Originally Posted by
Jokerz79
Yeah Thing #3 and X-Factor #71
Here's the backstory it led to John Bryne being ticked at Peter David.
Issue 3. Okay, time to go off a little bit. This is a wonderful issue. Quicksilver, who has always been something of a bigot, has had a daughter, Luna, through his marriage to the Inhuman Crystal. The merging of Inhuman and mutant genes produced a strictly human daughter, and Quicksilver wants to mutate her through exposure to the Inhumans' Terrigen Mists. By Inhuman law, this is the father's decision, and as Crystal opposes it, she seeks Ben's help. Very dramatic setup, very personal storyline, wonderfully told. It all comes to a head when, in the middle of the battle, Lockjaw, who for years has been perceived as the Inhumans' pet, speaks one whole line of dialog, revealing that he is sentient and an Inhuman who's gone through the Terrigen Mist, forcing Quicksilver to realize how drastically his daughter could be changed. Lockjaw doesn't ever speak again, save one line of dialog as he and Ben teleport away alone at the end. Beautiful, moving, touching story, very well done, probably my vote as the single best thing Byrne has written at Marvel.
Cut to, eight few years later, X-Factor #71. Lockjaw and Quicksilver meet up with Jamie Madrox (the Multiple Man), who then tries to talk to Lockjaw. Quicksilver then laughs at him and tells him that Lockjaw's "talking" was a practical joke played upon Ben Grimm by Gorgon and Karnak.
Here are Peter David's comments on the issue, from PeterDavid.net:
"For what it's worth, I didn't give a damn about the Byrne story one way or the other. I thought it wasn't bad; not great, but not bad. It did, however, frost the flakes of several writers and the "X-Factor" editor, basically because Byrne's story made the Inhumans look like assholes. John Byrne, foremost advocate of adhering to creator intent, ignored not only sequences where Stan and Jack had the Inhumans referring to, and treating, Lockjaw as their pet or dog, but the subsequent decades worth of continuity that did the same. So, since Quicksilver was going to be in "X-Factor," the writers--and the editor in particular--asked me to take the opportunity to undo that development as quickly and simply as I could. I shrugged, said, "Okay, boss," and did so."
Continuing from the Ever-Lovin' home page:
"The Inhumans don't have pets. Period. I challenge you to go through their various appearances and find where someone has a dog, a cat, even a canary. Why, I couldn't say, but they don't have pets. So why Lockjaw? The knock then is that the Inhumans don't treat Lockjaw as an equal and this makes them out to be "assholes." Yup, I'd tend to agree, save for the simple fact that they're Inhuman. These guys have a long history of acting based on appearance and caste- they're a society built on very different rules from the current mainstream euro-centric society. The Inhumans are not America, and the knock that their actions appear a little, well, inhuman, seems a little egocentric to me. Further, if you start reading through those past issues, he's not actually treated much worse than, say, Gorgon or Karnak are treated by Black Bolt. Finally, the retcon itself is just awful. The reasoning, according to Quicksilver, is that Gorgon and Karnak played a practical joke on Ben while Quicksilver was trying to make a decision which would probably be the most important decision in his daughter's life. Okay, I can accept that Gorgon and Karnak are the kind of, to use the word at hand, "assholes" who would do that at a time like this. But it doesn't work on many levels: Quicksilver, upon learning of it later, would never just laugh it off- "hey, you guys screwed up my daughter's future- pretty funny!". He'd hardly tell it as a funny story months later. While Crystal might quietly accept it to save her daughter, she'd certainly tell Ben the truth in short order. And would Gorgon and Karnak betray the Inhumans to make Crystal feel better? They must have seen literally hundreds of children put through the Terrigen Mists in their day, no? Not to mention Gorgon's having gone through it himself...
"In the end, either interpretation has problems and needs help to make it work. I wish Byrne had taken more care with his retcon, or David with his counter-retcon, just so it would make sense either way. Personally, I think Lockjaw as sentient Inhuman makes perfect sense, and that the eternally angry Quicksilver would try to put a different spin on the incident by lying to Madrox makes a lot more sense than Gorgon and Karnak playing "practical jokes" at that time. In the meantime, Lockjaw remains a man of mystery..."