The Uncanny X-Men #194 – Juggernaut’s Back In Town
This issue we have the first appearance of Fernis A.K.A. Andrea and Andreas von Strucker however only Andreas is named. They’re off in Africa apparently hunting and causing random trouble which Ororo stops. I liked touching bases with Ororo to see what she’s doing now that she’s powerless and trying to find herself. We also touch bases with why Charles and certain characters aren’t present because they’re off on Muir Island (off in the Legion plot) and we get a little bit more info with the whole Nimrod plot. I think I’ve said it before but I’ve always thought Nimrod was overhyped and an issue like this where he has many powers and can seemingly deal with everyone doesn’t really help with the overrated feeling. If anything makes the character more Mary Sue like. I like the idea of Rogue taking on more than one ability at a time and the type of struggle she would have to deal with because of that but I don’t really get why random parts of her body mutated. Sure it was for shock value, but I kind of wish they explained why which part took on a particular appearance. This was a good little filler issue and surprisingly I can see myself reading this one again.
Nightcrawler #1 – How much is that Boogie in the window?
Nightcrawler #2 – A Boggie Day in L’un D’un-T’wn
Nightcrawler #3 – To BAMF or not to BAMF!
Nightcrawler #4 – The Wizard of OOPs!
This particular story takes place right after Uncanny X-Men #194 but before Charles and the New Mutants return from Muir Island. At first Kurt, Kitty and Illyana are all alone in the mansion and Kurt is training himself in the danger room and forces himself not to use his teleporting abilities because there could be situations where he won’t be able to use them at all. Or course this causes Kurt to tell Kitty and Illyana all about his adventure when he was teleported to an alternate dimension with Vanisher and neither of them were able to use their powers. He tells the girls all about the Well at the Center of Time which leads Kitty to programming it into the danger room, only some how she actually manages to conjure up the real well. Kurt and Lockheed get sucked in and the two of them begin their own pirate adventure; which is actually perfect for Kurt’s character considering he’s always had a swashbuckler aspect to his character. Kurt and Lockheed stop the pirates from kidnapping a princess and the duo end up being sold to a shark creature who plans to use Kurt to learn how to teleport. The series is fun but it’s so out there in it’s comedy and sight gags that it goes past the obvious and into the ‘oh dear lord this is annoying when will it stop.’ We know that time moves differently in other dimensions which allows for this adventure to be larger than it is, but what wrecks it for me is one little blurb when we check back in with Kitty and Illyana and it says that Kurt has been missing for a few days yet the girls never once change their clothes. I don’t really understand why Illyana couldn’t use a locater spell and then just teleport to Kurt… I get that they included her because the whole story is a nod to magic and teleportation but here we have a character that can do both and she really doesn’t do anything in the story. The jokes aren’t really so much jokes as they are generic non copyright infringement based jokes off of other properties, places and people. I know that the BAMFS are supposed to be personifications from the story she told Illyana when she was a little girl – but to me they seem like sexually frustrated Smurfs. I do like the tie in to Kurt’s story from Bizarre Adventures and the referencing of Kitty’s Fairytale – it helps to sort of tie this story in with the real ones. And you could almost argue that this whole series was done for Kurt to prove to himself that he can lead the X-Men since he led an entire race of BAMFS. My only problem with the story was the ending. Did we really need to know that Illyana who is 15-17 (with all the aging and de-aging of Kitty I can’t keep track of Illyana’s age anymore) but like two years ago was only 7 has a collection of Playgirls?
The Uncanny X-Men #194 – Juggernaut’s Back In Town: A
Nightcrawler #1 – How much is that Boogie in the window?: B
Nightcrawler #2 – A Boggie Day in L’un D’un-T’wn: A
Despite the fact that Illyana is in my top five favorite Marvel comic book characters (and possibly just top 5 favorite comic book characters ever) I’ve never actually read this issue before. I had always known the basics though Belasco abducts Illyana and corrupts her and steals her soul piece by piece to form bloodstones so he can rule Limbo and through all the various Magik and Limbo-centric issues I’ve read I’ve fleshed out most of the story on my own, but it was interesting to read it. We see for the first time in an x book (in publication order) Limbo, Belasco makes his first appearance here (but he’d been in other books) and we see S’ym for the first time. Kitty gets tortured by Belasco and in a sort of alternate timeline with in the dimension Storm learns magic to save Illyana, Piotr and Logan die and Kurt becomes corrupted by Belasco and becomes a creature of pure evil. All that being said though the X-Men with the older Ororo’s help manage to free Kitty and rescue Illyana but they lose track of the little girl and once Kitty finds her again and pulls her through the closing portal that the older Ororo created Illyana is no longer a young child but a 13 year old girl. The story is very good – don’t get me wrong but it does have two things going against it for me. First of all, I think I’ve built it up so much in my head that I thought it would be better than it was. Secondly, the book feels very disjointed, in general – I’ve spoken of this before but the plots hop around a lot recently and it can be a bit confusing because it feels like there are things that have been left out. But in the end, even if I didn’t love the character so much, this issue will always bring a smile to my heart because it’s the August 1982 issue, and that’s when I was born.
Marvel Team-Up #100 – Karma!/Cry - Vengeance!
Okay this next story doesn’t really fit here because in the backup feature with Ororo Charles is up and about (but currently he’s in a coma) but I couldn’t really think of where else to fit it in. Starting with the first story we have Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four we see Xi’an “Shan” Coy Manh (Karma) for the very first time and we meet her family: her uncle General Nguyen Ngoc Coy, Xi’an’s twin brother Tran and their younger siblings Leong and Nga. Xi’an uses her mutant ability to possess Spider-Man and uses him to attack her uncle and twin brother in an attempt to take her younger siblings back from them. After much confusion and a huge battle Xi’an ends up teaming up with Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four to battle her uncle the crime lord. Xi’an goes toe to toe with Tran and ends up absorbing his essence forever bonding the two (she then takes on the name Karma) and rescuing her younger siblings from being ‘tested’ for mutant abilities and then have to suffer either growing up like Tran or a fate much worse if they were normal. The backup feature has Ororo being attacked by a sniper who was hired by Andreas deRuyter who has harbored a grudge for years after he lost a battle between himself and Ororo and T’challa when they were only twelve years old. Honestly I don’t have much to say about this story because it was kind of a weak follow up to Karma. Plus it was a little too much of the same thing: both stories involved war torn countries, attempted stealing of children and in both stories the bad guy ends up dying. It almost would have been a better plot if they swapped out Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four with Black Panther and Storm and just made it one massive story.
The Uncanny X-Men #161 – Gold Rush!
