Perhaps Silvestri’s best X-Men cover

The epic reading of Uncanny X-Men continues as the mutants relocate to Australia, battle cyborgs and aliens, and spread some Christmas cheer.

It was 1988. Chris Claremont was now in his 13th year of writing this comic book series, which had flourished into Marvel’s best-selling title. It had become its own franchise, with the spin-off series New Mutants and X-Factor, and limited series like Wolverine. A third and fourth spin-off, Excalibur and an ongoing Wolverine, were getting prepared to launch later in the year.

It sounds like everything was going great, but there was trouble. The launch of X-Factor over two years earlier had been done against Claremont’s wishes and without his or his editor Ann Nocenti’s participation. The book reunited the original X-Men characters from the 1960s but by doing so it resurrected Jean Grey, undermining both the celebrated ending of the acclaimed Dark Phoenix Saga, and the carefully executed retirement of her boyfriend and fellow X-Man Cyclops. The two books essentially agreed to ignore each other, but it was an untenable solution. As part of his retirement, Cyclops had married Madelyne Pryor, who just so happened to look eerily like Jean Grey. The two had a son. To go back to superheroing, it required Cyclops walking out on his family, a generally un-superheroic thing to do. As if that wasn’t enough, their infant son was kidnapped. Madelyne made her way back to the X-Men for help in tracking down her baby. Instead she became a supporting character in the book.

This all happened over the course of years, where Claremont’s legendary slow-burning subplots were getting more and more drawn out with each new unresolved thread. So Madelyne ended up hanging around with the X-Men seemingly not looking for her baby. I wonder if Claremont was letting X-Factor resolve the missing baby story as an opportunity to redeem Cyclops. Whatever the reason, that book didn’t forward the plot either. So both parents ended up not talking to each other while their son was presumably being held by mutant terrorists the Marauders. No ransom was demanded by the villains. Basically, everyone forgot about it, except the readers.

Now there had been some crazy stuff going on in Uncanny X-Men that would certainly prevent Madelyne from making good progress. And it’s possible efforts were happening off-panel. But it was a long time to let such a desperate plot point linger.

Storm flies again

By 1988, longtime editor Ann Nocenti wanted to transition out of editing and into freelance writing (she would go on to have a well-regarded run writing Daredevil). Coincidentally, several editors were making the same transition, so Marvel took the opportunity to promote some assistant editors and reassign books. Bob Harras had been editing X-Factor soon after its launch and had proven he could handle a franchise with his coordination of the successful G.I. Joe mini-line of comics. So he was given Uncanny X-Men, New Mutants and the reprint series Classic X-Men. The entire X-Men line was once again under one editor. He would also get the new Wolverine series and the X-Terminators mini-series scheduled for later in the year. Only the upcoming Excalibur would be excluded (and he would eventually take it over in 1993).

This gave the line greater coordination than it ever had before. Right away, letter columns in the back of each issue featured blurbs promoting the rest of Harras’ stable of X-books. The next summer crossover, Inferno, would more tightly weave through each book instead of the more isolated approach in Mutant Massacre and The Fall of the Mutants. No longer would X-Factor be ignored by the other books. And possibly most significant for Uncanny X-Men readers, the Jean Grey/Madelyne Pryor redundancy was forced to a conclusion and one that did not favor Madelyne.

Really, this is the beginning of the end for Chris Claremont’s tenure as main architect of the X-Men universe and his first tenure as Uncanny X-Men writer. Legend has it Harras did not share the same friendship and loyalty to Claremont like previous editors. But Claremont was too big of a name and couldn’t be replaced. Yet. It would be another 3 years before superstar artists made it easier for Claremont to be pushed off the book.

Longshot and the haunted treasure

But we’re not there yet. Back in 1988, the X-Men had just been killed during The Fall of the Mutants and then, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, brought back to life by the mystical Roma. Still feeling the aftermath of the Mutant Massacre, the X-Men decided it was safest for their friends and allies if they were presumed dead so they could stealthily take the fight to their enemies. This set of issues, Uncanny X-Men #229-234, is the start of this new mission, affectionately named the Outback Era due to the team’s new base of operations in the remote Australian Outback.

The more aggressive strategy of the X-Men was very in-step with the increasingly “grim and gritty” approach of the industry at the time. The tsunami effect of Watchmen was still just getting started. Still, I was glad to see a step away from that for a moment with Uncanny X-Men #230, which unexpectedly turns into a rather charming Christmas story at the end.

This batch is highlighted by the return of the Brood. It was good to see a follow-up to the original Brood Saga but where that story really excelled with some excellent pacing and tension, this ended up feeling a bit one-note. I guess it was more going for a thrill-ride feel and on its own it was a fun adventure with some good creepiness in the beginning, but it just didn’t continue the strength of the original.

Probably the best part was a twisted dream sequence of Madelyne Pryor getting stripped of her baby and her own facial features, which are given over to a blank cypher to restore “the original,” Jean Grey. It’s during these scenes that she ends up aligning with the demonic S’ym because she thinks she’s just dreaming. It’s messed up and positions the character for the Inferno event but it’s a cool visual.

Despite my decidedly Claremont-favoring summary of history above, I have to say his writing has gotten to a point where I find it a bit of a chore to get through. It’s very possible he’s chafing at the increasing editor oversight. Or it could just be the natural evolution of his style. Whatever the cause, his scripting is getting increasingly dense and stilted. Marc Silvestri is more than competent as artist on the book, with very fluid storytelling. Maybe their styles don’t mesh but the rhythm of Silvesti’s pages gets completely bogged off by Claremont’s dialogue. I’ve now taken to reading the issue, and then sometimes days later going back through the entire issue again just looking at the art and ignoring 90% of the dialogue. The storytelling is so sharp and effortless with too much of the script superfluous. Claremont’s plotting of individual issues and story arcs is generally still spot-on though, and even when it’s a mostly action-focused story, he continues to live and breathe these characters.

Next up: An apartheid analogy in the form of the fictional nation of Genosha.

It’s 1987 and the Fall of the Mutants is almost here. But first we have some set-up to do. There’s some good stuff in these issues, Uncanny X-Men #220-224, but it’s definitely a lot of arranging the chess pieces for the big summer event.

Storm gets most of the focus, as her subplot finally boils to the top. Meanwhile the rest of the team continues to establish themselves as the new official line-up, with Dazzler usually getting highlighted.

I’ve been reading the entire Uncanny X-Men series (very slowly) from it’s start in 1963 and am trying to make it all the way through to 2011 when the original series ended. If I can make it through that, I may continue on. We’ll see. You can read all of the entries here.

