Thoughts

After last months excursion into weirdness, this issue is the one that really feels like the launch of the post-Byrne era. Cockrum’s back. And he’s brought Doom. And Arcade.

Indeed, the whole Cockrum relaunch story reads like a mini-Giant Size X-men* – we have folk being kidnapped, and a team assembled and summoned to help rescue them. Difference being this team isn’t all new – its bringing back older character for another adventure – Iceman, Polaris, Havok and Banshee.

Meanwhile the existing X-men go on a mission to confront Doom. It’s been a while since we had a fun action sequence where the X-men walk into a trap and get whupped by a superior villain and it still works. Cockrum lacks the precision of Byrne, but there’s still dynamic cartoon action to be enjoyed.

Having dominated a number of recent storylines, Kitty Pryde gets sidetracked with the flu this issue. In her place, Storm gets to step up, launching the issue and enjoying a little flirtation with Doom. The Evil Villain being a condescending prick in the face of a beautiful woman is a bit of a lazy cliche, but it’s interesting in this case we get the inner thoughts of Storm as it happens.

* which, I guess, makes it all appear normal sized.

Fun Panel

Is it wrong that the changing faces of Crystalised Dead Jean makes me laugh?

Also anyone who’s worked in editing will recognise leaving a gap to check something and come back to it to fill in, and then forgetting to!

That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense

Offered the help of the Avengers, Professor X declines because he prefers to keep it in the family. That would have been an interesting conversation to have if he’d failed. “Yes, I could indeed have got Earth’s Mightiest Heroes involved when we took on an enemy as dangerous as Doctor Doom but then I’d probably have to extend my Christmas Card list so decided not to bother.”

None More Claremont

One very minor issue with Claremont is the tendency to have big developments happen “off camera”. Dark Phoenix being awakened by seeing Cyclops struck down is the most striking, but there’s another example of this here.

Last time we saw Cyclops he was with Ship Captain Lee as they escaped a fire. Presumably – if the storyline was going to return to these characters – they’d return to Lee’s ship – the Arcadia and its crew we met last issue.

Instead we see Cyclops stranded on a beach. Only for the narration to tell us that he and Lee were swept overboard from the Arcadia in a storm. I guess juggling so many characters and plot lines, eventually you have to pass on an action shot to get the story to fit into the required page count, but its a noticable omission.

Mutant Mailbag Mayhem

You get a sudden jolt into the era when this comic got published when the letters page has Michael McCarthy of (no address) mention the recent murder of John Lennon. It’s one of my earliest memories seeing that on the news, with just that reference the comic gets a new cultural context from an era i can vaguely remember.