More jumbled stories here. Scott, Corsair and Carol are all around – Carol just seems to come and go, she would have done well to be in the last issue since she has had previous ties with Limbo but they left her out, yet she’s around for this issue and just a background character. Scott and Corsair have returned from visiting Alex, but there’s no mention of why Alex didn’t come back with them to see their father off. Last issue there were only mentions of Charles and the focus was on the horrible things happening to Illyana, and now this issue it’s the other way around – a brief mention of Illyana and the focus is on Charles. The ‘flashbacks’ show us Gabrielle Haller for the first time and we see what Charles did directly after his battle with Amahl Farouk and meeting Ororo as a little girl. Now there is something that bugs me we learn that Charles does indeed known Magneto (going by Magnus) and that he was in a concentration camp yet during the previous issues Charles states that he doesn’t know Magneto’s origin and even then it fluctuates between that and not knowing Magneto exists and then founding the X-Men for the soul purpose of fighting Magneto. Another thing but this is just a pet peeve of mine, I’ve gone into it before with Scott’s mother; is the name changes: Magneto, Eric, Magnus… PICK ONE! It’s different with Kitty because they are all variations of the same name and only specific characters call her specific things… Anyway, that’s not really the point. I guess the issue was good I mean the whole point of the flashbacks were to tie in to how Charles wakes up from his coma and it’s all just justification to have a big party to get the bulk of the characters together so Deathbird and the Brood can crash the party and attack everyone.
The Uncanny X-Men #162 – Beyond the Farthest Star
Okay this issue itself is pretty trippy, but given what’s going on it’s supposed to be. This is the first time we see just how powerful Logan’s healing factor can be when his body starts fighting off an egg the Brood Queen implanted within him. The issue switches between what is currently going on and a sort of drug induced haze while the egg tries to take control of Logan’s mind. One thing I find odd is why in Logan’s mind he saw Kitty figure out that ‘Lilandra’ was really the Brood Queen – maybe his brain worked it out that since Kitty is the smartest member of the team that naturally she would figure it out on her own also. We see that Deathbird also gave the Brood (at least) one of her faction of the Imperial Guard that turned against Lilandra. Fang was also implanted with a Brood egg and when it hatches we see what happens. You know, I’ve always been freaked out by the Brood but I’ve never considering the fact that when an egg hatches the hosts’ body transforms into the Brood as part of the reason why they bug me. The issue was fine but with things switching from reality to fantasy would have been easy to follow if I hadn’t been taking cold medicine for the past week.
The Uncanny X-Men #163 – Rescue Mission
Logan continues his search for his friends and stumbles on Carol who is being ‘examined’ by the Brood. I’ve always known that wasn’t entirely human but she’s not a character I’ve ever been invested in so finding out the full extent of it – but it would have been nice for a little more of a build up to why she can’t be implanted with a Brood egg. The bulk of the issue is devoted to the X-Men waking up one by one on their own with Storm clearly taking the recent events the hardest. That is until Kitty wakes up and is forced into a life or death standoff and is put in a situation where one of the Brood dies. I find it kind of interesting that now essentially every member of the current team has taken a life; it’s not surprising because the tone of the book has changed quite a bit since the series first began but it will be interesting to see if this knowledge bothers Warren as much as it did when he found out Logan ‘killed’ a robot.
The Uncanny X-Men #164 – Binary Star
The ‘testing’ that Carol underwent by the Brood activates a latent aspect of the results of her genetic code being combined with that of the member of the Kree race. Kitty almost dies in the middle of a space shootout but is saved by the Brood egg she’s carrying and Storm begins to lose control of her powers. At first she thinks it’s because she’s in space and away from the Earth but she quickly discoverers that she is carrying a Brood egg and that pretty much cases her to go crazy and in a panic Storm takes off in one of the ship’s rescue pods. Back on Earth Charles and Illyana have dinner together and it’s… odd. Charles tries to read Illyana’s mind buy he can’t – he even goes as far to question why he can’t but then decides that he just doesn’t have the time or energy to care about finding out why he can’t read her mind. There’s one scene where she asks Charles if she could be a mutant and Illyana hints that she ‘can do neat things too.’ One thing that I didn’t really care for with this issue was the fact that suddenly Carol’s new powers (and new codename ‘Binary’) just appear exactly when the team needs more firepower.
The Uncanny X-Men #165 – Transfigurations!
Well a lot happens this issue, and at the same time nothing happens too. Storm decides to commit suicide in space and technically she ‘dies’ for the first time in this issue so that’s important. But the Acanti find her and ‘join’ the two of them together. I wouldn’t really mind this and the sudden (temporary) shift in a character in space if only it hadn’t been done the issue before this with Carol and then many issues ago with Jean. It seems all the X-Men do is go into space and die, be brought back from the dead and get their powers magnified beyond their control. Back on Earth be see that Mr. Fantastic has reached out to Charles about Karma and at first Charles wants nothing to do with her until Moira suggests that they allow Magneto to train her or enroll her in Emma’s Massachusetts Academy. It turns out I must have been right in figuring out Moira’s timeline – she was indeed pregnant with her son when she and Charles were dating and when she found out she was carrying the child she left him. Kitty makes her move on Piotr, which I knew was coming. It’s not as creepy as it was a few issues ago because now they state that she’s fifteen; so 15 and 18 aren’t that far apart but it is funny how Piotr is getting younger each year and Kitty is getting older. They never should have made such a big deal about Kitty being thirteen and a half and Piotr being ‘older than the original team’ as much as they did.
The Uncanny X-Men #166 – Live Free or Die!
Yet another giant sized issue brings us yet another giant sized space battle. There are a few contradictions here that I don’t really understand. Lilandra was all ‘Phoenix must die!’ when she fed off of a star and destroyed people to live yet now that it personally effects Lilandra she’s all for killing an entire planet. This time it’s Kitty’s turn to be ‘altered’ by a space being – this time by the soul of the Acanti Prophet-Singer, although her change is the most temporary change of all (only like 2 pages maximum) by this point 4 ‘X-Men’ over the course of roughly 60 issues have experienced similar circumstances. It’s averaging out to be one every fifteen issues…. They really need to give this particular plot point a rest for a while. Broodworld is destroyed and along with it the Brood Queen, but we are far from over with this story.. she states that her death will not be ‘her true death’ and that there is someone else implanted with a Brood Queen Egg and that will hatch soon. Of course it turns out to be none other than Charles Xavier, and now It’s up to the X-Men to return to Earth in time to save him. Oh yeah, and we see Kitty's pet dragon Lockheed for the first time - although at this point he has no name and isn't Kitty's 'pet' but he does save her life.