I have to confess, I’m not digging this period as much as I thought I might. I’m not really connecting with the new team members and part of that feels like it’s mostly The Dazzler and Friends Show. In this batch particularly, if an issue is going to focus on a single member of the team, it’s always Dazzler. Maybe she’s meant to be the POV character, similar to Kitty Pryde’s original role, but it just ends up feeling very unbalanced as an ensemble book. She’s OK as a character but I’d sure like to learn more about the others.

Longshot is basically in a constant state of staring wide-eyed at the world, which is amusing as a supporting character role, but nothing has been done with it. In fact, nothing has been done to fill in his back story at all for those that hadn’t read the Longshot mini-series or the Uncanny X-Men Annual that brought him onto the team (like myself). We’ve gotten very little insight into how he feels about his situation or why he’s even on the team. Emotionally, he’s pretty much in the same state in every scene. Even in battle, his luck powers help everything work out fine for him, so he never seems to be in any danger. This flat character state suggests there’s nothing else to him. I know that’s not the case but it’s approaching a year and we’ve really gotten nothing on him other than he has no memory and this world is strange and wondrous to him.

Havok has girlfriend problems

Havok certainly makes up for Longshot’s lack of emotional depth. He’s been forced back into the mutant world and his girlfriend seemingly betrayed him to go lead the bad guys. Like his brother Cyclops, Havok can get a bit cloying and winy but he at least wins sympathy points. In one scene, his girlfriend just taunts him to strike at her as she escapes. He finally does and then she just laughs at him as her powers block his powers. It was a tad over the top in how evil she was being, but to be fair, she is being mind-controlled by a character named Malice.

Psylocke is probably the most interesting to me, of the new members. I like the juxtaposition of her pull to be more cold-blooded despite her look with her frilly pink costume and hair. But she hasn’t gotten all that much focus since she officially became a member of the team. She’ll make a comment here or there that reinforces she’s willing to go further than other members of the team, but we get little insight on her internal push and pull.

Poor Rogue really hasn’t been doing anything other than acting as a foil to inspire Dazzler stories. Other than that, she was used as a plot device: she got a warning that the X-Men are going to die in Dallas while helping Storm, which of course promptly inspires all of the X-Men to immediately run to Dallas.

Kerry Gammill has a great fill-in issue

What’s crazy is that this is a very turbulent time for the X-Men. They are without a home, the Marauders are hunting them and their loved ones, mutants are feared and hated more than ever – there’s a lot there for characters to reveal themselves through their response. And we don’t get that like we used to.

I don’t want to make it seem like I’m hating the new team, though. While not as strong on character development and exploration, there was a fun X-Men vs. the Marauders rematch in this batch of issues, that was mostly well choreographed. And Marc Silvestri makes for a good regular artist with this cast (especially when inked by Bob Wiacek). It just doesn’t seem to explore the characters quite like it did in years past.

Speaking of the Marauders, this batch of issues features the introduction of Mr. Sinister. This villain was teased as the mastermind behind the murder of the Morlocks during the Mutant Massacre. (Wow, there are a lot of m’s!) He is quickly established as being very powerful, easily subduing Sabretooth. This becomes a common trick. Whenever you want to establish a new character as a big deal, have him easily handle one of the cool characters like Wolverine or Sabretooth. Mr. Sinister is a goofy name, and apparently the original plan was that he was going to be the manifestation of a little boy’s idea of a bad guy. That also fits in with the crazy flamboyant design of the character, complete with jagged teeth and a cape made of streamers. At this point, we don’t get any real clarity on why he wanted the Morlocks killed, but now he’s obsessed with eliminating Madelyne Pryor, who ends up semi-joining the X-Men in this arc.

Madelyne Pryor continues to be an odd character. She was created with very strong hints that she was Jean Grey reborn following that character’s death at the end of The Dark Phoenix Saga. Then those hints were dismissed as mere coincidences, allowing Cyclops to retire from superheroing so he could marry Madelyne and then have a baby together. Fortunately those hints haven’t been forgotten. There’s even a panel with a Phoenix-like bird in flames over Madelyne during a flashback to her mysterious plane crash. Cyclops has left Madelyne to reunite with Jean Grey on X-Factor, and unbeknownst to him (I think) their baby has been kidnapped. Madelyne rightly blames Scott for a lot of this because it’s generally not cool to walk out on your wife to go hang out with your ex-girlfriend. She and Havok bond over having their significant others abandon them, and Madelyne proves herself to be tough despite having no powers.

Wolverine is the best there is at what he does and what he does is have doubts

But back to that character development stuff. Fortunately, the two mainstays on the team, Storm and Wolverine, are getting more attention in this department, although lesser so Wolverine. He is well established as the most popular character on the book, but most of his character development has been happening almost in the background or as as small nods within a scene. He’s the reluctant leader of the team during Storm’s absence. Recent injuries have made him doubt his skills. He’s also more tired and doesn’t seem quite on his game like he used to. He’s moving into the wise, old samurai role. These are all little hints dropped in, which make for a nice touch.

*sad trombone* as Storm realizes she blew it

Storm gets some really good focus in this set of issues. For a bit too long, she’s been searching for Forge, the man who invented the high-tech gun that took her powers away. There’s a great sequence of her going back to his old penthouse in Dallas, and her discovering how obsessed he might’ve gotten about her after she left him. (Although there’s a really lame metaphor sequence with two birds, with one that has a little white mohawk. Guess which one is supposed to be Storm.) To help find him, she teamed up with his old mentor, Naze, who believes Forge has been corrupted by an evil Native American spirit called the Adversary. In truth, the Adversary is disguised as Naze, and she’s being manipulated to stop Forge. It’s kind of a classic setup, and I kept waiting for her to discover she’s been duped and for her and Forge to team up and defeat Naze/Adversary. Surprisingly, she finds out too late, and they actually lose. While I was disappointed that Storm was duped, it made for a more exciting read, and of course sets up the big encounter to come in the Fall of the Mutants event.

Up next: The X-Men’s second official summer event, The Fall of the Mutants.

What? Another post so soon? Yes!

I continue my epic read-through of Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men comic book series, which started all the way back in 1963. I’m up to the end of 1986 and the very start of 1987 with the very first crossover event for the X-Men titles, Mutant Massacre.

Marvel had done events and crossovers before, notably with Secret Wars and its sequel Secret Wars II, but this was the first event where it was mostly centered around a family of titles. Also unique was that there wasn’t a mini-series or other comic released as the main narrative. There are no comic books titles Mutant Massacre, the whole story is told as part of regular issues of ongoing comic book series.

