Waiting for the Trade - X-men

Waiting for the Trade

by Bill Miller

 

Marvel Masterworks Uncanny X-Men vol. 11

by Chris Claremont & Dave Cockrum with Len Wein
collects Giant Size X-men #1 and X-men 94-100
 

Why Bought This: Surprisingly this was in the discount bin of my favorite local comic store. I’d never read these issues before despite their importance to comic book history, so when I saw this on sale I was like why not?

 

The Plot – Now classic X-men heroes Wolverine, Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler join the team as Chris Claremont begins his legendary run on the title.

 

Chapter 1 – In Germany a mob with pitchforks and torches is about to kill Nightcrawler when Professor X saves him and recruits him for the X-men. He then recruits Wolverine away from the Canadian government, former X-men foe Banshee, Storm out of Africa where she was being worshipped as a goddess, Sunfire (whom he is previously acquainted with) from Japan, Colossus off a farm in Russia and Thunderbird off an Indian reservation. He introduces the new recruits to Cyclops, who recalls how the current X-men team (Jean Grey, Ice-man, Angel, Havok and Polaris) met defeat on Krakoa while looking for a new mutant. Cyclops had his powers drained but managed to escape, and now he and Professor X need these new X-men to mount a rescue mission. Cyclops’ powers return and he leads the new team to Krakoa. They split into groups of two to search the island and each group is attacked by natural phenomena like vines or rock slides. They eventually all find their way to a temple where the original X-men are being held hostage and their powers drained by vines. When they free them the island rumbles and comes to life as Krakoa itself is the mutant detected by Cerebro. New and old X-men unite to throw every super power they have at Krakoa to little effect. From across the Atlantic Professor X lends a telepathic hand, which hurts the creature. Storm, Cyclops and Havok feed energy into Polaris to enhance her magnetic powers and she then hurls the creature into orbit.

Chapter 2 – Professor X offers the new heroes permanent membership on the team. All but Sunfire accept, who then goes home to Japan. With the plethora of new members available all of the originals except Cyclops quit noting they enrolled in Prof. X’s mutant school as teens and now they are adults and want civilian lives. Scott and Jean share a kiss before she departs. We get a training montage in the Danger Room as Scott forms the new recruits into a team, although Thunderbird’s pride sees him have trouble fitting in. Meanwhile a group of five animal people named the Ani-men take over NORAD under orders from Count Nefaria (at this time just a rich crime lord and not the Superman-inspired powerhouse he would later become in The Avengers). The military calls the Avengers for assistance, but they are on a mission so Beast refers the call to the X-men. They fly the Blackbird to NORAD, where Nefaria shoots it down forcing the X-men to bail out sans parachute in mid-air.

Chapter 3 – With only Storm and Banshee able to fly (and only by gliding on wind and sound currents) and only Colossus able to survival the fall the team is literally short-handed as Storm can only carry two people and Banshee only one and they have four non-flyers. As leader Cyclops orders the others rescued first and Banshee is able to come back for him at the last possible moment. Nightcrawler teleports into NORAD only to be attacked by a frog man. They have a battle of dueling acrobatics that Nightcrawler wins. He then opens the hatch-door for the rest of the X-men but once inside Nefaria gasses them. The team breaks through a wall to escape. They are attacked by hypnotized soldiers, whom Storm takes care of with wind and rain. Next all five Ani-Men attack (a gorilla, frog, cat, dragonfly and bird) and after four pages of battle the X-men win. Nefaria attempts to escape in a fighter jet and Thunderbird jumps on the wing. The plane explodes in mid-air and Thunderbird dies.

Chapter 4 – Cyclops is blaming himself for Thunderbird’s death alone in the woods. He loses his temper and shoots off an optic blast which happens to damage an obelisk. The others are practicing in the Danger Room when Wolvie loses his temper and tries to kill Nightcrawler, who teleports away. Banshee chastises Wolvie, then goes with Prof X to meet new housekeeper Moria MacTaggurt with whom Banshee is instantly smitten. We cut to Scott Lang, who is maniacally building Sentinels for the government only to be confronted by some military commander who intends to shut the project down. Back at the X-Mansion Cyclops is suddenly thrown through a wall from outside by a demon he awoke at the obelisk. Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler each attacking it one at a time with marginal effectiveness until Wolvie steps up, goes berserk and slices it to death. The demon however resurrects by draining off a portion of the life-force of those in the room to do so. Pro X tries to read its mind and is nearly driven insane until Banshee intercedes. Pro X did discover the Obelisk is its weakness during the telepathy so Storm flies out to it and blows it up with lightening killing the first of what will be many demons over the years.