Dazzler #17 – The Angel and the Octopus!
Doctor Octopus and the Absorbing man make their first appearances in an X-book which is okay – I guess. There are a few things here that just don’t really make any sense. First Warren just randomly shows up and wants to date Alison because her being a mutant can give him a better sense of adventure that he hasn’t gotten from dating Candy. This is weird mostly because I didn’t know that Candy and Warren had broken up to begin with, but for Warren to show up and act the way that he acted in this issue seems very out of character for him. He comes off very smarmy and forceful. The other odd thing is that Alison doesn’t recognize Warren at first, but she should know who he is. Not only is his identity public, he’s a public figure and on top of that he was an X-Man and Alison knows their real identities.There really isn't much to say about this issue, the whole plot of it involved Alison in a love triangle and I really don't want to read a 'romantic' comic but it was a decent break from the Brood saga (this story takes place while the X-Men are in space) and Warren finding the note from Jessica Drew and his desire to win Alison over by finding her mother will move that plot along so I'm thankful for that.
The Uncanny X-Men #160 – Chutes and Ladders!: A
Marvel Team-Up #100 – Karma!/Cry - Vengeance!: B
The Uncanny X-Men #161 – Gold Rush!: C
The Uncanny X-Men #166 – Beyond the Farthest Star: B
You know I’ve never read a single issue of Spider-Woman before so I don’t know what’s going on with pretty much every character involved with this story that aren’t X-Men centric. This would be a problem except for the fact that there’s a large portion of the book is devoted to flashbacks and exposition. We see what Black Tom Cassidy and Juggernaut have been up to ever since they contracted Arcade to kill the X-Men. We do get the first appearance of Siryn which actually works for me because it’s one more character that I’m already familiar with but I do wish that they had spent a little more time introducing her. Granted I needed the backstory for Spider-Woman but at the same time it’s odd that so much of the issue was devoted to exposing new readers to the exploits of Jessica Drew but Siryn has apparently working and training with her uncle Black Tom off of any book. Black Tom framing Spider-Woman for the treasury robbery he committed is nothing new (the villains are always trying to portray the hero as a bad guy) so there’s nothing much to talk about there. The X-Men go off to investigate what set Cerebro off (obviously it ends up being Siryn since Tom and Cain have already been established as characters) and end up working with Spider-Woman to clear her name and to take down the trio of villains. One thing I didn’t really like was a bit odd. I know that Tom’s identity is pretty much publicly known so by default relative would be exposed but was it really Tom’s best move to tell the X-Men in front of police to take care of his niece Theresa. It would be too easy to just track the activity of a ‘Theresa Cassidy’ and her locations at any given point could lead to the revelation of who is really an X-Man. But... maybe that was Tom’s plan all along? When I was done with this story I actually wanted to start reading all of Jessica Drew's exploits - so I guess that's a sign of good story telling.
The Uncanny X-Men #148 – Cry, Mutant
This issue takes place right after the recent Spider-Woman story. Sean, Illyana and Moira haven’t returned to their respective homes (yet Alex, Lorna, Bobby and Amanda have-,) Magneto makes his reappearance in the city that has suddenly appeared near the island that Scott and Lee have washed up on when their ship capsized. Sean meets Theresa for the first time (so first time Siryn appears in an X-book) and their instant bond bothers Moira because she’s afraid of ever having another child after what happened with her son Kevin. Jessica Drew arrives at the mansion (I’m assuming that she took Theresa there) and she, Kitty, Ororo and Stevie all go to a club to watch Dazzler perform. We get the first appearance of Caliban who is so desperate for a friend that he tries to kidnap Kitty, thankfully Storm, Spider-Woman and Dazzler manage to save Kitty and try to convince Caliban to join the X-Men. Scott and Lee bump heads when she tries to kiss him and the two fight and end up making up – oh well. One thing that’s interesting is that Illyana’s middle name is ‘Natalyanovna’ but later they end up changing it to: Nikolaevna.
The Uncanny X-Men #149 – And The Dead Shall Bury The Living
We get a series of flashbacks showing the X-Men’s various battles with Magneto over the years. Kitty tries to debut a new version of her costume which – is colorful to say the least. Charles is upset and yells at her for interrupting his ‘research’ and that she hasn’t earned an individualized costume that it comes when she graduates the school. I think that’s kind of odd because Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm, Banshee, Sunfire, Warpath and Wolverine never got the ‘school uniforms’ (they do use them later in the years as training uniforms… so I guess that counts for something) the strange thing I find about this is you can’t even argue that Kurt couldn’t wear one because of his tail hands and feet because Warren had an altered costume for his wings. Speaking of Warren – he’s still acting like a brat and won’t be an X-Man if Logan is, real convenient when Ororo is thrown down into a pit and the only ones who can save her are Kitty and Kurt. Garokk is back, he didn’t die when he and Ororo last fought, instead he was wounded and Magneto found him and he is now guarding Magneto’s old base. Kitty phases to keep Garokk from killing Ororo but it causes him to go falling over the ledge and plummeting to his death. Okay so they fixed Ororo having killed Garokk, but Kurt, Jean, Piotr, Kitty and Logan have all killed someone – it seems odd for Warren to take a stand against Logan. You can argue that Kitty was self defense, Kurt was an accident, and Piotr because he felt badly for Moira’s son dying but Jean still killed willingly and gleefully yet Warren seems to have no problem when he worked with her. Another odd thing is hearing Charles say he doesn’t know about Magneto’s origins, the history the two of them have is so intertwined that they’re almost two sides of the same character so it’s odd seeing it without the context of the retcon. Don’t get me wrong.. the issue individually is a good issue, and it’s a good starting off point for new readers – I just found it a little hard to swallow all the contextual errors that actually don’t even exist yet.
The Uncanny X-Men #150 – I, Magneto…
Okay we get some revelations with this one, we see Carol Danvers for the first time in an X-book (she’ll play a major role with certain things later on) and it was kind of odd because of the reason for her spending time with the X-Men hasn’t actually happened yet – it’s funny because there’s a blurb that basically says ‘hey this hasn’t happened yet but be sure to read it when it does’ type of thing. We learn that Ororo has indeed killed someone before when she was younger and this is something that weighs with her heavily to this day. So much so that she hesitates in slitting Magneto’s throat long enough for him to wake up and attack her. We officially learn that Magneto was a Holocaust victim after he believes that he has killed Kitty. That’s something I thought was odd too, this is a double sized issue, yet the ending is still rushed. One panel Kitty is dead and Ororo is grieving over her dead body and then the next panel Kitty is alive and well on the beach hanging out with the rest of the X-Men while they wait for their transportation to be fixed. And what makes this odd isn’t that they didn’t have room for exposition but in a double-sized issue the only room they allotted for that particular scene was a blurb that said and I quote: ‘miraculously – because she was phasing at the time – Kitty survived Magneto’s energy blast.’ Really they couldn’t have done a better job with that? Really?
