Thoughts

The X-men have their first longer story format since Giant Size, and the first under Claremont. And it’s used to take the team into another new genre. In this case High fantasy (with a dash of sci-fi)

On paper that seems like a great idea but the execution here is mixed. Too much of the issue is lost to padding, meaning that the High Fantasy plot is pretty underwhelming.

Akron arrives on Earth, returning to the Blue Planet after featuring in an Avengers adventure some years earlier. Luckily everyone he encounters seems to remember him. Not that they were actually there for the adventure but because they’d read the Avengers file on him. Or watched him on the TV. This sort of contrivance to move the plot on quickly would be more forgivable if there wasn’t a lengthy piece of Danger Room padding also in the issue.

I’ve said before that Claremont writes great slugfests, but here the X-men arrive on a fantasy world and get involved in a lengthy fight that we barely see and which doesn’t seem that interesting.

Then when they discover what’s going on, they save the day in another multiple page sequence of them combining powers which, again, seems to take away from what should be the fun here – X-men exploring a High Fantasy world.

Indeed it’s only in the last few pages, where we’ve been told the X-men have been spending time on this world hanging out after saving it, that we get a glimpse of the X-men in local costumes and a hint at what might have been. I could have definitely gone for many more pages devoted to that side of the story.

Fun Panel

Ok, I was harsh about the big fantasy fight earlier but in its defence COLOSSUS FLYING ON A BATTLE DRAGON! This just hints at the Frank Frazetta madness this annual could have been.