Chapter 5 – Prof X is having nightmares that he is an alien exile. He confides in Moria when he awakens. Meanwhile an unseen foe surprises Havok and Polaris at home, defeating and hypnotizing them with ease. At the airport the X-men are meeting Jean Grey’s plane as she comes to visit only to be attacked by Havok and Polaris. In the course of the fight Havok blows up some planes. The mystery villain is revealed as Eric the Red (apparently a former identity of Cyclops). As the fight continues Polaris nearly kills Jean and Storm, while Cyclops is forced to fight his own brother. Nightcrawler and Colossus try to fight Red but he proves to be just as strong as Colossus and hits him with a plane. Storm loses her temper and electrocutes Polaris. Even hypnotized this pisses off Havok, who blasts Cyclops and then tends to Lorna. When Prof X and Wolvie arrive, Red sees the numbers are not in their favor and the villains retreat. Cyclops has a chance to shoot Havok to stop him but can’t bring himself to do it causing Wolverine to criticize him.

Chapter 6 – It’s Christmas and the X-men are shopping in their secret identities when they are attacked by Sentinels. Jean is captured and Cyclops finds himself hanging from a building but is saved by Storm. Storm uses a hurricane to defeat one but has to stop because they are in the middle of NYC. Banshee and Wolverine are captured off-camera and the robots retreat. Meanwhile Prof X is on vacation in the Caribbean when he too is attacked by a Sentinel. For some reason his telepathy actually shuts it down but then he has an alien nightmare again (while awake) and another Sentinel is able to capture him. Scott Lang is gloating over the captured X-men. He slaps Jean which annoys Wolvie enough to break his bonds. He destroys a Sentinel then frees Jean and Banshee but not Prof X since they don’t have his wheelchair and there are more Sentinels to fight. They destroy a bunch but when they break a hole through the wall to escape they discover they are in outer space.

Chapter 7 – The three heroes are about to die in the vacuum of space when a Sentinel retrieves them. Lang gloats how there is no escape. The remaining X-men figure out where their teammates are being held and somehow arrange a space shuttle launch to save them. The shuttle is attacked by Sentinels and breached, sucking Storm (in a space suit) out into space. The remaining heroes ram the shuttle into Lang’s base. A Sentinel attacks Storm, who discovers her powers are far stronger in space as she can manipulate stellar storms of cosmic energy. In the base the heroes defeat some more Sentinels then rejoice when Storm turns up alive. Jean is able to sense Scott and telepathically let him know she and Prof X are in a different cell block than Banshee and Wolverine. Scott sends everyone else to Wolvie while going for Jean and the Prof himself. He finds Lang and pummels him with his fists for taking Jean hostage; until Lang is assisted by an unseen foe to take them down. The rest of the new X-men come looking for Scott only to find him with original team in their original costumes out for blood.

Chapter 8 – We get a big fight between the two X-men teams that leads to the first ever Wolvie-Colossus fastball special. Wolvie manages to fight his way to Prof X (who is working with the originals) and confronts him on what is going on. Prof X rises from his wheelchair and decks Wolvie. Jean then uses telepathy on Wolverine. This reverts Wolvie to animal mode and he disembowels Xavier, revealing a robot. We see Lang still has the real Scott, Jean, Pro X and their astronaut pilot prisoner. Cyclops escapes and he and Lang fight while the new X-men finish up the original X-men robots (aka X-Sentinels). Lang gets more irrational as the fight goes on, and ultimately kills himself when he tries to kamikaze attack Cyclops with a hovercraft. The heroes still have to get back to Earth but there are severe solar/cosmic ray storms and their shuttle’s shielding has been damaged around the ship’s navigation controls. Jean realizes she is the only one who can pilot the ship as she uses telepathy to read the pilots mind to teach herself how to fly the ship and then hopes her TK force field will protect her from the solar storm as she pilots the craft while the others are shielded. Scott and Wolvie both try to talk her out of it but she mind zaps Scott and tells Wolvie off. After a tearful farewell with Storm, whom she makes promise to tell Scott she loves him she embarks on the most fateful flight in comic book history. And we see her TK field fail before the onslaught of cosmic rays in the cliffhanger.

Critical Thoughts: There’s a reason this run is legendary. It starts off good, as the new characters find their footing on the team and quickly accelerates to great when we get to the Sentinel story and Jean’s sacrifice. And as we all know the best was yet to come with Jean.

I will say the demon story, while enjoyable as a fight scene, is pretty clichéd and one-dimensional. Questions like why is there an ancient obelisk with a demon in the woods near the X-mansion, would need a lot more explanation in a modern story. Furthermore why does zapping the obelisk free the demon but blowing up completely. It’s all very arbitrary.

Krakoa is also pretty lacking in explanation. It’s a mutant island? Islands aren’t born, so how does it have X-gene? But let’s face it the point of this story is to introduce the new heroes with a suitably big threat that gets them together so they can overhaul the team, and by those standards it succeeded beyond anyone at Marvel’s wildest expectations.

Ditto, the villains aren’t all that interesting in the Thunderbird story, nor is Thunderbird a very interesting character before he dies. But again the point was to show anything could happen in the new reiteration of the X-men and in that case it set a tone that thrived in the X-books for the remainder of Claremont’s long run.

 

Grade: B+. That Sentinel story is an easy A, the others are better for historic value than actual stories. Still a trade well worth-reading and the ending makes me want to buy the next one to read the Dark Phoenix slow build again.