Chuck Austen

Chuck Austen (born Chuck Beckum) is an American writer and artist of comic books, most famous for his controversial work on the popular X-Men franchise, as well as on other Marvel and DC titles. He is also known for his combative response to harsh fan criticism from the Internet.

Career

Early career

Austen’s work stretches back the 1980s, when he briefly illustrated Alan Moore's superhero series Miracleman, under his birth name "Chuck Beckum", which he later abandoned out of a desire to disassociate from his father's family name.

He also, along with the better known work mentioned above, created a number of pornographic comics, including Strips, WorldWatch and Hardball.

In the late 1980s, Austen drew the first five issues for the short-lived series Hero Sandwich published by Slave Labor Graphics and written by Dan Vado. Hero Sandwich was an unusual genre-mishmash: the titular detective agency featured a character with a stylized smiley face and a super-heroish jet-set rogue named "Plasteeq" able to stretch his limbs much like DC's Plastic Man and Elongated Man. The first case showed supernatural overtones involving a presumed coven of vampires.

Marvel and DC work

In the 2000s, Austen started working regularly for Marvel Comics, writing and illustrating U.S. War Machine, illustrating Elektra, and writing a number of series, including Uncanny X-Men, Captain America, and The Avengers. His two-year run on Uncanny X-Men was his most prominent and lengthy writing assignment to date, but was also one of the most poorly received and reviewed.

Austen resigned from Marvel Comics in 2004 after a brief stint on X-Men (formerly New X-Men), where he had the unenviable job of following Grant Morrison's acclaimed run and running concurrently with Joss Whedon's highly-anticipated run on Astonishing X-Men.

He also wrote at least ten issues on DC Comics' flagship title Action Comics, starring Superman. Like his X-Men-related work, Austen’s work on this series was criticized for poor uses of characterization (especially of Lois Lane and Lana Lang). Austen left the title after 10 issues and the final two were written by one "J.D. Finn", although many readers speculate this was simply a pseudonym for Austen and that the writer had become convinced that the criticism of his work was so harsh and/or unfair that be preferred to write under a penname. Chuck Austen himself has speculated that the J.D. Finn was in actuality Eddie Berganza, his editor at the time and has denied using the pseudonym (1).

WorldWatch

After his DC and Marvel work, Austen went on to create the independent title WorldWatch, which he described as being like Warren Ellis's The Authority, except with more sex. To drive home this point, most of the preview images he published prior to the first issue were sex scenes.

Austen felt that any of the pre-existing comic book companies would most likely censor his work, so he chose to self-publish instead under Wild & Wooly Press. The first issue of WorldWatch was published in black and white, while the second and third issues were published in color. Subsequent issues, although written and illustrated, were not published.

The last page of Worldwatch #2 featured an announcement from the publisher stating that, as a result of widespread fan disappointment with the writing, Austen had been fired, and that he would be replaced by notable writer Sam Clemens (the real name of legendary American writer Mark Twain). Since, as creator and owner, Austen cannot be fired from Worldwatch, and since Austen has publicly claimed that his work is only disliked by a few vocal malcontents, this has been widely perceived as being a failed hoax with the goal of showing that fans would accept the writing if only they did not recognize the writer's true identity. In an interview with Chuck Austen, found on the Comic Book Resources site, though, Chuck Austen revealed that the action indeed was a hoax, but with no malcontent, and was disappointed that most readers had not understood the joke (2).

Controversy over work on Uncanny X-Men

Austen wrote Uncanny X-Men #410-443 (2002-2004) and continued his storylines in X-Men #155-164 (2004-2005), where he made considerable changes to many long-running characters in storylines that many fans, especially on the Internet, have deemed poorly written.

His work initially received positive reviews and a favorable fan response, especially his characterization of the villain Juggernaut. Previously a simple-minded, super strong bully, Austen portrayed the character as a victim of child abuse and sought to redeem him as a member of the X-Men. In addition, Austen wrote the arc on Ultimate X-Men which introduced the Ultimate-continuity version of the pre-existing character Gambit, a story which drew positive reactions. However, many of Austen's other large changes in characterization on Uncanny were not as well-received. Austen came under heavy criticism from both Internet fandom and specialized comics critics. Despite this criticism, Austen's work on the X-Men franchise was seen by a portion of the readership as a return to a more soap-operatic and melodramatic style of the series, which stood in contrast to the "grim and gritty" themes and event-driven plotting that had dominated the franchise for much of the 1990s.