Uncanny X-Men #210: one of the more effective scenes of the X-Men encountering an anti-mutant mob

It was such a hit that the X-Men comics franchise would refine and recycle this publishing strategy every year for a long time. For a while, it was like clockwork.

In some ways, this was the first big step toward the bloated X-Men line with its convoluted interconnected storylines that eventually became impenetrable for more casual readers. It’s the beginning of a slippery slope, but what’s actually here isn’t as bad as what comes of it. Mutant Massacre is well constructed from an accessibility standpoint. Each comic book series looks at their own characters’ perspective of the event and largely stays in its lane. I only read the Uncanny X-Men issues. While it drops in acknowledgements that there are things happening elsewhere (in issues of X-Men spinoff titles X-Factor and New Mutants, and less X-Men-centric titles like Power Pack, Thor, and Daredevil), it wasn’t a disruption and it largely read well.

Another peculiarity to this event is that it isn’t clearly branded. In the first part of the event there was a guide of what issues to read but that’s basically all you got. The event isn’t referenced by name on the cover. There’s no “Part 1 of 4” language used anywhere. Even the structure of the plot is somewhat ambiguous in its conclusion. The main action happens fairly early on and the rest is mostly aftermath. There’s no big climactic conclusion, the characters just continue on the best they can. This soft ending is reinforced by some printings of collected editions disagreeing on the final chapter of the event. For the sake of my reading, I’m including Uncanny X-Men #210-214, which matches more recent collected edition reprints. Even though the original promotion for the event had it finishing with 213, I think the whole thing reads better by adding 214.

One of the more brutal attacks: Riptide’s flying weapons

Many events in the future will brag that “nothing will ever be the same again” but before that became a marketing cliche, this event actually did it without really saying it was going to do it. The title’s status quo and cast get seriously altered and won’t really get restored until the ’90s, and in some cases, not until the 2000s.

The big inciting incident is that a brand new band of villains called the Marauders slaughters the majority of the Morlocks, the mutant civilization living in abandoned subway tunnels under Manhattan. They’re basically a band of homeless squatters and only some of them have any notable mutant powers to speak of. There’s no real explanation of why, except that the Marauders’ mysterious boss considers them an unknown quantity and wants them removed. Since Storm is supposed to be the leader of the Morlocks, the X-Men go to help. They assist the escape of several surviving Morlocks, and get pretty beat up in the process. They’re followed back to their home, the Xavier school, and are left pretty defenseless.

It’s some of the most death the comic has seen so far. Hundreds of Morlocks are seen dead. Wolverine and Nightcrawler were already in poor shape from recent adventures. Colossus and Shadowcat also get seriously injured. Of course Wolverine heals because that’s what he does, but it’s clear he’s still struggling and not in the best shape. That really only leaves Storm, still with no powers, and Rogue. With half the team decommissioned, the event ends with two new recruits, the British telepath Psylocke and the laser-light generator Dazzler, who after several past recruitment attempts finally joins the team for real.

Colossus loses any innocence he had left

The carnage clearly leaves the characters rattled.

Storm seriously considers quitting as X-Men leader due to the losses. She’s talked out of it by her rival Callisto, the previous leader of the Morlocks. Callisto and Storm have had a begrudging respect for each other for some time and this nicely builds on that. I was really hoping that Callisto would join the X-Men. At this point, she’s one of my favorite recurring characters of the series. Storm remains one of my favorite X-Men and she continues to be the glue holding the team together through some pretty rough times.

“Logan old son…”

Wolverine finally has his milestone encounter with Sabretooth. They’re establishing as longtime rivals. The mysteries of Wolverine’s past are starting to stack up and it’s a bit obvious in retrospect that they often had no idea what half of this stuff actually meant. Whatever makes him seem cool, just throw it on the pile. From interviews of the time though, we know that Sabretooth was meant to be Wolverine’s father. Some of Sabretooth’s dialogue in these issues makes this pretty clear too. But as with too many of Claremont’s long percolating plots, he never got around to confirming it. After all, he only had 15+ years writing Uncanny X-Men and many of its spin-offs to get around to this stuff. Later writers naturally wanted to put their own stamp on things so they did something different with the hints. Usually this results in retroactively causing some dialogue in the older stories to be a bit discordant with what is to come. It doesn’t outright contradict but it doesn’t quite line up either.

Rogue doesn’t seem to do too much in this story, emotionally. She’s around a lot to use her powers but she doesn’t get a lot of character moments.

Shadowcat fading away

During the initial battle with the Marauders, Shadowcat’s powers are disrupted somehow, causing her to slowly fade away. She eventually can’t even talk and we don’t even get any thought bubbles from her, making it extra creepy and sad. She’s put in some kind of container, although it’s not made clear exactly what it’s supposed to be doing since she could theoretically pass right through it. Nightcrawler also gets seriously injured and ends up in a coma. The two characters, along with Rachel Summers, who was written out in the last set of issues, will all star in the spinoff series Excalibur, although it doesn’t launch for another year.

Colossus sadly snaps during the fight and actually kills one of the Marauders. This is one of the most memorable moments of the story and really drives home how grim things are getting in the midst of the massacre. While he makes it out of the Morlock tunnels, it’s discovered that his injuries are actually worse than they seemed and he ends up being paralyzed. He’ll vanish from the series for a time too. Apparently he was also intended to be in Excalibur but during the development of that series, Captain Britain took Peter’s spot as the strong guy. So he’ll eventually return but it’s too bad we don’t get to see him dealing with his actions during the fight.

Psylocke’s first knife, not the focused totality of anything

Betsy Braddock is a semi-new character. She was new to American readers, but she first appeared about ten years earlier in Marvel’s UK comics. She gained the name Psylocke in her first US appearance for New Mutants Annual #2, where she is kidnapped and given bionic eyes so she can be an unwitting spy for the extra-dimensional villain Mojo. She hangs around the Xavier school for a few months as everyone, including herself, debates what to do with her. While clearly older than the teenaged New Mutants cast, she’s considered for that team instead of the X-Men. But when Sabretooth invades the mansion, Psylocke proves herself and she earns a spot as an X-Man. This issue was really interesting because I mostly know the character in her ninja guise she’s given later. It always seemed like a random juxtaposition between the two versions of the character, but there are a lot of clues in this issue that indicate Claremont might’ve actually planned the transformation all along. She tries to use a knife in self-defense (she’ll later have a psychic knife), and her own narration has multiple references to her wanting a darker side to her prim exterior. This fight with Sabretooth gets a sequel years later. I’ve read that issue and never knew the characters had a history like this.