Bizarre Adventures #27 Phoenix/Iceman: Winter Carnival/Nightcrawler: Show Me The Way To Go Home
This particular book gives us three full length stories each focusing on an untold tale of the X-Men. The first story starts off with Jean’s sister Sara visiting Jean’s grave and flashes back on an adventure the two of them shared shortly after Jean revealed herself as Phoenix and a mutant to Sara. We learn how Jean’s telepathic powers initially grew out of control when her childhood best friend Annie died in her arms. This then sets it up that Charles visited Jean when she became too withdrawn. We learn that Sara is afraid that her children will end up being mutants. There is a little mistake; Sara keeps talking about her son ‘Tommy’ yet Sara’s children’s names are later established as being Joey and Gailyn. Jean and Sara get abducted by Attuma – a water dweller who wants revenge on the surface world and Namor by taking mutant women from above water and umm.. basically breed them with his people to create a super powered army. The story was good, but I really didn’t need to read it at all, it was interesting to see that Jean’s mind wipe she performed on her sister to make her forget these things happened was undone when she died – I just wish that this was something that was followed up on like how she wiped Kitty’s parents minds when Emma Frost abducted the X-Men and Kitty. The next story shows us Bobby’s during his college years. He’s spending the winter break with some of his old friends (I’m not sure where they came from considering Bobby was with the X-Men since he was around 15 and stayed with the team until after he had turned 18. But the next time we see Bobby in an X-book he’s drinking beer – now assuming that he’s not doing it illegally- so it’s possible that Bobby could have met his friends in the three year gap. Bobby gets a taste of freedom and the spotlight when he’s forced to act as Iceman after someone tries to steal one of the computers from the school. He stops the thieves and participates in the winter carnival. Later Bobby learns that one of the professors staged the robbery to cover up for a real robbery later, Bobby finds out and takes the man down. I actually liked this story, probably more than Jean’s but it just seems kind of weird. The final story shows the X-Men encountering ‘half a mutant’ it turns out to be Vanisher who has only half teleported back to this world – the other half of him is trapped in another dimension. Kurt gets mixed up in it and the two of them travel through multiple realities (one of which has both of them as women, another reality has the two of them as animals) before landing in another dimension where the two of them are regarded as ‘Gods’ simply because they are men. Ultimately they end up back on Earth and whole so this isn’t really anything big – at least I don’t think so – but there was one thing I found interesting. One of the three women who declare Kurt and Vanisher ‘gods’ seems to look an awful lot like Roma – a character who is tied very closely to Excalibur down the road and is connected to Captain Britain. For me this was by far the best story out of all three, and it’s the first time that Kurt has actually felt like the version of him that I enjoyed so much as a child (he’s still not up to that point in the main book) the one thing that I could consider it to be a downside is that this story is essentially comic relief and I don’t usually go for that in comics but it really works here. And I can’t get the image and conversation Kurt has when he tries to teleport for the first time in this new dimension. All in all these stories are good, I think the only one that could be considered even remotely strong enough to stand on it’s own would be Kurt’s story but the entire issue is really a case of the sum being much greater than it’s parts.
Spider-Woman #37 – Who Am I?: A
Spider-Woman #38 – Criminal At Large: A
The Uncanny X-Men #148 – Cry, Mutant: B
The Uncanny X-Men #149 – And The Dead Shall Bury The Living: C
The Uncanny X-Men #150 – I, Magneto…: B
Bizarre Adventures #27 Phoenix/Iceman: Winter Carnival/Nightcrawler: Show Me The Way To Go Home: A
The Uncanny X-Men #139 … Something Wicked This Way Comes!
Okay we get a few new things here, first of all we see the first appearance of Heather MacNeil Hudson, who is married to James Hudson and we also meet a woman named Stevie Hunter. Warren is officially back with the X-Men now, and Kitty has joined the team. Charles wants to give her the codename Ariel but that doesn’t go over well with Kitty and she decides on Sprite instead. Ororo takes Kitty off to dance classes so she can have some sense of a regular life. Stevie and Ororo don’t seem to get along well, but I don’t know if anything will ever come of that. Logan returns to Canada to deal with the fact that the Canadian government is after him. He takes Kurt along with him and after they spend some time with Heather Kurt learns Wolverine’s real name. Logan, Kurt and the remaining members of Alpha Flight (half of the team is busy off book fighting someone else): Vindicator, Snowbird and Shaman team up to fight Wendigo who has taken a woman and a baby after apparently killing a man and reducing a boy to a catatonic state. The issue ends with Kurt being ambushed by Wendigo. I don’t know what to think about this particular story… it is nice to see the things switched up a bit and focus on different characters but it did feel a little odd. Especially since Ororo’s attitude has completely changed since the issue before.
The Uncanny X-Men #140 Rage!
