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proteus_lives (proteus_lives) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-05-03 01:59:00

Current location:	Outer Dark
Entry tags:	char: ani-mator/frederick animus, char: bird-brain, char: cannonball/sam guthrie, char: cypher/doug ramsey, char: magik/ilyanna rasputin, char: magneto/erik magnus lehnsherr, char: mirage/danielle moonstar, char: sunspot/roberto da costa, char: warlock, char: wolfsbane/rahne sinclair, creator: bret blevins, creator: louise simonson, group: new mutants, publisher: marvel comics, title: new mutants

The Death of Doug Ramsey
Greetings True Believers! I saw several New X-Men posts and it got me thinking about the original crew of muties, The New Mutants. Aside from a few holes, I own pretty much all of the original 100 issue run of NM. To this day it's one of my favorite comic series. Serious, funny, heart-breaking, great characters. In an era where the phrase "Protecting a world that fears and hates them." really meant something. New Mutants was Buffy before Buffy. Outcasts, nerds, jocks, pagans, farmboys, casanovas, mean teachers, evil adults, the agonies of growing up. All while being mutants who occasionally have to save the world and live up to the mantles of those who came before them.

This post is from the TPB, Fall of the Mutants. An X-Crossover (Back when crossovers were still a new/clever idea.) It concerns the death of one of the New Mutants. A boy named Doug Ramsey. His code name was Cypher and his power was Omnilingualism, meaning he could translate any language spoken, written or on a computer. Weird huh? His death was controversial. He was apparently one of those character you either loved or hated. (He's also one of the few MU characters that has never returned from the dead. So his death still has some impact.)

What did you think of Doug Ramsey?

The Muties were taking care of a creature they called Bird-Brain. An Ani-Mate created by the Ani-Mator (Think Island of Dr. Moreau.) The muties travel to this island to free BB's enslaved friends. They do this in defiance of Magneto's wishes. (He's their headmaster at this time) Ani-Mator is a minon of Cameron Hodge. (Anti-Mutant dickweed, leads the Right an anti-mutant group.) The muties are captured but escape to fight Hodge and his minions.

BTW: Sunspot and Warlock return from a separate adventure to aid the muties and this event is happening while the X-Men battle the Adversary in Dallas and X-Factor are fighting Apocalypse in New York.

(The Smile-Faces are actually some of my favorite x-villains.)

It's so common isn't? No energy-blasts, not a sword or arrow. Just a gun. I think it makes it more powerful.

That death still gets me everytime. Damn.

The battle is won and the muties realize what's happened.

The team begins to react to the death, Rahne is losing it.

Magik goes all demon and sends the rest of the Smile-Faces to Limbo.

The team returns to the mansion to inform Magneto (who has been in NY trying to secure an alliance with the Hellfire Club) They learn about the fate of the X-Men.

This scene between Sam and Rahne always tugs the heart-strings.

Dani and Roberto have a similar encounter. Magneto returns and he finds out what happened.

http://i345.photobucket.com/albums/p388/proteus_lives/Scan10855.jpg

(Doug's death has been referenced as one of events that put Mags over the edge in later years.)

Magneto goes nuts and starts screaming about how he has to protect them and they don't know about the dark future that awaits them. Magik freaks because she thinks her brother is dead and both sides retreat.

Cypher's death affected a lot. The whole x-verse felt it. My opinion? Doug, after Cyclops defined the concept of an X-Man. He had victories and defeats. He befriended an completely alien being. (Warlock) He walked among the stars and the gods. He was not confident and occasionally bitter about his power. He had unrequited love (Psylocke) was crushed on. (Rahne) Against all odds he saved the world a few times and in the end he jumped in front of a gun to save his friend. He remains to this day, one of my favorite X-Men.

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moneyless_jew
2009-05-03 02:26 am UTC (link)

Those smiley-face guys from The Right creeped me the fuck out.

I remember reading this as a kid and hating Weezie Simonson's work then. I hate it now, too. But the moment where Illyana puts the gun to the Ani-Mator's head and snarls, "And what do YOU want?" is a classic for me.

Killing Doug was wasteful and foolish, and the way they treated him in that issue and the following (with Zombie Doug) was incredibly undignified.