Dazzler was outed as a mutant a couple of years ago, which ruined her singing career. A subplot in these issues shows her taking a job as a musician in Lila Cheney’s band. Lila is a character that only had a few appearances in New Mutants up until now. This is her first appearance in Uncanny X-Men and she probably could’ve been introduced a bit better. There’s nothing to indicate that she knows the X-Men until they get a call from her letting them know Dazzler is acting weird. But anyway, what seems like an unrelated incident ends up being another of the Marauders mind controlling Dazzler. They eventually free her but now her career is completely ruined, so without really any other options, she agrees to join the team.

A mind-controlled Rogue isn’t helping the X-Men’s already bad reputation

Speaking of the Marauders, aside from Sabretooth and the mind-controller Malice, we don’t get a lot on them. They’re obviously brutal but they’re mostly just different flavored foot soldiers serving someone named Mr. Sinister. It seems like most of them are mutants but other than their boss vaguely wanting to get rid of “wild cards,” there isn’t much explanation for why this is all happening. And since this is mostly mutants killing mutants, it’s not really furthering the building theme of the growing anti-mutant hysteria. From what I’ve heard, the original plan for this story was that Nimrod was going to be the main villain slaughtering the Morlocks. This probably would’ve been better thematically. Of course, there was just a big battle with Nimrod, but I assume if the original Mutant Massacre plans held, those issues would’ve played out differently.

On the art side of things, it’s a bit inconsistent, averaging one artist per issue. After three years as the main artist, John Romita, Jr. departs. He’ll return to the series in 1993 for another stint, at which point his distinctive style will be firmly in place. Bret Blevins steps in for several pages on Romita’s last issue. He will later show up for a run on New Mutants. Rick Leonardi, who wonderfully handled Cloak and Dagger, does a fill-in. Alan Davis arrives for a fill-in issue as well, and his issue looks wonderful. I wish he took over as the regular artist but his style may not quite fit the darkening tones. Barry Windsor-Smith shows up again for his fourth issue of the series. Although here he only does pencils, the first time he didn’t also handle inks and colors. It was strange to see him hop in on something more conventional but it still looks great. Those are all fantastic artists but their styles vary somewhat, weakening the cohesive unity of the overall story. As w get to later crossover events, this will become more of a problem. Here it seems like Romita was maybe removed from the book before they had a new regular artist in place, causing a bit of a scramble.

Wolverine demonstrates just how rattled they are

While the X-Men are trying to rebuild, they are both physically and emotionally battered, both individually and collectively. While there have been harrowing moments and the threat of danger hanging over the series for a long time, this is among the most permanent repercussions they’ve had to face. Half their team is medically unstable, the mansion is serving as both a morgue and trauma unit for the Morlocks, their mutant-detecting equipment Cerebro is beyond repair, and they are in no shape to defend themselves from an attack, which they expect could come from the Marauders any day. In many ways, the series had been coasting on the momentum of the classic John Byrne era of 1978-1981. This seems like the strongest step toward bringing the book into a new era.

While I’m sad to see this era of the X-Men end and some of these characters move on, I have to admit some elements were getting a bit tired. Most of the characters getting removed were directionless for awhile, as if Claremont had run out of things to say with them, so it seems like a good move. I’m liking Psylocke more than I expected already. Dazzler I can take or leave so far but we’ll see. This kind of deck clearing is rare in any kind of franchise, so I appreciate the bold move and am excited to see what happens next.

Next time: More new characters, and moving out of the X-Mansion

I’m still here! I’ll be honest, getting through the Secret Wars II period was a bit of a challenge. But I’m glad I kept going because on the other side of it are some stories that prove there’s still some worthwhile comics with these characters.

In case you can’t tell, I’m reading (or in some cases, re-reading) Marvel’s entire Uncanny X-Men series, starting from the original X-Men comic book from the 1960s, through to its relaunch in the 1970s and its rise to the best-selling comic of the 1980s and ’90s until… well, I guess we’ll see. I’m obviously not very prolific, but slow and steady wins something or other.

Anyway, I’m up to 1986, right before the very first X-Men event, Mutant Massacre. This batch of issues covers Uncanny X-Men #205 to 209.

No words left in the final battle

The standalone Uncanny X-Men #205 is one of the best issues of the era, thanks in large part to the return of extraordinary artist Barry Windsor-Smith. This is his third assignment on the series, previously handling the two Lifedeath stories starring Storm. It seems like a pretty good gig. He gets to show up once a year and really spend the time on creating a beautiful book, leaving the month-to-month grind to others. He provides pencils, inks and colors, which is unusual at the time for an artist on a big superhero book to get such ownership over so much of a comic’s visuals. But it pays off, with an atmospheric and tense story.

This may be the most primal and animalistic we’ve seen Wolverine yet, and this is nicely juxtaposed with the innocence of 5-year-old Katie Power, the youngest member of the pre-teen superheroes Power Pack, who first met Wolverine in issue #195. The issue is told from Katie’s perspective for a good portion of the book, which helps present Wolverine as more scary than we’ve seen him.

(Aside: I love how the adult with Katie in the beginning is never fully seen, keeping the perspective on Katie. It reminds me of the charming POV trick used on the animated Muppet Babies show, where we almost never see the Nanny above the height of the childlike main characters. Muppet Babies had already been airing for a couple of years by now, so I’m going to go ahead and claim that Windsor-Smith was inspired by it for this scene.)

Katie is clean and bright, Wolverine is bloodied with muted tones

Another nice juxtaposition device is the initial POV on the villain Lady Deathstrike before shifting to the innocence of Katie. I thought Lady Deathstrike first appeared here but apparently she had been bouncing around Daredevil and Alpha Flight for a few months. This is where she adopts the look she will maintain for a long time. The first scene shows her grotesque transformation into a cyborg with creepy fingers that extend out into long razor sharp claws. It’s left a bit vague but Lady Deathstrike believes that her late father will somehow be redeemed by her confronting Wolverine, to the death if need be. “The key is Wolverine, and the secrets locked within his gaijin brain,” she explains in narration. The mystery of his tortured mind and his feral regression depicted here still seem novel at this point but they become more common devices to amp up Wolverine’s cool factor with increasingly diminished returns. Apparently, Deathstrike believes that Wolverine somehow stole her father’s process to bond adamantium to a person’s skeleton. Geez, Lady Deathstrike, how about just hire a patent attorney?

