Chronological X-Men - Proteus Part 1 Review

Proteus.

The Uncanny X-Men #125 There’s Something Awful on Muir Island

Classic X-Men #31 Spigot At The End of The Universe

I’ll start with the back up feature here. It’s one of those stories that could either fit within the pages of the main issue, or it could happen either before or after the current storyline. Charles isn’t fitting in too well on Lilandra’s homeworld and it’s making him restless. Lilandra suggests that he spends time with Chakra the Shi-ar’s plumber. It’s a little odd because Charles who always boasts about equality and treating people the same but now he’s acting like being a plumber is the worst thing that could ever happen to someone. It was kind of a middle ground story, not good, not bad yet it still holds potential to be read again. The main story is pretty good but clearly some time has passed. Beast visits the mansion and is surprised to run into all of the X-Men that he thought were dead, Sean is still suffering from the damage to his throat and decides to leave the team at least until his powers return. Lilandra is dealing with issues in the Shi-ar galaxy and Charles is suffering homesickness and is basically still moping around about not being treated fairly among Lilandra’s court. All that changes when he sees how Jean saved the universe, she’s so powerful now that it actually scares him enough into feeling like he needs to return to Earth. Mastermind reveals that he is officially working for the Hellfire Club and wants to turn Jean into his Black Queen – we also see through a series of flashbacks how Mastermind has been working his way into Jean’s life over the past few months, a lot of this is explained in recent back up stories of ‘Classic.’ Magneto still recovering from his battle with the X-Men on Asteroid M and is severely missing his wife Magda. The two major things that happen are Moira discovers that there is something wrong behind the door marked ‘Mutant X,’ which will lead us into our current story. The second thing is Jean appears to be spending time in another life where she was a noble woman – the first flash lasts just long enough for Jean to succumb to an ambush. Jamie and Alex go to investigate but Lorna decides to answer the phone in case it’s Charles, Hank or the Avengers calling because she thinks that they’ll need whoever it is help taking down whoever was strong enough to scare Phoenix like that. It turns out to be the X-Men and Lorna is ambushed while talking to Scott.

The Uncanny X-Men #126 How Sharper Than A Serpent’s Tooth…!

Classic X-Men #32 Shreds of Humanity

The X-Men arrive on Muir Island to a brief confrontation because Alex doesn’t know the X-Men are really alive. Jean is still having flashbacks of another life, only they are getting progressively worse. This time she’s with her husband (Mastermind) and for sport they are hunting a human – thankfully she snaps out of it before she actually has to kill the man. Jamie creates a large amount of dupes in order to search the island faster only one of them becomes possessed by Mutant X who is jumping from body to body draining them of their lives leaving nothing more of them than a mummified corpse when he jumps to the next body. We learn that Mutant X is in fact Moira’s son, which I guess could explain why she abruptly cut things off with Charles in the past. Given that Mutant X essentially kills everyone he possesses and he has taken one of Jamie’s dupes this is the first time Jamie actually ‘dies.’ The back up feature for this issue takes place in the middle of the battle between Logan, Kurt and Mutant X (now possessing a cop) who has decided to take the name Proteus. It focuses on Proteus’ using his reality warping ability to basically torture Logan and take advantage of how Logan relies on his healing factor so much so that he has gotten to the point where he enjoys being hurt. I really wasn’t feeling the art here, but considering it is supposed to be sort of like a dreamscape I can ignore it. This is one of the few times the weird art style actually works for the story, but I've noticed recently the quality of the art in relation to the actual story being presented is starting to decline, and that's not something that I'm loving.

The Uncanny X-Men #127 The Quality of Hatred!

Classic X-Men #33 So Good It Hurts

The back up story here takes place shortly after the X-Men split up last issue (so before the battle between Logan, Kurt, Ororo and Proteus.) Alex and Lorna are looking for Moira’s son but Alex keeps getting pulled into these visions of a darker world where both he and Lorna are getting hurt. He claims that this is because of how afraid he is of the fact that if he and Lorna ever go back to the X-Men that they will die, and then he switches to this idea that he can’t separate the feelings of how if their relationship ends it’s like death for him. Personally I think that Alex is just too close to Proteus and has succumbed to his reality altering powers than Alex having panic attacks and creating this whole dark world all on his own. It’s easier for me to just over look the fact that Alex and Proteus haven’t had any contact yet than it is to accept that Alex is doing this all on his own. This is the first time we see Joe Mactaggert – Moira’s husband and father of their son Kevin (Proteus.) I’m not sure I’ve got the time line right but it seems that Joe and Moira were together (it turns out he’s a real abusive little man,) she goes to the states and meets and falls in love with Charles. Charles gets drafted and Moira tries to get a divorce from her husband only he doesn’t go along with it and soon after Charles has left she discovers that she is pregnant. Knowing that it can’t be Charles she decides to end their engagement in the Dear John letter she wrote him and then went back to Muir Island to raise Joe’s baby. Anyway, enough exposition… Moira goes to warn Joe, it doesn’t go well and Proteus ends up possessing his father and threatens to kill Moira if the X-Men choose to follow them.