Treatment of Nightcrawler and supposed anti-religion agenda

Fans' harshest criticism centered perhaps on Austen’s treatment of Nightcrawler, a character who had long been a devout Catholic despite his demonic appearance.

Austen appears on the DVD extras of film X-Men United, where he describes his fondness for the character but also said that he wanted to change the direction of the previous writer, longtime X-Men scribe Chris Claremont, who made Nightcrawler a newly ordained Jesuit priest. Early in Austen’s run, Nightcrawler rejects his priesthood to protest the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.

In the "Holy War" story arc, Austen retconned Nightcrawler’s ordainment as a plot by a Christian, anti-mutant hate group called "The Church of Humanity" to one day install him as the Pope disguised as an ordinary human, then reveal his true appearance, thereby destroying the faith of all Catholics worldwide. The Church would then stage a "rapture" using communion wafers that would, when ingested, incinerate the eater, despite the fact that the Rapture is not a Catholic concept, though it is of course part of Revelations, the last part of the Bible that Catholics use as their Holy Book.

In a subsequent storyline called "The Draco," Austen revealed that Nightcrawler's unknown father is an age-old, powerful mutant called "Azazel". Centuries ago, Azazel had been banished to an alternate dimension (later called "Hell") by a subspecies of mutants with wings. This was supposed to be the origin of the fallen angel stories popularized by Milton's Paradise Lost, though no stories existed as such in The Holy Bible as traditionally believed. Azazel needed to open a dimensional portal to return to Earth. To do this, he bred with human women, so they can bear mutant teleporters whom he can control.

These arcs were met with the criticism that not only was Austen a poor writer, in terms of plot construction and proper character treatment, but he had an agenda against Christianity. Many fans thought "explaining" Biblical stories as the result of mutants was offensive, the "Church of Humanity" was a thinly-disguised attempt to show Christians as hateful, and that Nightcrawler’s crisis of faith was an attack on religious faith in general. This is of course an oversimplification, as many other stories throughout fiction have taken a similar idea of the Devil as a real creature misunderstood by time (such as Dean Koontz's Phantoms and a recent Doctor Who television storyline). Also, as winged angels are NOT how angels are described in religious texts, its obvious that Austen's "attacks" were more about current conceptions of what Christianity was, with both the fans and Austen himself being guilty of doing what is really poor research into the origins of such myths. Many fans have even gone so far as to rank "The Draco" as being the worst storyline in the history of the X-Men comic books and expressing their desire for Nightcrawler's relation to Azazel be retconned.

Treatment of Iceman's powers

Bobby Drake, aka Iceman, was permanently transformed into all ice by Austen. Before, Drake had the ability to transform into his 'ice form' at will but he slowly lost this ability. Only recently was this change reversed under Peter Milligan, amidst confusion over whether Iceman had lost his powers altogether.

Nurse Annie and the treatment of Polaris

Austen introduced a new character during his run: Nurse Annie Ghazikhanian, a human woman with a mutant son. She was also the personal caregiver of Alex Summers (Havok), who had been comatose since the end of Mutant X. Annie and Alex began to share romantic dreams about each other, even when Alex was still in a coma. These mysterious dreams left Alex and Annie very nervous and uncertain around each other when awake, but they were enough to convince Alex that he truly loved Annie. Nurse Annie proved to be unpopular with readers, due to an insulting remark made toward the fan-favorite character Chamber and her role in the break-up of Alex and his longtime love interest, Lorna Dane (Polaris).

Polaris rejoined the X-Men after surviving the massacre in Genosha. Though New X-Men writer Grant Morrison was the one who initially wrote Lorna as being unstable following the traumatic event, fans believed that Austen continued to write Lorna as a one-dimensionally violent, ruthless, cold character, much to dislike by some of them. In contrast, Nurse Annie was portrayed as being overly kind, gentle, and "perfect" (despite her earlier anti-mutant sentiments) though of course this could be explained as character development. Fans of Polaris thought she was being unfairly bashed to make the developing Alex/Annie romance look better, and Austen's revealing comments about Annie being based on his wife led to accusations that Annie was a Mary Sue.