After that issue, we return to regular artist John Romita, Jr. where the X-Men are still in San Francisco from the events of the last batch of issues. Freedom Force (formerly Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants but with a government pardon and deputized as federal agents) chases them down and actually beats them, wrecking the neighborhood in the process, and only the intervention of local police buy the X-Men time to flee. It’s a decent fight scene but the X-Men fighting this batch of characters is starting to wear a little thin, even with the addition of Spiral and Spider-Woman. The issue ends with Rachel deciding to finally reveal herself to Scott as his daughter but then the next issue the X-Men are back in New York with no mention of that trip. Maybe that scene happened in the recently launched X-Factor? Either way, it’s a bit weak that there’s no follow-up on it in the next few issues, especially considering their focus on Rachel. This era in particular is muddled by too much interactions between books and not enough awareness that people may not be reading every book. Essentially, if you don’t read it or miss the connection, too bad, you’re on your own.

Nice use of colors and angles for Rachel’s nightmare

Once the X-Men return to New York, recuperating with the Morlocks, they all remember that they’re mad at Rachel for co-opting their life essences to fight the Beyonder during Secret Wars II. This is one of the increasingly odd Chris Claremont ticks where the leapfrog approach to plotting has these delayed responses to things. In the previous issue, it seemed like everyone was fine with Rachel but now everyone’s giving her the cold shoulder. Regardless, there’s some good stuff here, including cool dream sequences (enhanced by Glynis Oliver’s colors) of Wolverine hunting Rachel down as she struggles with her survivor’s guilt and even some suicidal thoughts (echoing Jean Grey committing suicide in the Dark Phoenix Saga). Rachel’s dreams foreshadow the final encounter, with Wolverine, dragging himself out of bed while recovering from his fight with Lady Deathstrike, to try talking Rachel down from murdering Selene. The scene abruptly ends with one of the best cliffhangers the series has had in a long time.

The final two issues show the aftermath of that encounter where the Hellfire Club prepares a retaliation and the X-Men and Morlocks search for Rachel. Everyone tracks Rachel to Central Park, and then must also fend off the random arrival of Nimrod, the pink mutant-hunting robot from Rachel’s future. Aside from some goofy costumes (Leland, what are you wearing?!), there is some really creative moments with the different powers and nice juggling of multiple parties with distinct motivations and objectives. Where the Freedom Force battle was kind of boring, this had higher stakes with better choreographed set pieces.

Creative use of lettering by Tom Orzechowski to show a telepath waking up

Spiral’s Body Shoppe, which debuted in the first issue of this batch of comics to transform Lady Deathstrike into a cyborg, appears again at the end, luring Rachel into a way to escape from her own guilt. Nightcrawler, who finally returns to the team, appears to be removed again from the playing field (although only temporarily). So the story ends with the team down to five: Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Shadowcat and Rogue. (I can’t really figure out what Colossus is still doing here. He maybe had five lines in this run of issues. I like him but he’s being wasted and could be swapped out for virtually any other super-strong person.)

John Romita, Jr., and Dan Green continues to be a good visual storyteller. He’s more interesting in dream sequences and other strange scenes where he seems to give himself permission to be more unconventional.

All told, while plotting coordination is slipping, resulting in some uneven issues, this is a mostly decent set of comics, with the Barry Windsor-Smith issue in particular skewing the average up considerably. Next is the first X-Men-centric event: Mutant Massacre! I’ll try to take less than 6 months this time.

Yes I’m back for another thrilling installment of me talking about what I’m reading!

I’ve been reading the entirety of Uncanny X-Men, stretching all the way back to 1963 and working my way up to the present (or thereabouts). Right now I’m in the mid-1980s, and nothing is more indicative of that than the arrival of an omnipotent white guy with Michael Jackson hair. This batch of issues covers Uncanny X-Men #199-204.

What this doesn’t include is the Asgardian Wars two-part story in New Mutants Special #2 and Uncanny X-Men Annual #9 , which takes place between Uncanny X-Men #199 and 200, because (a) it mostly seems to be a New Mutants story, and I’m saving New Mutants for their own (Re-)Reading New Mutants series, and (b) I couldn’t find it in Marvel Unlimited, Marvel’s otherwise pretty great digital subscription service I’m using for this reading project. While Marvel Unlimited has every issue of the main Uncanny X-Men series, it’s pretty spotty and disorganized when it comes to the annuals. I include them when I can but this time was not meant to be. However, I did listen to the always-excellent X-Plain the X-Men episode covering the Asgardian Wars story arc. From that podcast, it sounds like it’s worth reading but I must confess to a bias. I have a low threshold for Marvel’s Asgardian dialogue from this era, which is not only a weird subpar-Shakespearean speech pattern but also seems to afflict characters with overly verbose soliloquies that completely abandon the “less is more” school of thought. So not only is it clunky to read, but it goes on forever. So for now, it’s getting skipped. That aside…

This entire era of Uncanny X-Men is getting really hot and cold. Last time, “LifeDeath 2” was the stand-out among some otherwise unspectacular stories. This time, “The Trial of Magneto” in issue #200 and its lead-in of #199 lead the pack, with the rest mostly running the spectrum of just OK to downright forgettable. From what I’ve read around the intertubes, a number of plots that writer Chris Claremont wanted to do during this period were completely derailed, so I will charitably excuse the subpar issues as him trying to recover and figure out what to do instead. Besides, he’s crossing his 10-year anniversary with the title at this point; every issue can’t be God Loves, Man Kills.

Hint: The guy with the big M is the one on trial

Still, “The Trial of Magneto” is a big status quo change for the title and the characters. It effectively writes Professor X out of the book. I think this makes at least the third time he’s been removed, and it makes sense. Having recently regained the use of his legs (by being cloned into a new non-paralyzed body), he’s been a more active member of the team, even serving as field leader on missions. With his considerable mental powers, Claremont had to keep coming up with reasons for his powers to not be working at full strength so he wouldn’t render the rest of the team useless every issue. This problem of Charles the father figure rescuing his students goes all the way back to some of the earliest issues of X-Men, where he’s mind-wiping villains left and right while his original students ran interference and played clean-up, or just stood around while he did all the work. (Of course, replacing Prof. X with Magneto doesn’t really fix that problem, as Magneto is extremely powerful as well; probably one of the reasons why Magneto mostly sticks to the New Mutants series, and only occasionally directly joins the X-Men in battle.) He would sometimes leave for secret missions or go into seclusion to work on some special project in the basement and finally was thought dead toward the end of the original ’60s series. Then in the ’70s, when he thought the X-Men were dead, he abandoned his mission and took off with his space girlfriend. More recently, his powers were disrupted by the arrival of the Beyonder (who we’ll get to in a moment) and then he barely survived a hate crime. Since he didn’t properly recuperate from that attack, he’s now on death’s door, so they shuffle him off to be cared for by the super high-tech space pirates, the Starjammers. Due to some political machinations, they can’t teleport him back after he’s cured so he’s effectively stuck in space with the X-Men having no idea what became of him. For all they know, he could’ve died after being whisked away. Or maybe Magneto killed him and this is all a ploy.