This issue picks up right where the last one left off. Kurt is struggling to get away from Wendigo, Kitty is still in dance classes, Stevie and Ororo still don’t get along…. Kitty tells Ororo how much fun she has using her powers, which doesn’t go over well with Ororo because she’s afraid that someone will see Kitty using her powers. Piotr and Warren bond a bit but other than that we don’t see too much of any of the X-Men who are still in the US. Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Vindicator, Shaman and Snowbird hunt the Wendigo in the woods and eventually track him down. Logan beats the beast into a bloody pulp but it doesn’t end up being enough which forces Snowbird to transform into a real wolverine and give in to it’s animal instincts and wound the Wendigo enough to leave him unconscious long enough for shaman to perform a spell that will turn him back into a human being. The issue ends with Logan being cleared and no longer hunted by the Canadian government (according to Vindicator,) Wendigo (who is now simply Georges Baptiste) being taken to prison and the government pulling the plug on Alpha Flight forcing the team to disband. Finally we see Blob escape from the maximum security prison he has been in ever since he was taken into custody (I’m assuming that it was when the Mutants were rounded up when the Sentinel program was briefly reinstated (some 50+ issues ago but who knows for sure….) after his lawyer gives him a device that will destroy the cell. The lawyer tells Blob that if he can escape the prison he will officially be accepted into the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
The Uncanny X-Men #139 … Something Wicked This Way Comes!: B
Well this issue borrows heavily from La Divina Commedia, so it’s basically Dante’s Inferno X-Men style. We do get some things cleared up here – not that they needed being cleared up, because by this point things that I’m aware of haven’t yet happened. Kurt celebrates his 21st birthday which is odd because the new team is supposed to be older age wise than the first team and Jean was 24, yet Kurt is 21? Anyway this issue takes place directly after Scott leaves the team so it’s still part of The Dark Phoenix Saga. Kitty is struggling to find her place at the Institute – so that only helps to ‘date’ this story. We see Margali Szardos for the first time and learn of ‘The Winding Way’ both of which play larger roles much farther down the line. We learn that Margali had a biological son Stefan and daughter Jimaine in addition to taking in Kurt as a baby. Stefan had become corrupt and in a heated battle with Kurt Stefan ended up breaking his neck and Kurt takes the blame for his death. We find out that all of this happens prior to Charles finding Kurt, and that’s why the villagers were chasing Kurt. It turns out that Jimaine is actually Amanda Sefton – the girl Kurt has been dating. They explain the reason why Kurt couldn’t recognize her was because she had used a spell to mask her identity. One thing that isn’t explained though is why Charles couldn’t sense that Amanda wasn’t who she had claimed to be. Granted he didn’t have much interaction with her (or any on panel at all) but Jean did, she should have been able to tell even without the additional power of Phoenix. Another thing that seems odd is that Margali mentions finding a newborn Kurt who was laying next to his dying biological mother.. granted this gets retconned out when they reveal that Mystique is Kurt’s mother.
What If? #27 What If The Phoenix Had Not Died?
Well this is interesting, mostly because part of this ‘What If’ stems from the original end to The Dark Phoenix Saga in which Jean doesn’t commit suicide but instead is basically lobotomized by the Shi-ar. Jean stays with the X-Men, struggling with her place within the team (so is Kitty, who since Jean is alive Ororo has a friendship with her instead of her friendship with Kitty) eventually becoming the person who runs the danger room programs and sort of acts as the teams pilot. The team goes off to battle Galactus and his herald Terrax the Tamer. Jean witnesses Scott get hurt and that unleashes Phoenix yet again. She depowers Terrax and is offered the position of Gelactus’ new herald she turns him down and the team returns to Earth. Jean struggles with her power and eventually ventures out into space and starts feeding off of asteroids eventually working her way up to a small star. Meanwhile Kitty has been spending all her time with Charles and the two form a close bond – especially when Charles begins to suffer bouts of illness, during a monitoring exercise Kitty and Charles watch Jean feed off of the star and kitty confronts Phoenix when she returns to Earth. This is where it all goes to hell… Phoenix quickly turns to Dark Phoenix when confronted with what just happened and incinerates Kitty in front of the X-Men’s eyes. Next Dark Phoenix destroys Charles’ mind leaving his body nothing but a vegetable, she telekinetically crushes Warren’s skull, buries Ororo alive, crushes Bobby, sets Kurt on fire, uses Logan’s claws to puncture Piotr’s heart and then burns Logan to death, she also incinerates Lorna, she uses Scott’s powers to kill Alex. Finally she uses her powers to kill Scott but that proves too much for Jean and she regains control over Phoenix and in her grief destroys the entire world.
What If? #33 What If The Phoenix Had Not Died?
This ‘what if’ also comes from the original plot of Phoenix not committing suicide but instead had been lobotomized. However unlike the story before this one we see yet another scenario. This time Scott stays with the X-Men, only he divides his time with his new wife Jean. Jean hasn’t been doing well at all, she feels as if part of her soul had been ripped from her and relives the time she ate a star leading to the deaths of over five billion people. This leads Jean to a suicide attempt that fails, partly because Scott stops her and partly because Magneto crashes their honeymoon and takes Jean to Asteroid M. He tempts Jean with the offer to bring back her powers as Phoenix. While the X-Men battle Magneto Jean almost gives in to temptation but destroys his machine. Later back on Earth Jean returns to the mansion only to find it empty, and shortly after she is confronted by Mastermind who wants his revenge on Jean. Only it’s not Mastermind it is in fact the Shadow King who has sensed that The Phoenix Force will be more than enough to sustain him. He kills Jean and takes her newborn daughter Rachel. The physical death of Jean’s body leads her to discover that she isn’t Jean at all; she is in fact Phoenix and always has been. She goes to the underwater location where she had stored the real Jean’s body. Afraid that Phoenix will lose Scott forever she simply wishes that she didn’t exist and Jean dies.
What If? #34 What If Phoenix Rose Again?
While this story basically picks up right where the last issue left off it could also stand as a singular issue given the basis of this series. Phoenix battles Shadow King who now possesses an aged version of her daughter Rachel who also contains the Phoenix Force. Phoenix finds that her own ability cannot work against her daughter because she is a ‘chosen heir.’ Phoenix changes her tactics and focuses strictly on Shadow King and expels him from Rachel’s body. After de-aging Rachel Phoenix finds that Mastermind has killed himself rather than have to fight Phoenix again. Phoenix and Rachel return to the mansion only to be surprised by all the X-Men, she lies to Scott about what happened. Phoenix struggles to be as human as possible; Robert Kelly is elected president and begins his anti-mutant hysteria. Phoenix mind wipes the president and forces him to take a pro-mutant stance. Shortly after Kelly is assassinated on live TV, this leads to the reinstatement of the Sentinels who have been programmed to kill all super heroes – mutant or not. While the super powered population shrinks Rachel begins to have memories of what happened when she was possessed by the Shadow King and had to fight her mother and tells Logan about it. Logan goes to confront ‘Jean’ and after becoming enraged Phoenix reveals her true self. It turns out this was all a set up between Scott and Logan and after being ‘outted’ Phoenix leaves seemingly for good. The mansion becomes a haven for all mutants while the world is falling apart. The Sentinels soon ambush the mansion and kill several mutants in the process, after going on the run Phoenix arrives yet again and works out a plan where she will destroy all of the Sentinels with the X-Men’s help. Once destroyed Phoenix asks Destiny what her possible futures hold, once Destiny reveals that all of the paths of Phoenix’s future lead to death and destruction Phoenix leaves for the deep end of space wondering if it would be best if she had just allowed Jean to die.
Marvel Treasury Edition #27 Joyride Into Jeopardy!