The Uncanny X-Men #128 The Action of the Tiger!

Classic X-Men #34 Double Negative

This issue ends the main storyline here. Joe is dead because Kevin possessed him. The X-Men struggle through a heated battle, which isn’t going well considering every time Proteus uses his powers he grows stronger. It doesn’t make it any easier considering that all of the X-Men that aren’t metal based (metal is the only thing that can hurt or even kill Kevin.) The X-Men work to force Kevin to use up Joe’s body faster than he normally would, one by one the X-Men use their abilities on him until the only one left is Piotr. By this point Kevin is without a body, desperate and near death he tries to take possession of Piotr only to be surprised when he transforms into Colossus. By this point Kevin is so badly damaged that one punch actually managed to kill him. This is a big thing because for the first time a villain doesn’t die as a result of his own actions but instead is essentially killed by the X-Men. Granted with a villain that can kill anyone he comes within physical contact with there are very few ways that he can be dealt with but it’s still a shock because it’s something totally different than Logan using his claws to kill some random henchman. The backup story shows a typical night at the Hellfire Club and the members of its Inner Circle. Emma and Jason engage in a game of chess on the astral plane, the two of them are so evenly matched that the only way to end the game is with both of their ‘deaths.’ I don’t really care for the server girl and Emma’s talk with her about sexism.. it wasn’t really needed – I would much rather have had them spend those pages showing us more of Emma and Jason’s duel.

Marvel Team-Up #89 Shoot Out Over Center Ring

This time Kurt and Spider-Man team up. Nothing real spectacular here, Kurt meets Amanda at the airport and the encounter Miss Locke near one of Arcade’s private jets. They stow away in the trunk of the man that was meeting Miss Locke and find out that he has hired someone to murder Spider-Man. It turns out that all of this leads back to the circus and Kurt pretends to be Spider-Man to draw out the shooter. Umm okay the issue was good, but there were too many weird things that started to add up. Kurt was taken in by the circus and was sort of raised as Amanda’s foster sister, yet none of this is revealed yet – this could just be a case of me knowing too much too soon so I can over look that. But then it gets worse when Kurt runs into the man who was running the circus he was a part of, the guy remembers Kurt but makes no mention of knowing Amanda. So it seems to me that eventually Kurt and Amanda knowing each other as children and being raised together will be a retcon the writers will deal with later on. This was a good issue, but it would have been a lot better if I didn’t know about Amanda’s future events.

The Uncanny X-Men #125 There’s Something Awful on Muir Island: A

Classic X-Men #31Spigot At The End of The Universe: C

The Uncanny X-Men #126 How Sharper Than A Serpent’s Tooth…!: A

Classic X-Men #32 Shreds of Humanity: B

The Uncanny X-Men #127 The Quality of Hatred!: A

Classic X-Men #33 So Good It Hurts: F

The Uncanny X-Men #128 The Action of the Tiger!: A

Classic X-Men #34 Double Negative: B

Marvel Team-Up #89 Shoot Out Over Center Ring: C

Chronological X-Men - The Phoenix Saga Part 3 Review

The Phoenix Saga!

Marvel Team-Up #69 Night of the Living God!

Marvel Team-Up #70 Whom Gods Destroy!

Well this time out we learn what’s been going on with Alex and Lorna since Eric the Red’s mind control wore off. Personally I would have liked to have seen a bit of Lorna and Alex coming out of their altered states and their decision to go to Muir Isle in order to sort things out, instead of it being the next time we see them they’re both already there. In the middle of a random walk the pair are ambushed by the Living Pharaoh’s henchmen- a battle ensues the results of it leave Alex kidnapped and Lorna thrown off of the cliff into the sea and left for dead. It turns out since the last time we saw The Living Pharaoh he’s altered his plans a bit from killing Alex in order to become the dominant half of their connection and permanently get Alex’s powers to imprisoning Alex in a device that will amplify Alex’s abilities to the point where Ahmet Abdol can access them on his own. Spider-Man gets involved when he runs into the Pharaoh’s goons at college and when he learns that they’ve kidnapped someone he follows them in an attempt to free Havok. Meanwhile Lorna crawls her way back to the research facility and tries to contact the X-Men and after being unable to reach them she calls Hank for help. The Pharaoh absorbs enough of Alex’s powers and transforms into the Living Monolith once again and Spider-Man nearly gets himself killed only to be saved by Thor. The two team up and Thor distracts the Living Monolith long enough for Spider-Man to free Alex without killing him. With the Living Monolith defeated Thor takes Alex back to Muir Isle to look for Lorna. I’m surprised this was another little mash up that I enjoyed – if this trend keeps up I might actually become a fan of these little mini crossovers.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #111 Mindgames!

