Mister X: The Archives by Dean Motter + co.

There may be comics that are more 1980s than Mister X, but it's up near the very top of that list. You could definitely make an argument for it as the epitome of '80s comics: small-press, huge ambitions, gorgeous design, confused backstory (both in-story and publishing), coming out of nowhere and bringing a whole passel of interesting creators along with it.

It was teased before it launched, with poster-like ads by Paul Rivoche that highlighted that magnificent design sense (from Rivoche and, even more so, original creator, designer, often writer and occasional artist Dean Motter). And it came from somewhere unexpected: the small Canadian press Vortex, run by the...let us say colorful...Bill Marks. It maybe did not live up to its promise, or didn't do that consistently. But it was compelling and a beautiful object, every other month or so for several years in the mid-80s, until, like anything so quintessentially '80s, it randomly blew up and ended. It featured work from a whole lot of people who later did other great work: the Hernandez Brothers did the first few issues (mostly Gilbert writing and Jaime drawing, I think), then Motter took back writing and Klaus Schoenfeld & Ty Templeton briefly drew it before Seth settled in for basically the back half of this book. There's also a Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean story: a lot of people were interested in being part of Mister X.

Mister X: The Archives collects that initial burst of Mister X stories, that first fourteen issue run and a few related short stories, including one from the almost-equally '80s anthology series A-1. It has a foreword by Warren Ellis and an introduction by Jeffrey Morgan -- no, probably not the guy you're thinking of, he's the long-time Canadian editor for CREEM magazine and wrote Mister X for a few years after this series. There's also notes from Motter throughout, to explain some of the twists along the way. All in all, it's about the best presentation of this material you could hope for: crisp, authoritative, cleanly designed and as visually exciting as the original comics.

So that's a lot about what's around Mister X and what it looks like. But what's the story?

Radiant City was built a generation ago, more or less, to be the perfect city. Designed by visionary architects and psychologists so that everyone living there would be happy and fulfilled in all things. But something went wrong, or was made wrong. And one man -- call him Mister X -- is returning to that now-damaged city to fix it. At first, we think he is one of the two architects who created that city. He may be another one of the founders of the city, or otherwise important in its creation. His identity will never be clear: or, rather, at any moment it will be asserted that Mister X is this person, and he will agree...and that will then change again, in twenty or forty pages.

He does want to fix Radiant City. He doesn't actually spend any time doing so in these stories. His time is caught up in schemes and plots, and with his own concerns -- he's addicted to powerful drugs that keep him from sleeping, which may also affect his perceptions and sanity.

So the stories here swirl around Mister X, giving him different names and backstories and motivations and girlfriends and ex-wives, as if he's trying them each on in turn like hats. Maybe that's because of the changing creative teams or just the way each storyline rips apart the status quo of the one before it, even where the writer stayed the same. Mister X is about construction, about building, so it's always tearing down and reconstructing everything about itself.

I don't think this really adds up to one story. By the end, we still don't know who Mister X is, and he hasn't even taken a single step towards fixing Radiant City. He has managed not to get killed, though a series of gangsters, nightclub owners, politicians, and general sharpies has tried -- and succeeded in killing a long series of people who we learn definitively (at least in the moment) are not Mister X.

But it's a lot of story stuff, all of it fizzy and exciting, full of ideas and exploding out in all directions as much. This is a comics series by young people who wanted to do everything, right now, even if it didn't all fit. That's still energizing and amazing, and still worth celebrating now. And there's good work in very uncharacteristic styles from people like Seth and the Hernandezes, which is of interest to their fans. And it is oh so very 1980s, which is of interest to more than a few people.