I believe Marc Guggenheim had plans to actually resurrect THE Cypher (along with introducing a new one) in Young X-Men, but was cancelled before he could get around to it. I hear Doug may turn up in the new New Muties title, but I'm not sure. I thought Ellis' Douglock was a wonderful fusion resurrection, but other writers made him just Warlock again.

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kitty_tc_69
2009-05-03 02:35 am UTC (link)

No offense, but Doug Ramsey had no business being an X-Man, ever. Who in their right minds would put him on a combat team? He shouldn't have ever left the mansion, or put on a uniform. He should have been a student, period. Ever putting him on the team in the first place practically made his eventual death inevitable.

To paraphrase Seanbaby, the power of talking is not much help in battle, because bullets still kill you no matter what you say to them first. Or in Doug's case, what language he says it in.

Moreover, his vulnerability was a liability in combat that could have gotten others killed. Because rather than focus their full attention and ability on protecting themselves, they had to worry about keeping him safe as well. It played out that he was the one killed, and saved someone else's life while doing it, but it could have just as easily gone the other way. They all should have known better.

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Agree and Disagree.

proteus_lives
2009-05-03 03:37 am UTC (link)

Doug Ramsey had no business being on a combat field team. Even though he saved the day on several occasions. Like on Lila Cheney's Dyson Sphere. His partnership with Warlock also gave him limited offensive ablities.

During these missions Doug should have been sitting at a computer station, basically being the New Mutants "Operator." His talent with computer would have made a natural leader of a x-support department.

Yeah, they should have known better but they were kids. This happens with the Teen Titans, Young Avengers, Runaways, New Warriors, Gen-13 and all the teenager groups. It doesn't work without the avoidable teenage fuck-ups.

Hell whenever Xavier got his legs back, he often would try and lead the X-Men in the field. Doug was a kid with a desire to prove himself, combine that with a dangerous situation and it's a recipe for tragedy.

Also the Ani-Mator (or any other villain of the week) could have attacked the mansion and had the same scene play out. From the moment anyone first assciotates with the X-Men they are in danger.

I do agree that Magneto and Xavier should have known better because they both had previous experience leading teenagers. But they were often too wrapped up in the their own affairs to play full attention to the kids. (Another hallmark of the kid group, wise and powerful adult figures but distracted/distant.)

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icon_uk
2009-05-03 04:35 am UTC (link)

This would be true but for one thing; the New Mutants were not a superhero team, still less a pro-active superhero team. They were a bunch of kids who were being trained in the use, control and extebt of their powers. More often than they found themselves in outre situations, and using their powers to help others, but that was usually because of their affiliation with Xaviers, not because they were the Teen Titans.

And if we're talking vulnerability, note that Mirage, Karma and Sunspot only had normal levels of bullet-proofness. Karma in many ways was worse, as using HER power often left her original body comatose. So she has the power of combat narcolepsy!

If being an X-Man depends upon having martially useful powers, then the whole point of the X-Men is lost. Doug was just as much a mutant as Wolverine or Gambit or Cyclops, a Sentinel would target him just as much as it would those three examples.

Putting on the uniform didn't make you a field team member, it identified you as a student, and Doug was definitely that.

Plus of course, his pal Warlock was there for him up as body armour until 'Lock's completely out of character, improbable and downright weird decision to leave the New Mutants to run away from home with the ever irritatingly petulant Sunspot, without even a word to Doug. Almost as if it had been planned to hammer home how mortal Doug was, when we already KNEW that.

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luxshine
2009-05-03 09:20 am UTC (link)

Actually, given that his power was to understand *any* language, with a bit of training, he could've learned to 'speak' body language AND then become one of the Mutant's best martial artist because he could theoretically 'read' his oponent's moves before he made them.

Also, for some reason that no one mentioned in that issue, the X-men's jumpsuits *are* bulletproof. So Doug should've been safe at that moment.

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icon_uk
2009-05-03 09:33 am UTC (link)

Whilst I appreciate the body language bit, was never a fan of him using it to become Cassandra Cain. Just because he can tell when a blwo is coming doesn't mean he's going to be able to react fast enough o get out of the way. Now being able to tell when someone is lying might be just as useful and less obvious an application of the power.