Classic X-Men #17 A Taste for Vengeance!

This story spins directly out of the events of Marvel Team-Up but I’m getting ahead of myself here, first I need to start with the back up feature even though that will spoil everything. The back up story shows Jean trying to have a peaceful day out and about only to run into Mesmero, an old enemy of the X-Men. He uses his abilities on her and she’s quickly under his mind control. This I find a little odd because of the fact that Phoenix should be so much more powerful than that but oh well. He takes her back to his place and after trying to have his way with her (now he meets resistance with Phoenix) Mesmero decides to use Jean to help him take down all of the other X-Men and bring them under his power. One by one the X-Men fall and Mesmero quickly becomes bored and after seeing a picture of Kurt at his old circus he gets the idea to imprison them all within a circus and force them to perform nightly. The additional pages aren’t really needed, they just quickly recap how Hank lost touch with the X-Men and it ends with him arriving at the circus finding the new team there. Hank is soon discovered and beaten in front of Logan which sends him into a rage powerful enough to allow him to break free of Mesmero’s mind control, one by one he breaks the X-Men out of their brainwashed state and the group reforms to take on Mesmero only to find out that he has already been defeated by none other than Magneto.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #112 Magneto Triumphant!

 Classic X-Men #18 Stalking Life

Only one real ‘first’ here and that is the first appearance of Magneto’s robot assistant ‘Nanny.’ The additional pages aren’t really required, it’s just the inner thoughts of the X-Men and Magneto when they all come face to face, and the other page is just an all out brawl between Phoenix and Magneto, nothing worth spending too much time covering. One thing I do wish they would just clear up is the whole Robot Magneto thing. If Magneto has no idea who Mesmero is then who exactly built the robot and what was the point of it? Magneto is out for blood and has built a device that contains each X-Man individually and reduces them to nothing more than that of a six-month old child, just like he was. The only difference is that their bodies don’t de-age and they’re forced to live in their minds fully aware of everything that is going on around them. The back up feature is alright, but kind of boring. Jean wants some alone time to figure everything out, so naturally Logan decides that he knows what’s best for her and teams up with Kurt and Sean to ‘hunt’ Jean and force her to use her powers in a more controlled and streamlined way than she has been using them. Honestly, I didn’t like the backup feature and it suffered for not having it be written by Chris Claremont.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #113 Showdown!

 Classic X-Men #19 I, Magneto!

The X-Men are still being ‘taken care of’ by Nanny and it’s driving them mad. Logan is gong into a rage that’s only made worse by the fact that he cannot do anything about it and Ororo can’t help but think back to her childhood when she was ‘working’ under Achmed El-Gibar and we see more of how he trained her how to be a master thief, Kurt is taking this worse than anyone (odd considering Ororo’s claustrophobia) and having a bit of a mental crisis because he can’t understand why Charles hasn’t come to help them if he was honest when he said that he is constantly monitors the X-Men with his telepathic powers. Eventually Ororo breaks free and frees the rest of the team. A huge battle ensues and causes the volcano they are under to erupt. Magneto frees himself (and I assume he returns to Asteroid M) leaving the X-Men to perish in the eruption, only he doesn’t see the giant flaming bird coming out right behind him and Jean and Hank crash into the land. The strain proves too much for Jean and she passes out leaving Hank to try to carry her through the snow. The back up feature shows a time in Magneto’s life after his wife left him but before he became Magneto. He’s been working with a group of people to hunt down members of the Nazi party that were responsible for what happened to his parents when he was a child. Eventually he runs into a man who ends up working for the people Magneto has been teaming up with. Naturally this doesn’t end well with his bosses and they kill Isabelle, a woman who was Magneto’s doctor, and possibly more than that, right in front of his eyes. This sends him into a rage and Magneto kills them, once again he is left all alone. It was good, but I don’t know where it belongs at this point in the mythology. It will get easier in the future when they flesh out more of Charles and Magneto’s past, but right now it feels sort of displaced.

