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Today, we look at the interesting connection between the X-Men and…Sherlock Holmes?
This is Foggy Ruins of Time, a feature that provides the cultural context behind certain comic book characters/behaviors. You know, the sort of then-topical references that have faded into the “foggy ruins of time.” To wit, twenty years from now, a college senior watching episodes of “Seinfeld” will likely miss a lot of the then-topical pop culture humor (like the very specific references in “The Understudy” to the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding scandal).
This one is a bit tricky, since the pop culture reference probably isn’t THAT obscure, but eh, whatever, it’s close enough.
Recently, Marvel released a trio of teasers for its upcoming X-Men/Avengers/Eternals crossover event, Judgment Day. The one that got the most attention online was the revelation that the Eternals have determined that mutants shouldn’t count as the humans that the Eternals vowed to protect, but should instead by considered members of the Deviants. However, there was another teaser that got a surprising reaction on social media. The X-Men teaser for the event cites Destiny, Irene Adler, the X-Men’s precognitive member, explaining that a war WAS coming…
However, some people on social media were a bit distracted by the character only being credited as “Irene Adler,” which is, of course, the name of a notable Sherlock Holmes character, Irene Adler (“The Woman”) who debuted in the 1891 Sherlock Holmes story, “A Scandal in Bohemia” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle…
Despite that being her only appearance in a Doyle story, Adler became an extremely popular character among Holmes fans because she was probably the most interesting female character in all of the stories and therefore, when it came time to do broader adaptations of Sherlock Holmes into other media, Adler was a popular character to use, like the Robert Downey Jr. films with Rachel McAdams as Adler…
And in the modern TV adaptation, Sherlock, Lana Pulver memorably played Adler in Season 2’s premiere, “Scandal in Bulgravia”…
Sooooo…what IS the deal with Destiny and the Sherlock Holmes character?
CHRIS CLAREMONT’S HISTORY OF NAMING CHARACTERS AFTER OTHER PEOPLE
In 1966, the popular British television series, The Avengers, aired an episode titled “A Touch of Brimstone.” The episode featured what was basically a modern-day version of the Hellfire Club (an exclusive British club from the 18th century that was rumored to engage in all sorts of crazy debauchery and orgiastic rituals), and during the investigation, Emma Peel was drugged and forced into dressing up as the Queen of Sin.
As you can tell from the photo, the episode was quite racy for the time, and the episode had to be edited to appear on British television, and was barred from America television at the time.
Well, when Chris Claremont and John Byrne were writing the X-Men together, and coming up with ways of “darkening” Phoenix, they decided to introduce the Hellfire Club, and used that episode of the Avengers as inspiration (Emma Peel being forced into dressing up as the Queen of Sin is quite similar to Jean Grey being “forced” by Mastermind into becoming the Black Queen).
Claremont and Byrne decided to have Mastermind manipulate Jean and that Mastermind would change his appearance so that he looked like actor Peter Wyngarde, the bad guy in that episode of The Avengers, and also later the character, Jason King, in the spinoff of the British series, Department S.
So he became Jason Wnygarde, merging his actual last name with his character’s first name…
Since he was already using a real actor for the inspiration of ONE of the Hellfire Club member, Byrne decided to use real actors for the other Hellfire members (and, in addition, Emma Frost likely got her first name from Emma Peel).
Sebastian Shaw = Robert Shaw
Donald Pierce = Donald Sutherland (and the last name Pierce, from Sutherland’s turn as Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H)
Orson Welles = Harry Leland (Harry from Welles’ turn as Harry Lime in The Third Man, and Leland from the character Jed Leland in Welles’ classic Citizen Kane)
Claremont would go further with stuff like this over the years, from using his interpreter in a 1985 trip to Spain, Lourdes Ortiz…
as a character, Lourdes Chantel, in Classic X-Men #7 (with artist John Bolton)…
to the singer, Maddy Pryor, from Steeleye Span…
being used for first a little girl in Avengers Annual #10 (with artist Michael Golden)…
and then a much more important character later on (with artist Paul Smith)…
So, yeah, Claremont just liked to use names he liked for characters in his comics, and that was certainly all that he intended when he introduced Destiny in X-Men #141 with John Byrne and Terry Austin…
Interestingly, she wasn’t actually named for awhile, as she was just “Destiny” in that first storyline, before getting a first name in Avengers Annual #10…
I once saw someone say, “Here name is Irenie, not Irene,” but come on, buddy, Irenie is obviously a nickname.
It was surprisingly Rom #32 (by Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema and Joe Sinnott) that Destiny actually got a last name, Adler…
I assume Mantlo got the name from Claremont, as, well, really, who names someone else’s character, right?
SPIDER-MAN TAKES OVER THE MEME GAME
Okay, years later, in X-Treme X-Men #1 (by Claremont, Salvador Larroca and Liquid coloring), we see that a young Irene Adler (who was clearly very old, old enough to be alive in the 19th Century, which is never explained. Nor is it explained why she is a super old lady except apparently rocks a swimsuit model’s body when in costume) met Raven Darkholme when Raven was a “consulting detective,” like Sherlock Holmes…
Thus, the implication is that Raven and Irene actually INSPIRED Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler.
This is also hinted at in Chaos War X-Men #1 (by Louise Simonson, Claremont, Dougie Braithwaite and Rob Schwager), only now it was Irene tuning to Mystique’s Eric Raven identity instead of Raven Darkholme, which makes a whole lot more sense and also makes it a lot easier to see Doyle having been inspired by them to introduce Sherlock Holmes (and Irene Adler)…
Fun stuff.
If anyone else has any suggestions for Foggy Ruins of Time, feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com
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