I was surprised that last theory didn’t end up having more legs. Cyclops and maybe Wolverine briefly consider it but after a few issues, it seems most everyone is reasonably convinced that Magneto is truly trying to be a good guy. I like the idea of some of them believing him but considering the wacky plots he’s tried to pull off in the past, I think some of them, particularly the ones that have been around the longest, have good reason to not buy into what appears to them to be a sudden change of heart.

But the change of heart hasn’t really been all that sudden. The wheels were set in motion for this back in Uncanny X-Men #150, when signs of a sympathetic Magneto began to surface. Fifty issues later and he is now officially an X-Man. Simultaneously, the X-Men have had to take an increasing number of actions that put them on the opposite side of the law. So it’s not that Magneto has done a 180, it’s that both sides have gradually shifted about 90 degrees toward each other. I could quibble on just how thorough this has been depicted and reinforced, but overall the execution exhibited more patience and methodical plotting than almost any other mainstream comic book writer up to this point.

Baby: “Little personal space, please?”

Immediately following that issue, the rest of the team responds to what’s happened, including the birth of Cyclops’ son. Scott was pulled back onto the team over concerns with Professor X’s health, and it was discovered that his wife/Jean Grey double Madelyne Pryor was pregnant. This surely skewed many young children’s perceptions of pregnancy. It seems to happen very quickly and we never really see her showing as pregnant. But here he his, a baby bouncing Summers. Because Cyclops doesn’t know how to human, instead of being a proud father, he broods over the loss of Professor X and the arrival of Magneto. This mostly makes sense, as Prof. X is his father figure and since his teen years, Magneto has been their biggest enemy. But could he maybe have a little bit of happiness? Poor Madelyne feels pretty rejected and it leads to an argument between them over whether Scott will be returning to the team, which seems like he just wants to bolt because he looked around and suddenly saw a normal human life with a wife and child ahead of him. Scott really doesn’t come off looking good here, and while there have been hints of this in the past, this is the first big step toward a really unfortunate period for the character. Much of it is editorially forced, as the character here is being set up to co-star in a new spin-off book called X-Factor, where Jean Grey and the rest of the original X-Men will reunite. While this issue ends with Scott relenting leadership of the X-Men over to Storm and departing from the book once more, Claremont’s plans to have Scott permanently retire end here.

Speaking of the leadership mantle, Storm challenges Cyclops to a duel in the Danger Room, which is an overly simplistic way to determine who should be leader. Even though Storm is still powerless, she’s more clever, strategic and determined. That, and the editors have predetermined the outcome. While I’m happy Storm wins, it’s one of those comic book fights where you can feel someone’s finger on the scale to skew the results.

After that, we dive right into Secret Wars II crossovers. I didn’t read the main mini-series (mercifully) but these issues of Uncanny X-Men are tie-ins to a big Marvel event that consumed the majority of Marvel’s publishing line for about 9 months. Fortunately Claremont dealt with this intrusion fairly gracefully. I was able to read these issues without feeling lost and they reasonably stand on their own without reading other crossover issues or the main mini-series.

Rachel Summers vs. the Phoenix Force

The Beyonder is this cosmic force that assumes the guise of a Michael Jackson-haired human as he tries to understand what it means to be human. This leads to a confrontation with Rachel Summers, who has now fully assumed the identity of Phoenix. Naturally this pulls the rest of the X-Men in where they end up hanging out in San Francisco for several issues. There are some good moments here, mostly for Rachel as she deals with the challenge of the Beyonder and how far she’s willing to go to try to defeat him. It also appears to be her wrestling with the full Phoenix Force, which ultimately corrupted her mother. After a beautiful Starlin-esque 3-page sequence of her encompassing and experiencing every living being in the universe, and being challenged by Storm, her own humanity wins out over the corrupting aspect of the Phoenix Force. It’s a great show of strength for Rachel, who has been a bit maudlin since her arrival in the book, and a great moment of redemption for the Phoenix name since the Dark Phoenix Saga. It also makes a strong case for the possibility that Rachel has a stronger will and is a better host for the Phoenix Force than Jean Grey.

The last issue in this set deals with Nightcrawler, who it’s acknowledged was curiously left out of the Beyonder confrontation in San Francisco. He’s having a real crisis of faith over the Beyonder’s God-level abilities and his motivations, as well as regret over his doubt-filled stint as team leader. It’s basically an adventure story to return the character back to his more swashbuckling self but it spends a bizarre amount of time on a damsel in distress character who he eventually rescues. It’s also the villain Arcade again, which seems crazy since there was a story starring Colossus and Kitty fighting Arcade within the last year. He’s such a throwaway villain with no thematic tie to the X-Men. I’ve never gotten the appeal of the character and there’s really no compelling reason given for why he’s popped up so frequently. The story itself feels way too inconsequential and ends on some surprise reveal of the damsel’s name, which has zero impact because the name has no relevance to anything that’s come before. The damsel’s revealed name is lifted from some book series that I’m not familiar with that otherwise has no connection to the X-Men franchise. Apparently this issue was supposed to begin an origin story for Nightcrawler but I guess the creators weren’t really feeling it, so they just abandoned the plot and left this as a self-contained and ultimately forgettable story.

June Brigman, who was fantastic as the co-creator and original artist for Power Pack, does the art for the Nightcrawler issue. Power Pack is a better example of her talent. She’s inked by Whilce Portacio, who might not be meshing well with her stylistically. He will eventually show up as a big hit artist on the series in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The rest of this batch continues John Romita, Jr.’s long run on the book. He continues to be solid, consistent and capable. His Magneto, particularly in issue #200, has a regal air about him but retains a humanity, which really feels appropriate for the story. His scratchy/blocky stylistic quirks are starting to creep in but it doesn’t yet overwhelm his character body language. Romita is joined by guest inker Al Williamson for a few issues, and I think I like this pairing slightly better than Romita with Dan Green. Rick Leonardi handles Uncanny X-Men #201 and it’s too bad he’s only ever pulled in for fill-in issues. Whilce Portacio inks here as well and they seem a better fit. I think Leonardi would’ve made a great regular artist for the series. He’s expressive with great character acting and a fun, recognizable style, which would be a good counter-balance as the series entered this darker period.