The Uncanny X-Men #114 Desolation

 Classic X-Men #20 Mother of the Bride

Well it took long enough but this is the first time they have used ‘The Uncanny X-Men’ as the cover title on the book. Jean and Hank find their way out of Antarctica and return to the Xavier Institute to tell Charles about the death of the other X-Men. We find out that the X-Men actually didn’t die but they managed to work together long enough to tunnel into an entrance to the Savage Land. Obviously each side of the fence thinks the other side died. It appears that Scott isn’t mourning Jean’s death enough for Ororo and she confronts him just as he starts to piece together memories of his childhood and notices just how much he looks like Corsair. We learn that Sauron survived (but we already knew that because of The Hidden Years) and has now fed off of Storm and is ready to fight the X-Men once again. The back up feature I actually liked, but honestly it didn’t fit. Storm goes on vacation and meets a woman who just lost her husband. Ororo goes to investigate and learns that the man didn’t really die but had been exposed to chemicals from his job and has become a zombie. It’s a nice little filler, but I don’t know where it is supposed to fit, there really isn’t much to say about it but I liked it.

The Uncanny X-Men #115 Visions of Death!

 Classic X-Men #21 First Love

I’ll start with the backup story simply because it takes place before the events of last issue. We see Piotr struggle with existing in the Savage Land. He manages to save a group of ‘Fall People’ but one of them dies. Piotr bonds with the other two when they don’t reject him after seeing his metal state. Piotr feels love for the first time and it’s implied that he has sex with one of, if not both of the two women he saved. Okay, I swear it doesn’t seem as creepy as it sounds like. The additional pages show Jean, Charles and Lilandra dealing with the recent ‘deaths’ of the X-Men. Jean is struggling with the fluctuating powers and how she has no one to turn to. The main story shows us that Karl Lykos and Ka-Zar are working together to take down Zaladane (her first appearance in the X-Men) and the Sun People from raising Garook the Petrified Man that Zaladane worships. We see Kirk Marston moments before Zaladane uses him as a vessel for Garokk. Scott and Logan are at odds again when Scott wants to leave the Savage Land to return to Charles and Logan wants to stay in the Savage Land and help Karl and Ka-Zar take down Zaladane. The issue ends with a massive snow storm erupting that threatens to destroy all of the Savage Land.

Marvel Team-Up #69 Night of the Living God!: A

Marvel Team-Up #70 Whom Gods Destroy!: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #111 Mindgames!: A

Classic X-Men #17 A Taste for Vengeance!: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #112 Magneto Triumphant!: A

 Classic X-Men #18 Stalking Life: D

(The Uncanny)X-Men #113 Showdown!: A

 Classic X-Men #19 I, Magneto!: C

The Uncanny X-Men #114 Desolation: B

 Classic X-Men #20 Mother of the Bride: A

The Uncanny X-Men #115 Visions of Death!: B

 Classic X-Men #21 First Love: C

Chronological X-Men - (Part 20) Second Genesis What If Review

If ‘if’ were a fifth we’d all be drunk.

What If #9 … The New X-Men Had Died on Their Very First Mission

The whole ‘second genesis’ arch ends with a few ‘what if’ stories, the first we have ‘What if the new X-Men had died on their very first mission’ in which we see the deaths of quite a few X-Men: Sean, Scott, Jean, Lorna, Alex, Bobby, Warren, John, Ororo, Kurt, Piotr, Shiro and Logan all die on the mutant island of Krakoa when it gets sent into space. Charles is devastated which causes Hank to leave the Avengers and return to the Xavier Institute in order to take care of Charles. Hank ends up reaching out to Moira for help and she brings along Rahne. In this reality Count Nefaria still takes over the weapons base with his Ani-Men and Hank uses Cerebro to reach out to a new set of mutants to help him take Nefaria down. Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver join the battle (but leave afterwards in order to return to their respective spouses) Namor’s cousin Namorita, Thunderbird II – John’s brother James, Banshee II – Sean’s daughter Theresa and Wolfsbane – Rahne once Charles activates her latent mutant abilities. It was kind of a fun read for what it was, so I don’t really have anything against it.