The final leg of this journey is a brief back up feature in the Marvel Treasury Edition showing Warren just before he rejoins the X-Men. This isn’t really anything major, and it’s not supposed to be. He’s flying around and is attacked by a man who lost everything he had once Warren’s father shut down his company. It’s just a quick battle, there’s not room for much of anything considering it is only six pages long so before you can even get really into it the story is over. While I probably never will read this particular story again I wouldn’t be opposed to them going back and telling an extended version of this tale. With it being as short as it is it suffers from of a case of ‘what it lacks in plot it makes up for in lack of plot;’ this could easily be fixed by fleshing it out and making it a bit longer. Personally I wouldn't have chosen to close out this storyline with this particular story, but it is the final time we see Warren before he rejoins the X-Men so this is the only place that it would have fit.
Uncanny X-Men Annual #4 Nightcrawler’s Inferno: B
What If? #27 What If The Phoenix Had Not Died?: A
What If? #33 What If The Phoenix Had Not Died?: A
What If? #34 What If Phoenix Rose Again?: A
Marvel Treasury Edition #27 Joyride Into Jeopardy!: C
Okay things are starting to heat up here. The X-Men finally leave Muir Island, only they leave Sean behind to help with Moira. Scott asks Lorna and Alex if they will come back to the team but they refuse so he tries his luck with Jamie who also turns him down. Jean’s flashbacks to ‘her other life’ are coming more frequently and are starting to get harder to snap out of, however she decides for now not to tell any of her friends about it. Charles is now back on Earth at the mansion and after learning of everyone’s survival he steps back up as the leader of the team. This doesn’t go over too well with Logan who ends up storming out, and Scott doesn’t fare much better because Charles basically calls him a failure and tells him he is disappointed in how he has chosen to lead the team in Charles’ absence. Cerebro goes off detecting two new mutants and Charles decides to split the team up to go after each of the emerging mutants. Meanwhile we get the first official appearances of The Hellfire Club, The Inner Circle, and Emma Frost – The White Queen herself. In a shadowed meeting we also meet Harry Leland, Donald Pierce and Sebastian Shaw, but they’ll have their first full on appearances soon enough. In this issue we also see Kitty Pryde and her parents Carmen and Terri for the first time. I find it interesting that according to Kitty she’s only thirteen and a half – this is a little creepy considering that Piotr is well over eighteen and I know eventually the two of them get together. On another note though if this is 1979 and Kitty is 13 ½ which means she was born in 1966 and as of today that would make her 44 years old. Man comic book timelines are screwy. Speaking of screwy there are a few things that don’t really track… why doesn’t Cerebro register Jason Wyngarde or Emma Frost? Why doesn’t Charles recognize Emma as a mutant and a telepath when they briefly encounter each other when they both attempt to recruit Kitty for their ‘schools.’ The issue ends with Emma ambushing and kidnapping Logan, Ororo and Piotr after the failure of three armored units to kidnap Kitty Pryde. Emma informs a man named Cutler – it will be hard to keep track of anyone in the Hellfire Club since all of the Inner Circle’s henchmen wear the black and red outfits with the expressionless masks – that failure is not something The Hellfire Club will accept and triggers bombs planted within each of the three armored units… well armor. The back up issue shows exactly how Kitty ended up stowing away on Emma’s hovercraft. Again we get some funky art which once again I can excuse because it’s a dreamscape of a thirteen year old girl who just experienced the shock of her life… I do find it a little odd that everyone in Kitty’s dreamscape was female, including a wheelchair bound woman who was clearly supposed to represent Charles. Despite the fact that the Classics cover bills this as part of The Dark Phoenix Saga it is still largely considered to be part of the Proteus storyline because The Dark Phoenix Saga doesn’t officially start until Uncanny X-Men #132 when Jean becomes The Black Queen of The Inner Circle.
The Uncanny X-Men #130 Dazzler
Classic X-Men #36 Outside In
I’m not really sure where the back up story is supposed to fit in but obviously it takes place after the X-Men return to the states. Moira is naturally having trouble moving past the deaths of her son and husband is using all of her previous research to try to find a way to bring Kevin back and give him a peaceful powerless life. The story does clear up a little bit of the confusion with this retcon of her being married. Now it’s clear that Moira married Joe, he was an abusive man to the point where one night he raped her and got her pregnant – I’m assuming that since he knew nothing about the child that this is when she took off for the states and sought out a divorce and met Charles and she leaves him before she starts showing. It helps to flesh out her background and explain why she suddenly left Charles back in the day, but over the years Charles' backstory gets so muddled with that I almost hate this one simply because I know it's only the start of historical retcons yet to come. The main story shows Scott, Kurt and Jean off to find the other mutant that Cerebro discovered – this time it turns out to be a young woman who is a disco singer going by the name Dazzler. We learn that the reason why The Hellfire Club knows so much about the X-Men and how their abilities work is because they used Warhawk to bug the mansion when he attacked them 20 issues ago. Jean is continuing to experience her time slips each one is getting progressively worse, now it’s at te point where they are happening right in front of Scott and it’s getting harder and harder for Jean to snap out of them. Scott and Jean save Alison Blaire (Dazzler) and she agrees to help them rescue Kitty and the rest of the X-Men from Emma Frost.
The Uncanny X-Men #131 Run For Your Life!
Classic X-Men #37 Was Not What Will Be
What the heck, I’ll start with the back up feature again. I didn’t really like it. A lot of it was used to ‘date’ Alison to stress that she character is all about the late 70s and 1980 – I could have done with out it. The other half of it was used to show that Alison isn’t your typical rock star, that she keeps up with current events and can engage in a well spoken debate. Honestly I would rather have had this just be a few additional pages in some story instead of it being an entire back up feature. The big confrontation between the X-Men and Emma frost continues. Alison, Kurt, Jean, Kitty and Scott storm Emma and her troops to free Ororo, Piotr, Logan and Charles. Kitty gets her first interaction with Logan – which will build into him eventually mentoring her, and is smitten with Piotr. Emma faces off against Phoenix in a battle to end, ultimately Emma proves no match for Phoenix and she uses the last reserve of her power to bring down the entire building they are in. At the end everyone is safe and accounted for except for Emma and the X-Men believe that she committed suicide rather than become the X-Men’s prisoners. Back at Kitty’s house Jean uses her abilities to completely wipe out Kitty’s parents memories and create new ones for them in which they are very close to allowing Kitty to join Charles’ school – this doesn’t go over well with Scott and Ororo. Meanwhile Alison decides that her place isn’t with the X-Men and Charles trusts her enough not to reveal any of their secret identities and she departs off on her own adventure and her own title. I do find it just a little bit odd that Jean would go to the lengths of doing that to Kitty's parents, yet she doesn't do anything about the fact that Dazzler knows the identities of the X-Men. And it is a little odd that everyone is so concerned with Jean wiping out people's minds when Charles has done that in the past before for example with Blob and they didn't even bat an eyelash at that.