Fortunately, Secret Wars II is now over. In the aftermath of The Trial of Magneto, mutants are unambiguously hated and feared. While the charges against Magneto were dropped (probably would’ve been declared a mistrial anyway, with the interruption of Fenris), it doesn’t improve public opinion of him or the X-Men.

Next up: Barry Windsor-Smith returns as artist for a third issue, this time focusing on Wolverine. Plus, other things!

I was going to read up to issue #200, but looking at how Marvel collects these issues and how the book shifts course soon, I decided to stop a little early for this batch. So this covers Uncanny X-Men #194-198. Yes, only 5 issues. Next time will be more.

So yes, in case you’re just stumbling onto this for the first time, I am going through reading every single issue of Uncanny X-Men since it launched in 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. In some cases, I’m re-reading issues, and in other cases, it’s my first time reading these stories. This is all thanks to Marvel’s wonderful subscription-based digital comics library, Marvel Unlimited. (Hey DC Comics, get on the ball.) I’m now up to the Fall of 1985. These issues are primarily by writer Chris Claremont and the art team of John Romita, Jr. and Dan Green, except one issue is illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith.

This period of X-Men continues to be a bit odd. These are all one-off stories with sub-plots bubbling throughout. Looking back, it kind of feels like some padding might be going on, like they know what they want to do next but they’re saving it for the big anniversary issue #200. So there are some set pieces being moved in place, some long-simmering sub-plots being addressed or wrapped up, and of course some superhero action to fill things out.

The highlight here, easily, is issue #198 by Claremont and Windsor-Smith (who even get cover credits, a rarity for Marvel at the time). Called LifeDeath II on the cover, the story is formally called “LifeDeath: From the Heart of Darkness”. This story follows up on a lot of the themes from the first LifeDeath story in issue #186. It again stars Storm, with no other X-Men appearing (other than some hallucinations of her teammates), and allows the character to face her fears and accept the changes she’s gone through, namely losing her powers. It wasn’t quite as wonderful as the original story for me, but it was still head and shoulders above the stories around it. It had me longing for a Storm series by Windsor-Smith but I can’t imagine he’d be able to hold a monthly schedule. Apparently there was to be a third LifeDeath story, but Marvel was uncomfortable with the ending. They claimed it supported suicide, which Windsor-Smith denied. But since he refused to change it, Marvel declined to publish it. Years later, Windsor-Smith apparently made some superficial changes to the story and published it as a black-and-white story in his own anthology comic as Adastra in Africa (later released as its own graphic novella).

With a comment made by Kitty in the issue before it, the cover depicting Storm in flight, and a scene in the issue where it appears Storm stops a sandstorm, I was really hoping she would get her powers back. Sadly it doesn’t happen, but it ends with a beautiful acceptance of her powerlessness, as well as how she let her powers distance herself emotionally from others. Storm is by far one of the richest characters in the X-Men, and one of my favorites, so this issue was a treat. I want to go on about this issue more but there are other stories to talk about.

Elsewhere in this run, Colossus and Kitty Pryde (now going by Shadowcat) get kidnapped by Arcade and the adventure lets them finally address the tension between them since their breakup. It ends with them agreeing to be friends. This issue wasn’t quite as satisfying as I was hoping. A lot is left unsaid between them, and it’s clear Peter has a lot of unresolved emotions and affection for Kitty. Previously it seemed like he was pretty determined to move on, but this story really establishes his pining over her for years to come. I’m hazy on their relationship between this period and the more recent present but I think this is basically the status quo of their relationship until Joss Whedon and John Cassaday reunite them in Astonishing X-Men around 2005.

Wolverine: Worst Babysitter Ever

This run also included a guest appearance by Power Pack, a pre-teen superhero team of siblings with their own comic book series that had been running for about a year at this point. I really adore Power Pack, especially when handled by their creators Louise Simonson and June Brigman, a fantastic artist who really brought the kids to life. Claremont and Romita, Jr.’s handling was pretty good too (although Romita’s proportions for children were a little off). The story itself was pretty dark – the Power kids wake up and their parents don’t remember them. Eventually it turns out to be the work of some rogue Morlocks trying to help one of their member whose kids were mysteriously killed. Basically they’re trying to replace some Morlock kids with Power Pack. Kitty Pryde steps up as a fill-in leader in the issue and proves herself to be quite competent. She must be about 15 years old now, but since that Wolverine & Kitty mini-series, she’s really grown up.

Elsewhere, Rachel Summers has a bit of a breakdown (not surprising considering her fragile emotional state since she first showed up) which leads into a confrontation with Magneto, who is suddenly hanging around. This is a really good scene that deals with both of the past they may regret and who they’re trying to become. Magneto has resurfaced as an ally following Professor X’s violent mugging. Actually, it’s weird that it’s referred to as a mugging because a gang of students weren’t trying to rob him. This was a hate crime. Anyway, he barely survived and his health has been teetering ever since. When the Beyonder from the original Secret Wars came back for the sequel (aptly titled Secret Wars II), Professor X thought he needed help and enlisted Magneto. It’s hasn’t been made clear why he reached out to someone who has been a bitter enemy since the X-Men’s very first adventure. While there have been hints of Magneto softening, I don’t remember Professor X witnessing anything to convince him of this. Maybe something happened in New Mutants? Or maybe Magneto was just the most powerful mutant he could call on. Regardless, all of the X-Men are justifiably suspicious of their sworn enemy suddenly hanging around the X-Mansion. And for some reason Lee Forrester is hanging around with him. She was the fishing captain that Cyclops worked for when he took a leave of absence after the Dark Phoenix Saga. Cyclops and Lee hooked up for a bit, ended up getting kidnapped by Magneto, and then drifted apart. More recently, Lee happened to pull Magneto out of the ocean and the two have been buddies since. Kind of weird, and it definitely feels like an issue or even a scene is missing to fill in some holes.

The other bubbling subplot is Nimrod. This stupidly-named character is from the future, possibly the same future as Rachel, and some kind of advanced Sentinel maybe? The time jump scrambled his programming somewhat so he’s trying to act like a superhero but closer to The Punisher than Captain America. Despite being overly violent, public sentiment is regularly shown to absolutely love him. I’m not exactly clear on the point of this whole thread. It almost feels like a subplot from another comic.