What If #23 … The All-New All-Different X-Men Had Never Existed

Okay, basically this one is just what it says it is- only it covers a lot of storylines. Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Havok, Iceman, Marvel Girl, Lorna (know known as Polaris) and Charles are all still X-Men. We see the Shi-ar empire and it’s princess Lilandra, we get the Hellfire Club, Mesmero, the Phoenix Force, Thunderbird (who is a villain in this reality) Nightcrawler (who is a villain in this one too) the Sentinels, Eric the Red II (so the Shi-ar version not Scott in disguise) Alpha Flight, Sean Cassidy, Dr. Corbeau, Dazzler, Dragonfly (of the Ani-Men) The (Shi-ar) Imperial Guard, Moira MacTaggart, Magneto, Mutant X, Storm, Kitty Pryde, the Starjammers and Sunfire. Okay so very quickly the X-Men don’t get captured by Krakoa, Eric the Red brainwashes Thunderbird and Nightcrawler, Lorna goes on the mission in space so Jean doesn’t have to sacrifice herself and get possessed by the Phoenix Force, Lilandra is still branded a traitor by her brother and run off of her home world, the Phoenix Force still goes batshizz and it is Kurt who sacrifices himself in order to make up for being so misguided by Eric the Red’s manipulation. The story is good, but it covers a whole hell of a lot of other plots within this one issue and there are a crap load of characters here so there isn’t too much individualized focus for anyone in particular.

What If #23 … The All-New All-Different X-Men Had Never Existed: B

What If #9 … The New X-Men Had Died on Their Very First Mission: B

Chronological X-Men - (Part 19) Second Genesis Review

Second Genesis baby.

Giant-Size X-Men #1 Second Genesis!

Giant-Size X-Men #3 Teamwork

Classic X-Men #1 First Night

Well ladies and gents we now come to the second major chapter within the X-Men’s history and this brings some drastic changes. With this story alone we see Jean, Warren, Lorna, Bobby and Alex officially leave the X-Men; Hank has already left and is now an active member of the Avengers; Scott’s powers get a jumpstart and we see the recruitment of Storm, Banshee, Thunderbird, Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler, and finally we see the first appearances of (aside from Kurt, Piotr, Ororo and John) Ilyana (Piotr’s sister) and Nicolaj and Alexandra his parents and the mutant island Krakoa. The other stories show us Logan trying to bring the new x-Men together as a team by pitting them against each other in the Danger Room to see who will be the first to ‘die,’ we see that Lorna has finally chosen between Alex and Bobby, and we see Jean struggle with her place in a team that she no longer wants to be a part of, but is too afraid to leave. Bobby struggles like the youngest child of a family when a new baby comes along, Logan and Jean start off down the whole Scott/Jean/Logan triangle. One thing that I didn’t really like, and that was mostly because of the later retcon was the fact that we had already seen Ororo and there’s no mention of her knowing anyone – another thing was the fact that in the retocon a conversation between Charles and Moira we learn that Kurt, Piotr and Ororo are all younger than the current X-Men, but in the first actual appearances we see that they’re all older than the first team. I know they’ll probably get into it later down the line but I’m sick of them always mentioning Lorna’s weakening magnetic powers, yet they never explain why her power level is slowly decreasing- but that’s kind of a nit pick. Oh it should be noted that the back up features in Giant-Size #1 are reprints of the stories from the original series where the X-Men explain to ‘us’ how their respective powers work. There is no need to cover Giant-Size #2 since it’s just a straight reprint of the storyline that introduced Alex to us with only a few pages edited out, but no additional content.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #94 The Doomsmith Scenario!

Classic X-Men #2 First Friends

Giant-Size X-Men #4 Finding Home

(The Uncanny)X-Men #95 Warhunt!

Classic X-Men #3 Mourning

Well the X-Men title is back, and that’s a good thing. We get a few characters new to the universe ehre by way of Count Nefaria’s Ani-Men team consisting of Bird-Man, Cat-Man, Croaker, Dragonfly and Gort. Beast makes a brief cameo as an excuse to justify why the Avengers can’t fight Nefaria and he learns of the team of new X-Men- it is a little odd that Hank is shocked by this because it almost seems like everyone of the original team is going out of their way to ignore him. Sunfire is the first of the new members to officially leave the team, which kind of works for me because I feel like he should still be in jail after murdering his uncle in front of multiple witnesses. Additional pages show us the first appearances of Rahne Sinclair and her foster father Reverend Craig, but yeah that’s a whole hell of a lot of stories for another time. The side stories from the other books give us a little bit more insight to the timeline, Ororo and Jean try to become friends and we learn of Ororo’s claustrophobia (but this is a side story so it hasn’t actually happened within the main storyline yet) and we see the first appearance of Misty Knight but much like other retcons this hasn’t actually happened yet so it doesn’t really count. The next side story shows John trying to find his place in the team and Ororo trying to put down roots and start a budding friendship with him (although that won’t last long.) The X-Men fight Nefaria and as an unfortunate price John ends up dying, so this is the first time an X-Men dies (Charles doesn’t count because it wasn’t ‘Charles’ and Calvin doesn’t count because.. uhh well he just doesn’t okay?) and he is far from the last. The story is bookended with the X-Men, Charles and Jean returning John’s body to his family only to have it get stolen by James Proudstar, John’s younger brother who gives him a warrior’s sendoff and vows revenge on the X-Men (among others.) So yet again we have a first appearance that isn’t really a first appearance because it’s still a long while before James actually shows up in any ‘real’ X-book.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #96 Night of the Demon!