Amazing Spider-Man #203 Bewitched, Bothered and Be-Dazzled!
Welcome to the pit stop Alison makes before she starts her own title. Dazzler is performing in New York and is chased through the city by a giant ball of light, Spider-Man tries to save her but she wants nothing to do with him. It turns out that the giant ball of light is Lightmaster who has been trapped in a different dimension and is being called back to Earth by Alison’s powers. He plans to use her like a living battery that can keep him on Earth and in power for the rest of his life. Spider-Man interferes and as a result it causes Lightmaster’s device to backfire and instead of using Dazzler as a battery he is now possessing her. The now possessed Dazzler and Spider-Man fight but he quickly gets the upper hand and uses the device once again to separate Dazzler and LIghtmaster and send him back to the light dimension. The problem with this issue is that it is in a main title so a lot of it is devoted to aspects of Peter's life that don't really move the 'mash up' plot along which leads to an all too quick resolution for the plot. We spend a large part of the issue dealing with Alison being chased and then possessed and then in one page Peter solves the problem.
The Uncanny X-Men #129 God Spare the Child…: B
Classic X-Men #35 Paper, Not Paper: D
The Uncanny X-Men #130 Dazzler: A
Classic X-Men #36 Outside In: A
The Uncanny X-Men #131 Run For Your Life!: A
Classic X-Men #37 Was Not What Will Be: D
Amazing Spider-Man #203 Bewitched, Bothered and Be-Dazzled!: B
(The Uncanny)X-Men #101 Like A Phoenix, From the Ashes!
Classic X-Men #9 The Gift
The X-Men return to Earth crashing in the water and Jean suddenly rises from the water in a brand new costume and screams that she is ‘Phoenix’ (so we get the first appearance of Phoenix II here) before passing out and falling back into the water. The additional pages show the X-Men leaving as Ororo masks their getaway through fog and Peter Corbeau covers for them telling everyone that only he survived the crash and the crew he left with (the X-Men in disguise) all perished. The one thing that I really don’t like and honestly it’s some hate that I’ve got left over from the old X-Men Animated Series where even before Jean transformed into Phoenix she would just randomly pass out and faint. I couldn’t stand that, and I know that it happens a lot while ‘Jean’ is Phoenix but I’m not looking forward to that at all. The back up story actually takes place in the middle of the main story while Jean is critical condition in a coma. Kurt spies a boy out walking around in the late hours of the night/early hours of the morning. They bond and Kurt teaches him how to juggle in an attempt to get Daniel to open up about what is going on. They each have a profound effect on each other, so much so that Kurt shows Daniel who he really is without the image inducer. It’s a little odd because in the end the boy dies and it gets iffy because Kurt was speaking with the boy when he was really dead. So was Daniel a mutant himself, or was he a ghost who was seeking out Kurt who was going through a crisis of faith? You could argue either because Daniel tells Kurt that Jean will indeed be fine (and ultimately she was.) With Jean now awake, Charles insists that the X-Men go on vacation while Scott, Moira and Charles himself stay behind. The newer members of the team go off to Sean’s newly inherited castle only to find an ambush waiting thanks to Sean’s cousin Black Tom Cassidy and The Juggernaut.
(The Uncanny)X-Men #102 Who Will Stop The Juggernaut?
Classic X-Men #10 Tag, Sucker!
We learn a few new things in the battle over Cassidy Keep; we see Kurt first use his ability to blend into shadows, we officially learn of Ororo’s claustrophobia, we learn that Sean was once an Interpol agent and a series of flashbacks show us David and N’Dare Munroe, Ororo’s parents. We learn that her father was a journalist while her mother was a real African Princess, so while over the years we learn that Ororo isn’t indeed a Goddess she is at the very least nobility. We also see her young days as a thief where she worked for Achmed El-Gibar. The additional pages show us Charles being driven even more insane than he already thinks he is when he keeps seeing the armored alien and he confides in Moira that he feels his powers are driving him insane. The editing of the story clears up a few things to make the characters not so ‘dated’ because in the original story it established that Ororo was born in 1951 which would make her 59 now- so obviously they needed to cut that part out. The back up story shows Logan wandering around New York unwillingly playing a game of tag with Sabertooth, the story was alright but I could have done without ever reading it. It doesn’t help that I’m not entirely sure where this story is supposed to take place. Does it happen roughly the same time Kurt is wandering the city with Daniel, or does it happen shortly after Logan joins the team but before Jean becomes Phoenix, or does it happen afterthe X-Men return from Cassidy Keep?
(The Uncanny)X-Men #103 The Fall of The Tower
Classic X-Men #11 Hope
Oh.. okay.. Cassidy Keep is full of Leprechauns, one of which works for Sean. Yeah, okay… moving right along then. We learn that Black Tom and Juggernaut were sought out by Eric the Red in an attempt to take the X-Men down to keep the ‘Princess’ from reaching them. We get our first look at Emperor D’Ken who has sort of contracted Eric the Red to make sure Princess Neramani doesn’t arrive on Earth. D’Ken is none too pleased that BlackTom and Juggernaut fail, but Eric tells him that he has already made arrangements with the X-Men’s oldest foe (so obviously Magneto) to take a crack at them next. The additional pages show the armored alien continuing to reach out to Charles which drives him deeper into madness. It doesn’t help that Charles can feel Ororo’s pain and gets into a huge fight with Scott trying to get him to take down Juggernaut only to have Scott refuse to leave Jean’s side. I’ve got to admit, I’m not a big fan of the back up story. We see Ororo in England, which means that the story could take place before the X-Men return to the states, or it could have been set in an entirely different timeframe. Storm meets Phil Halloran, a writer who is contemplating taking his own life because he just doesn’t have passion when it comes to writing anymore. There’s a killer at large who has been targeting women, and goes after Ororo who is in turn saved by Phil. It’s a story that tries to be too powerful and relevant for my tastes, plus it doesn’t fit in with the current storyline and for it to have happened so soon after the Kurt and Daniel story makes it redundant. It just is and honestly I really didn’t like it in context, out of context it might be better, but it doesn’t belong set around this timeline.