The story arc "Sacred Vows" centered on the wedding of Polaris and Havok. Polaris made cruel jokes about Havok at her bachelorette party and was strongly hinted to have betrayed him with a male stripper afterwards. (Tellingly, the readers were not meant to think negatively of Annie, even though she also spent the evening before Alex's wedding with another man: Alex's teammate, Iceman, though of course her and Alex were not seeing each other and nothing really happened between her and Iceman anyway.)

More than one hundred superpowered guests were present at the wedding, but when Havok refused to marry Polaris, she single-handedly incapacitated the crowd, which included such powerful superheroes as Professor X, Hulk, Phoenix, Wolverine and Juggernaut. The comic stated that Polaris reversed the blood-flow of any character with powers, knocking them out, but given the guests' superpowers, this was criticised as a weak-footed explanation. However, this is the same explanation given as a reason that Magneto was able to incapacitate Bishop in an early issue of a much more popular X-Men storyline, Age of Apocalypse - which is probably why fans choose to allow that bit while deriding what Austen has done.

It was also revealed in the arc that Annie's telepathic son Carter was responsible for she and Havok falling in love, as he had set them up on several psychic "dates" while they slept. The morality of Carter interfering with the minds and emotions of others (despite his good intentions) was hotly debated by fans who found it distasteful, especially due to the implication that these psychic dates included sex. Though of course similar actiosn taken by various X-Men characters throughout the years were not so similarly debated, as at this point Austen was so disliked that nearly anything he did was looked down upon by this large group of fans. Annie and Alex continued to date for the remainder of Austen's run. In Austen's final X-Men story arc, however, Annie leaves Alex and the Institute because she no longer believes that it is a safe place to raise her child. The Alex/Lorna relationship was then quickly restored by Peter Milligan. Because Annie was a character closely tied to Austen and unpopular with certain readers, it is unlikely that she will reappear in the regular mainstream continuity.

In addition to accusations of misogynistic portrayals of regular female characters (they were criticized as being catty, over-emotional, and obsessed with sex), the negative feelings expressed towards Austen's work throughout Internet comic forums were widespread and at times almost violently critical.

Relationship between Archangel and Husk

Another point of controversy was a senior X-Man Archangel's romantic relationship with the youngest member of the group, Husk. Ages and time periods are kept relative in the Marvel continuity - Archangel first appeared as an teenaged member of the original X-Men in 1963, and given Marvel's ten-year sliding timescale, should now be roughly in his mid-to-late twenties. Husk, meanwhile, first appeared as a young teenager in 1993, and was stated in Austen's "She Lies With Angels" storyline to be 19. Although the age gap is not as large as fans would immediately assume (Archangel's long history as a figure in the Marvel Universe makes him "feel" older than he is to readers), it was argued that Archangel was too ethical a character to become involved with a younger woman. But Archangel has been known to be a playboy type in the past, and as the issues of age involved are convulted and not necessarily concrete.

Critics of the relationship typically point to a controversial scene in Uncanny X-Men #440. After Archangel tries to end the relationship, the two reconcile in front of their teammates and Husk's mother, Lucinda Guthrie. Warren then takes Paige into his arms and carries her up with his wings; he undresses her and they prepare to make love in the air, and the art makes it seem as if the are fully within the eyesight of the X-Men and Lucinda, who are watching below, though of course this situation is debatable.

Reaction to criticism

During the majority of his tenure on Uncanny X-Men, Austen chose to disregard the criticism he received from readers, which eventually spilled over into him being verbally abused at comic book conventions by irate fans. Austen stopped doing interviews in October 2003 as a result and did not do another interview until May of 2004, which he granted to Silver Bullet Comic Books, where he restated his dissatisfaction and indifference as to the fan reaction, referring to his detractors as the "Seven Deadly Trolls", who he stated were most likely seven individuals posting under numerous pseudonyms on Internet forums.

External links

American comics artists | American comics writers | X-Men artists | X-Men writers | Living people

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Chuck Austen