 Classic X-Men #4 The Big Dare

This is some good stuff right here. Scott is taking the death of John badly and starts shooting off his powers outside of the mansion and ends up breaking open ‘the Cairn’ and the mansion is soon under siege by a demon calling himself Kierrok who is part of the N’Garai race of demons. This is pretty big considering the N’Garai do show up quite a few times over the course of the years (it sort of becomes a right of passage for new teams) we see the first actual appearance of Moira MacTaggert who has come to the states in order to take care of the Xavier Institute while Charles goes on ‘vacation;’ and we see the start of Moira/Sean which becomes a large factor in quite a few plots down the line. We also see Dr. Steven Lang who also factors in to be a major player down the line and Colonel Mike Rossi, who eventually ends up migrating to the Ms. Marvel universe. Additional pages show us hints at a relationship between Moira and Charles (which will be established later, but already has been due to future retcons – man I’ll be happy when I’m done reading these ‘flashback’ stories.) Ororo is still struggling with the fact that she has to wear clothing while doing things; and Kurt’s reaction to the whole thing is quite funny. The back up story gives us a new character Harry Morrell who runs a bar near the Xavier Institute that the X-Men frequent. We see the first appearance of the ‘image inducer’ although again, side story; not a main story, so it doesn’t really count. Logan and Kurt go to the bar and Logan sort of guilt trips him into turning it off and walking around town as his blue fur-clad self.

Giant-Size X-Men #1 Second Genesis!: A

Classic X-Men #1 Second Genesis/First Night: A

Giant-Size X-Men #4 Finding Home: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #94 The Doomsmith Scenario!: B

Classic X-Men #2 First Friends: B

Giant-Size X-Men # Finding Home: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #95 Warhunt!: B

Classic X-Men #3 Mourning: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #96 Night of the Demon!: A

 Classic X-Men #4 The Big Dare: C

Chronological X-Men - Part 11 Review

Oh thank heaven … part eleven!  

(The Uncanny)X-Men #54 Wanted: Dead or Alive…Cyclops!/The Million Dollar Angel-

(The Uncanny)X-Men #55 The Living Pharaoh!/Where Angels Dare to Tread! -

(The Uncanny)X-Men #56 What is…the Power?/The Flying A-Bomb!-

This is the first time we see Scott’s brother Alex Summers as well as the villain The Living Pharaoh, who later becomes The Living Monolith – again this is kind of hard to get into without trying desperately to forget the connection between the Summers’ family, The Living Monolith and Apocalypse (who hasn’t even been introduced yet.) One thing that’s odd is that Scott mentions that Alex is now old enough to drink, which at means that Alex’s graduation is from college and not high school because he has to be at least 21. This is kind of weird because he’s supposed to be Scott’s younger brother and events in the near future point to at least three years having passed since the start of this series and Bobby turned 18 like 20 issues (or so) ago and he’s the youngest X-Man… anyway… the whole thing is odd because in a few more issues the tagline ‘The Strangest Teens of All’ starts to reappear predominantly on the cover. Anyway, the story itself was a good read and had the feel of watching an old Egyptian Mummy movie (even though there are no mummies at all in this story. Personally though, I thought it was a bit odd that Scott had never before mentioned that he had a younger brother – but that’s just me.

