, Tessa says she doesn’t want to work for Shaw anymore, she wants to switch sides. So she and Xavier (or she and Storm) came up with a “cover story” that she was actually working for Xavier all along. Presumably, they did this to smooth things over with the other X-Men in the hopes that they would accept her.

Those two possibilities are the best I can come up with to salvage this horrid situation.

Otherwise, how am I to read these original stories? If Xavier has a previous Frost connection, if Tessa was a spy, then it looks like Xavier is trying to undermine his own team by not informing them of the Hellfire threat.

Peace,
Syzygy

First, the Hellfire Club invited Mastermind to join the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club; he is a mutant & apparently wealthy given his various criminal activities outside the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

Sebastian Shaw does not share everything with Tessa. You will note Tessa is not present in Uncanny X-Men #129-131 when Mastermind talks about Phoenix's corruption into the Black Queen. Therefore, Tessa obviously in not in on the plan at all. Without the data, how can you expect her to come up with a plan? She can't. Tessa makes her first appearance in Uncanny X-Men #132 after Phoenix transforms into the Black Queen. Since Tessa is a double agent, it would be unwise for her to blow her cover at this point. Tessa must remain silent.

I believe Xavier wanted Tessa to keep up with Sebastian Shaw & the Hellfire Club's activities, but Xavier himself did not know enough about the club itself.

Tessa's origin has never been presented. She has always been an obscure supporting character. However, given this information, it is possible Claremont has always intended Tessa to be a double agent. Claremont has had Tessa's origin down since about 1985-1986.

[Mariah]

Also, how could Tessa alert Xavier when he was in Shi'ar space at the time. If you don't remember, he went with Lilandra after the X-Men we're thought to be dead, and Jean went on vacation. Oh yeah, and what ddm said :p

[Mr. Jip]

i want to lick Syzygy.
His theories are wicked.
Bravissimo.

[fishtaco]

Just to clarify a fact, Claremont said at a convention that he always intended for Tessa to be a spy for Xavier, ever since he first appearance in the Dark Phoenix Saga.

Hope this helps.

[Grendel0606]

It's been mentioned a few times on this board, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's an urban myth... :D I'm sure Fishtaco can elaborate.

As far as I know Claremont claims she was planned all along, but he never got around to activating her, while he was on the book.

Even if she was planned, Sage is almost certainly totally different in character to what was originally intended.

Doesn't quite fit with some things in the past: for example the New Mutants GN where xavier explicitly thinks that he doesn't trust Tessa because she belongs to the Hellfire Club.
I think Claremont got the idea of making Tessa one of the good gyuse years before X-treme X-Men, but certainly not since her very conception, because in that case she'd have to be the lousiest spy ever.