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The X-Men have tasted defeat before, but never of this kind. “Feared and hated”, as their splash page introduction reminds readers, “by a world they have sworn to protect”, X-Men count their victories by stemming the loss of life and preventing the outbreak of racial violence. Their steely resilience has always stood in sharp contrast to more glamorous teams like the Fantastic Four who regularly save the planet from galactic-level threats and enjoy the adulation of crowds. More an emergency rescue and intervention team facing the growing species tensions between human and mutant, the X-Men resolve simply to train and prepare for the worst.
In a surprise inversion of the conventional rescue-mission genre then, writer Joe Casey presents a tale ending with the X-Men being simply outclassed. Adding insult to injury, their most humiliating defeat comes at the hands of the Vanisher, a relatively inconsequential villain relegated to the dust-pile of X-Men lore.
In 2001’s “Absolute Progeny”, the Vanisher returns, only to be exposed as the head of an international drug cartel. By harvesting mutant genetic material (in the process killing ‘donors’) and marketing mutant ‘designer genes’ as the latest fad at teenage rave parties, the Vanisher has cornered the market on billion-dollar illicit industry.
In the closing pages of a story where the usual narrative conventions of the superhero rescue story are readily deployed, Angel leads a team to confront the Vanisher in his ‘lair’.
But it is at this point that the conventional narrative is overturned. Instead of a hideout overrun by henchmen, the X-Men find a technologically sophisticated environment. Here is fully-developed corporate headquarters, complete with onsite genetics laboratory, located in a country with no extradition treaty. As the X-Men prepare to engage their target, the Vanisher pontificates. Stating simple facts, he points out the impossibility of physical conflict. Even with the dissolution of his corporation, even with his removal as figurehead, the designer drug and marketplace it spawned will continue to flourish. Yet removing the Vanisher as corporate officer will require lawyers not fists.
Shortly before his exit, the Vanisher himself momentarily yearns for the halcyon simplicity of physical confrontation. “You know, I remember your fist against my jaw”, he confesses to Angel. The Vanisher’s ostensible moment of weakness, although remaining unexpressed, is marked by artist Ashley Wood’s homage to the original artwork from Uncanny X-Men #2, where Angel won a victory by striking down an adversary he ultimately dismissed as ineffectual.