The back up feature finally gives us Warren’s origin story starting with him as a little boy who likes to climb on things and follows him all the way through his time at a private (what I’m assuming is high) school to his first adventure as ‘The Avenging Angel’ – a name which he still uses off and on mostly when he breaks away from the X-Men and goes solo. One thing that I thought was a nice little touch was that in the flash backs Bobby is more ‘snowy’ and less ‘icy’ the more ice-like look of Bobby’s didn’t appear until later on in the series, well after Jean joined the team.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #57 The Sentinels Live!/The Female of the Species!-

(The Uncanny)X-Men #58 Mission: Murder!-

(The Uncanny)X-Men #59 Do or Die, Baby!-

The next storyline picks up right where the last one left off (I only broke it up because of how some of it is edited it appears that there was a lapse in time at least a little, that isn’t explained so it sort of implies that enough time has passed for this to at the very least be the second chapter of the previous story. There are a bunch of returns here, Bolivar Trask is seen through a series of flashbacks, as well as Lorna Dane (who is now living in Manhattan and while not officially with the X-Men it seems like she’s considered to be part of the team; Alex is also back along with the Sentinels. Banshee, Mesmero, Magneto, Toad, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Mastermind, Blob, Unus and Vanisher all make cameos. In the way of new characters we get Judge Chalmers (who makes sporadic appearances in the future as well as Larry Trask, Bolivar’s son who blames the X-Men for the death of his father, Professor Ahmet Abdol who we met in the last story as ‘The Living Pharaoh/Monolith and a new breed of ‘Neo’ Sentinels that have the ability to adapt and counter act any given mutant’s specific power. And finally we see Dr. Lykos (who plays a larger role in the next story.) This adventure wraps up a few things… Alex officially takes the name Havok, we find out that Mesmero hasn’t really been working for Magneto over these past few months (and in the story that introduced Lorna and Mesmero) but really a robotic version of Magneto. The only thing I didn’t really care for was the reveal of Larry Trask actually being a mutant. My only problem with it was the fact that somehow Larry’s medallion not only negates his mutant powers (of seeing the future) but also erases his memory of his ability to do this. It would have been alright if they at least attempted to explain how that was possible but they just sort of shoehorned that in. Another thing that was actually more interesting was that Professor Abdol’s mutant powers began to re-activate in front of a group of people, so that right there throws out his secret identity.

 

This storyline also sees the end of the back up features. This time we visit Jean and her abilities. There was no sense going into her origin in a back up story since we saw (what was the then current origin) introduction of Jean back in issue one. This story was all about her powers and how she can use them. There was nothing really special there but it is what it is, you know? I did find it really funny that in the first page of the story there’s a blurb that basically says nothing more than ‘OMG guys…. A girl wrote this story!’- I know things were different back in the 60s but that seems really funny to me. What makes it even more strange is that this particular story goes with the other stories where the X-Men explained their own respective powers, but with those other stories you get a sort of sense of a time frame but with Jean's story it almost reads like 'a day in the life of Jean Grey' as opposed to her explaining how her powers work. It sort of feels like a back up back up feature instead of just a back up feature- if that makes any sense.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #60 In the Shadow of… Sauron! -

(The Uncanny)X-Men #61 Monsters Also Weep-

Most of the characters from the last storyline return for a cameo just to wrap up the Sentinel part of that chapter. Lorna officially joins the X-Men as they take an injured Havok to see Dr. Lykos to help him recover from his battle with the Sentinels. Dr. Lykos gets his first full appearance since he only popped in for the very last page of the last story, and through a series of flashbacks we see his life as a child, his father, Dr. Anderssen and his daughter Tanya.  Karl Lykos has been hypnotizing his patients as a means to feed off of their energy in order to sustain his own life, but after ‘treating’ Alex Karl is transformed into Sauron and ends up hypnotizing Warren and using him to escape his battle with the X-Men. The X-Men meet Tanya (the love of Karl’s life) and follow her back to Antarctica where she tries desperately to find Karl. The only problem is it has been too long since Karl has absorbed any energy and is forced to throw himself off of a cliff in an attempt to keep from having to feed off of Tanya.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #62 Strangers in a Savage Land-

(The Uncanny)X-Men #63 War in the World Below!-

This story feels a little bit off following the events of the last story. The fault of that can be chalked up to the writing; there was a time jump between the end of the last story and the start of this one. Some of it is attempted to be explained away in a series of flashbacks with Angel so that takes care of some of that but it’s just left up to assume that the rest of the X-Men would have climbed down the cliff to look for Sauron. I’m sure they would, but it seems kind of odd considering other times when the people they’ve fought have attempted to kill themselves the X-Men just seem to move on, so it’s pretty obvious that they only went after Sauron as a plot device to get them back into the Savage Land. With the Savage Land back we also get the return of Ka-Zar and Zabu (and mentioned earlier because of the flashbacks Angel guides us through we get Tanya Anderssen, Dr. Anderssen, Lorna and Alex.) This story also beings us the return of Magneto, now going by ‘the Creator’ who after faking his death stumbled on The Savage Land and built a device that create mutants. Something has happened to Magneto though because now he is forced to wear a metal brace on his neck and arms, it could be because of his fall to his ‘death’ last time we saw him, or it could even be because he had to channel his energy for a prolonged period of time into the Magneto robot that was working with Mesmero up until recently – either way it wasn’t explained before Magneto once again ‘died’ this time trapped in an explosion of his lab. His mutant machine did bring us a few new characters: Equilibrius, Brainchild, Lupo, Gaza, Piper (who is quickly killed by Ka-Zar), Amphibius, Barbarus and Lorelei; however once Magneto’s machine is destroyed all of the Neo-Mutants return to their pre-enhanced states.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #64 The Coming of Sunfire!-