(The Uncanny)X-Men #104 The Gentleman’s Name is Magneto
Classic X-Men #12 A Fire in the Night
This is the first time Magneto battles the new X-Men which leads to some interesting revelations. We see the Muir Island Mutant Research Facility for the first time and learn just how much Moira gave up to become the Xavier Institute’s ‘housekeeper.’ We learn that this place has held several mutants prisoner, presumably because a regular prison cannot contain them and their powers. We see Jamie Madrox (Multiple Man) who has been in charge since Moira left. Magneto who had been turned into a baby has been re-aged –I guess this could take care of the fact that he should be well over 100 within the current time line, but it’s hard to retcon him too much because of his origin story. We finally get the reveal of the armored alien as being none other than (Princess) Lilandra Neramani; we see the return of John and Elaine Grey who have come to welcome Jean back to her apartment she shares with Misty Knight (it’s hard to keep track of all the retcons, flashbacks, hidden years, shoehorned in events, and additional pages but I think this is the first appearances of Misty within the X-Men title) only for the issue to end with Erik the Red, Havok and Polaris who are still under Erik’s mind control watching Jean through her apartment window. We see The Starjammers for the first time, although not all of them… however we do get Ch’Od, ‘Christopher’ (long story, many twists, turns, and retcons for him too so I won’t get into that now but he is ultimately the character known as Corsair,) and Cr+eee. Magneto fails in his battle with the X-Men but there’s something awakening behind a door labeled ‘Mutant X;’ and the X-men realize that someone is trying to divide them all in order to make Charles vulnerable enough to succumb to an attack. Having figured this out the X-Men now understand that they need to get back to Charles as quickly as possible. The back up story takes place directly after Magneto has been defeated. He has fled to Paris and in a dream we learn exactly how Magneto and his wife Magda’s child Anya died in a fire and how Magda left her husband after the death of their daughter and seeing him murder everyone around their burning home becomes too much for her to deal with. Naturally this means that he wakes up only to find another apartment burning and another mother and child trapped within it. He decides to save them which lays the foundation for him slowly moving away from the ‘evil villain’ to the ‘tragic figure pushed too far’ type of character. We do get to see a photograph or Eric, ‘Gabby’ and Charles back in ‘happier’ times. I don’t like this idea that Eric knew all along that Charles was trying to manipulate him with his mutant powers, I don’t see it actually happening, but I do see how from Magneto’s perspective that would be how he would look at it.
Iron Fist #14 Snowfire
Okay I’ll be the first to admit I know less than next to nothing about Iron Fist (I’m weird, I love the Marvel Universe, but I hate anything not tied to the X-Men at all) so I have no idea what the heck is going on with 90% of this issue. I only know that Iron Fist and Colleen (whoever she is) are tied to Misty Knight who is currently roommates with Jean and that this battle is the first time we ever see Sabertooth – you can’t count the backup feature in the recent Classics book because while it takes place before this issue it hasn’t actually been written yet. Like I said I only read this because it’s the first appearance of Sabertooth and I figured because he’s such a huge figure in the X-Men mythos that I had to read it, plus if I sat through Logan’s introduction in The Incredible Hulk I could sit through this. It was kind of blah for a story, it might be better if I was invested in it at all, but I don’t think I’ll ever reread it, and I’m not looking forward to the next time this character pops up in the X-Men’s time line (unfortunately it’s going to be the very next issue.)
(The Uncanny)X-Men #101 Like A Phoenix, From the Ashes!: B
Classic X-Men #9 The Gift: A
(The Uncanny)X-Men #102 Who Will Stop The Juggernaut?: B
Classic X-Men #10 Tag, Sucker!: D
(The Uncanny)X-Men #104 The Fall of The Tower: B
Classic X-Men #11 Hope: D
(The Uncanny)X-Men #104 The Gentleman’s Name is Magneto: B
This issue we have the first appearance of Fernis A.K.A. Andrea and Andreas von Strucker however only Andreas is named. They’re off in Africa apparently hunting and causing random trouble which Ororo stops. I liked touching bases with Ororo to see what she’s doing now that she’s powerless and trying to find herself. We also touch bases with why Charles and certain characters aren’t present because they’re off on Muir Island (off in the Legion plot) and we get a little bit more info with the whole Nimrod plot. I think I’ve said it before but I’ve always thought Nimrod was overhyped and an issue like this where he has many powers and can seemingly deal with everyone doesn’t really help with the overrated feeling. If anything makes the character more Mary Sue like. I like the idea of Rogue taking on more than one ability at a time and the type of struggle she would have to deal with because of that but I don’t really get why random parts of her body mutated. Sure it was for shock value, but I kind of wish they explained why which part took on a particular appearance. This was a good little filler issue and surprisingly I can see myself reading this one again.
Nightcrawler #1 – How much is that Boogie in the window?
This particular story takes place right after Uncanny X-Men #194 but before Charles and the New Mutants return from Muir Island. At first Kurt, Kitty and Illyana are all alone in the mansion and Kurt is training himself in the danger room and forces himself not to use his teleporting abilities because there could be situations where he won’t be able to use them at all. Or course this causes Kurt to tell Kitty and Illyana all about his adventure when he was teleported to an alternate dimension with Vanisher and neither of them were able to use their powers. He tells the girls all about the Well at the Center of Time which leads Kitty to programming it into the danger room, only some how she actually manages to conjure up the real well. Kurt and Lockheed get sucked in and the two of them begin their own pirate adventure; which is actually perfect for Kurt’s character considering he’s always had a swashbuckler aspect to his character. Kurt and Lockheed stop the pirates from kidnapping a princess and the duo end up being sold to a shark creature who plans to use Kurt to learn how to teleport. The series is fun but it’s so out there in it’s comedy and sight gags that it goes past the obvious and into the ‘oh dear lord this is annoying when will it stop.’ We know that time moves differently in other dimensions which allows for this adventure to be larger than it is, but what wrecks it for me is one little blurb when we check back in with Kitty and Illyana and it says that Kurt has been missing for a few days yet the girls never once change their clothes. I don’t really understand why Illyana couldn’t use a locater spell and then just teleport to Kurt… I get that they included her because the whole story is a nod to magic and teleportation but here we have a character that can do both and she really doesn’t do anything in the story. The jokes aren’t really so much jokes as they are generic non copyright infringement based jokes off of other properties, places and people. I know that the BAMFS are supposed to be personifications from the story she told Illyana when she was a little girl – but to me they seem like sexually frustrated Smurfs. I do like the tie in to Kurt’s story from Bizarre Adventures and the referencing of Kitty’s Fairytale – it helps to sort of tie this story in with the real ones. And you could almost argue that this whole series was done for Kurt to prove to himself that he can lead the X-Men since he led an entire race of BAMFS. My only problem with the story was the ending. Did we really need to know that Illyana who is 15-17 (with all the aging and de-aging of Kitty I can’t keep track of Illyana’s age anymore) but like two years ago was only 7 has a collection of Playgirls?