Anyway yeah. Again, nothing wrong with these issues. LifeDeath II was excellent but the rest feel like something is missing.

Next (for real this time): The Trial of Magneto

My epic (re-)reading of Uncanny X-Men, starting from the very beginning in 1963, continues. In some cases, I’ve read these issues before, but some are completely new to me; hence “(re-)reading”. This batch covers Uncanny X-Men #189-193, originally published during the first half of 1985. Of this era, I’ve read the last issue but none of the others, so it was interesting to finally have greater context to that story.

The creative team remains the same here: Chris Claremont as writer and John Romita, Jr., as artist (usually with Dan Green as inker). Some of the over-writing Claremont is known for has been sneaking in more and more. It gets pretty clunky in the big anniversary issue of 193, which is unfortunate, as it seems when Claremont is given more pages to write a story, instead of letting things breathe a little, he just crams more in there. Romita is picking up more and more of his signature style but his characters aren’t blocky and stiff because of it yet, so visually things are looking pretty nice.

This is an odd period. The team and cast is really scaled back. Cyclops is finally, really retired from the book, and doesn’t show up at all. Storm, now powerless due to the last set of issues, takes a sabbatical, gets sucked back in for one more multi-part adventure, and then actually leaves. Wolverine and Kitty Pryde are away for half of these stories for their Wolverine & Kitty Pryde mini-series. And Professor X pulls back from his more active leadership role, although he’s still around. Otherwise, that really only leaves us with Nightcrawler and Colossus among the cast we’ve had since 1975. They’re joined by the recent addition Rogue and newest team member Rachel Summers, who at times doesn’t even feel like a full team member. So basically a 4-person team for a good portion of these issues. Things get so sparse that the cast of sister title New Mutants keep popping up to fill things out. They even spend a whole issue fighting the father of Warlock, a villain clearly meant for the New Mutants book.

There are two major stories here. The first involves Kulan Gath, a villain from the Conan the Barbarian series. Yes, that Conan the Barbarian. Marvel Comics licensed the sword-and-sorcery character and had a long-running series or three starring for about 15 years starting in 1970. At some point, because Marvel writers and editors couldn’t leave well enough alone, it was revealed that Conan’s stories, firmly set in the fantasy genre, happened in the modern Marvel universe’s distant past. Because of course everything has to be connected. Kulan Gath was an evil sorcerer who obtained immortality, so of course he eventually started popping up in Marvel’s superhero comics. His appearance here was shortly after his first “modern” appearance, where he met and fought Spider-Man, who makes a guest appearance along with the Avengers. Kulan Gath basically alters Manhattan to be a Conan/ancient fantasy world. These days, this story would’ve been a big event but instead it’s just a couple of issues of Uncanny X-Men. It’s fun to see the X-Men mixed with a straight-up fantasy story but I couldn’t help but feel it was largely unnecessary. The ending is a bit odd too, as though Claremont had written himself into a corner, so basically Dr. Strange hits the Cosmic Reset Button. It ends up feeling like a bit of a cop out, and is responsible for the arrival of Nimrod, an oddly named special Sentinel from Rachel Summers’ future. The whole thing probably would’ve fit better in Avengers or maybe Amazing Spider-Man since he has more history with the character at this point.

The other major story here is big anniversary of the All-New, All-Different X-Men. It turns out the original Thunderbird has a younger brother who wears his costume and tries to get his revenge on the X-Men for causing his brother’s death. This character will become more prominent in some spin-off books. Firestar is also introduced, a character first created for the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends cartoon. This is her first time appearing in the main Marvel Comics universe. She doesn’t do a whole lot, but she will also end up being more prominent in other comics later on (most notably for me, one of my all-time favorite super-hero series, New Warriors). There are better emotional beats here, with James Proudstar really feeling conflicted about going through with his mission of vengeance. Since the cast is so slim, I wish one or both of these new characters ended up either joining the New Mutants or just sticking around.

Another significant moment is Professor X being the victim of a hate crime. He started lecturing at Columbia University, but some of his students didn’t take kindly to him being sympathetic to mutants and they actually assault him, complete with a brick to the head. While healing, his powers are seriously tampered. Xavier is a really powerful mutant, so the series is constantly finding ways to tamp his powers down so that the rest of the cast has something to do. Claremont tries to write him out of the book a number of times, but like with Cyclops, fan nostalgia is too great and he’s always brought back.

Rachel Summers gets a lot of attention during these issues, as she continues to be haunted by the future she came from. We’re still in the early days of the crazy time travel antics of the X-Men. It’s going to get much more confusing and convoluted. Rachel basically comes from the Days of Future Past storyline (or some version of it) which was partly set in the year 2013. Even though 2013 is now in our past, it was still the future when the original story was published in 1981. That story seemed to end with the dystopian 2013 being prevented but in actuality it just created a new reality where the future played out differently. How much the present X-Men’s future will turn into the Days of Future Past future is a (confusingly worded) question that hangs over the books for decades. And Rachel’s arrival from her future, and her constant fretting about the life she had to lead in that messed up future, is a constant reminder of that question. Unfortunately this is basically the entirety of Rachel’s personality for too long, but I guess if you were forced to hunt down your own people and then time traveled to your past to discover all of your loved ones aren’t exactly the version of them you remember and what does that mean for this future and will they forgive you…? OK yeah that’s kind of a lot to take. (Although, let’s be honest, if we lived through any given year of Uncanny X-Men, we’d be in an insane asylum.)

During this period, Nightcrawler becomes field leader and he’s plagued with doubt even more than Storm’s first few missions. He does rally toward the end though and while the implication seems to be that he’s not cut out for it and he only got the gig because Wolverine was away and Colossus was too heart-broken from his break-up with Kitty, at least it’s giving the character something to do.

Kitty returns and from what I’ve gathered from the Wolverine & Kitty Pryde mini-series, she has received some ninja training and now uses the codename Shadowcat, which she’ll use for a good decade or so. She and Colossus don’t really seem to address their break-up, although I don’t know what’s to say. It’s notable that they barely interact once she returns, which seems right. Wolverine has pretty firmly settled into the grizzled know-it-all. By now, he’s a little too “I’ve seen it all” for my tastes.

So yeah. This run was a little underwhelmed. A little low on the whelming meter. There’s nothing significantly bad going on, it just seems like the series has stalled a bit.

Next time: The epic Uncanny X-Men #200, where nothing will ever be the same again, again.