This issue introduces us to Shiro Yoshida – Sunfire, his uncle Tomo Yoshida and Shiro’s father Saburo. This is sort of a filler issue, but it’s pretty substantial all things considered. We learn that Tomo has been manipulating his nephew Shiro into blaming America for the death of his mother. In reality though Tomo was a hate filled man who couldn’t get over Saburo being willing to forgive America for the war and spends years manipulating Shiro, turning him into the perfect weapon to seek revenge. Shiro eventually sees the light which forces Tomo to kill Saburo and in turn Shiro kills his own uncle.  I liked it because this was actually the first time that the X-Men truly failed someone and that alone is a game changer. There are a few mistakes, but nothing really significant so it’s easy to over look, but you would think that 64 issues in they would stop making mistakes like calling characters by different names.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #65 Before I’d Be Slave…-

Speaking of game changers… this issue is HUGE. It turns out that Charles Xavier never died but instead he’s been held up in the basement of the mansion preparing for an intergalactic war that was on the verge of breaking out. So there’s a whole lot of ret-conning going on here. Charles isn’t dead, it was really The Changeling who contacted Charles and asked him for help in seeking redemption for the things he had done because he had just found out he was dying. Charles split his powers between Changeling and Jean (which I’m till not sure how they explain that one away, you can’t just give your powers to someone else, and this will be changed again once they get to tinkering with Jean’s own timeline, but that’s a story for a different time….) Havok officially joins the X-Men – nothing big here – just in time to fight the Z’Nox. I guess this was supposed to be a good story, I get the point of it, but some of it just seems odd. For example, Lorna stays behind with Charles while the others go fight the Z’Nox, wouldn’t it have made sense for her to go since she has magnetic powers? That could have been just as helpful as Jean’s telekinetic powers. Why did Charles have Lorna contact the X-Men when he could have just done it telepathically? Why did Charles reveal himself to Lorna and Alex of all people, when he kept everything hidden from everyone but Jean? Why tell the three most recent members of the team instead of the three original members? Like I said, there were just a few too many things that seemed weird. On the plus side (if you can call it that) we get the first appearances of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Crystal (who later goes on to marry Quicksilver.)

(The Uncanny)X-Men #66 The Mutants and the Monster-

Well this issue closes the book on the X-Men’s first set of adventures, and I’m kind of bitter sweet with it. I know they couldn’t have done a huge story since they only had one issue to spare, but it almost would have been better if the series ended with the last issue and Charles in a coma. I hate that so much of the final story was devoted to The Hulk/Bruce Banner (and a little bit of Major Glenn Talbot) the story should be about the X-Men, not other characters – but still. It’s made even stranger by the apparent connection that Charles and Bruce share, it wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t wait until the very last issue of the series to bring it up. I don’t know though, I wasn’t a big fan of the last story, but it wrapped up things that had gone on for over the past 20 plus issues, so it would have been hard to follow that up anyway let alone have to follow it up with a self contained story that has to be strong enough to bow the series out with.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #54 Wanted: Dead or Alive…Cyclops!/The Million Dollar Angel: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #55 The Living Pharaoh!/Where Angels Dare to Tread!: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #56 What is…the Power?/The Flying A-Bomb!: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #57 The Sentinels Live!/The Female of the Species!: B+

(The Uncanny)X-Men #58 Mission: Murder!: B+

(The Uncanny)X-Men #59 Do or Die, Baby!: B+

(The Uncanny)X-Men #60 In the Shadow of… Sauron!: B

(The Uncanny)X-Men #61 Monsters Also Weep: B

(The Uncanny)X-Men #62 Strangers in a Savage Land: B

(The Uncanny)X-Men #63 War in the World Below!: B

(The Uncanny)X-Men #64 The Coming of Sunfire!: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #65 Before I’d Be Slave…: C

(The Uncanny)X-Men #66 The Mutants and the Monster: D