And the X-uniforms aren't bulletproof at this point. It wasn't until IIRC the Muir island X-Men that it's mentioned that Forge had upgraded them to serve as body armour.

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luxshine
2009-05-03 10:29 am UTC (link)

I didn't know that about Forge, thanks :)

And while of course, knowing when to duck doesn't mean you'll duck fast enough, he should've gotten training. Just see Kitty: Her power was basically stand still, and nothing will happen to you. Then Logan took interest in her training, and now Kitty is a certified NINJA.

Problem is, no one *ever* took interest in training Doug.

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icon_uk
2009-05-03 10:47 am UTC (link)

Oh, I don't know, Kitty's power was a lot more than standing still, and Logan understaood that selective intangibility could an astonishingly useful boost to hand to hand combat, since it always gave her the element of surprise when attacking and as a defence, not being physically solid is a tough one to beat! :)

And in Doug's case I'd say it was likely that he didn't train particularly hard in combat skills because it wasn't an area he was madly keen on being experienced in. His powers (until the body language bit was first mentioned, less than six months before his death) didn't lend themselves to combat the way that, say, Dani's did, so perhaps it was as well that Doug didn't get TOO confident in his fighting skills.

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	I'm curious. nefrekeptah 2009-05-05 03:17 am UTC (link)
	When and where does the Seanbaby quote come from? Because I've looked on his webpage, and can't find it. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: I'm curious.

kitty_tc_69
2009-05-05 01:30 pm UTC (link)

It's from the Superfriends page, in reference to Gorilla Grodd (hence the paraphrasing). The full quote is as follows:

"I don't understand how Grodd ever tried to take us over with his power of talking. You can talk all you want to the army. They still have guns, and they still work on monkeys. If your face isn't bulletproof, that means it's going to explode when the National Guard shoots it no matter what you say to the bullet."

It seemed an appropriate turn of phrase. :)

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	mrasaki.livejournal.com 2009-05-03 03:43 am UTC (link)
	...Didn't Doug Ramsey kinda sorta come back later in Phalanx Covenant? Of course, he wasn't particularly long-lived even then. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	proteus_lives 2009-05-03 04:07 am UTC (link)
	That was Douglock. Basically Warlock using bits and pieces of Doug's appearance. He had all of Doug's memories but soon reverted back to his core personality. (Reply to this) (Parent)

icon_uk
2009-05-03 04:46 am UTC (link)

Not sure what you mean by "long-lived" there, Douglock II (to distinguish him from the Douglock who was a reversible fusion of Doug and Warlock back in their New Mutant days) appeared for the first time in the Phalanx Covenant, and then went on to be a member of Excalibur for several years, and then as Warlock had his own (admittedly short lived) spinoff series as part of the M-Tech line.

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icon_uk
2009-05-03 04:59 am UTC (link)

Doug was, and remains, my favourite superhero* but Doug epitomised the hero part of Super-hero to me).

I even went so far as to post the first couple in a series of "Why Doug Ramsey was Awesome" posts on the old S_D, which I might resurrect to prove my point! :)

In short though, I've said it before and I'll say it again; He was a hero not BECAUSE of his powers, but in SPITE of his powers.

* I may lust after other superheros more, but Doug was the one I'd want to wait until he was old enough, then ask out on a date, or just knock back a few soft drinks with.

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	brandiweed.livejournal.com 2009-05-03 06:44 am UTC (link)
	I'll concede that Bret Blevins' art looks better in the wake of what was to come in the 90s but I still hate those stupid pouty lips he gives all the girls. (Reply to this)

meatwhichdreams
2009-05-03 11:21 pm UTC (link)

...I rather like the art. It has a lot of scratchy personality, and lips not-withstanding all the characters look like proper teenagers and I can tell them all apart! I think the body distortions aren't too distracting as they go along with the general theme of Goddammit-Going-Through-Mutant-Puberty-Is-Seriously-Messed-Up-And-Confusing-and-WOW-Lookit-That-Weird-Thing-Over-There!

It's all very DARE I SAY scrappy. And scrappy ain't so bad.

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	You know what this makes me want? nefrekeptah 2009-05-04 03:21 am UTC (link)
	It makes me want a Runaways/ New Mutants crossover. Or better yet, the Runners go back in time and meet the New Mutants back when they were still kids. (Reply to this)