Thoughts

After last issue’s set-up plot infodump – the story really starts rtacing along at a cracking pace. The X-men get teleported into space. Some return on a mission. There’s a fight, nice character moments and the scale of the threat gets amped up.

Kitty and Nightcrawler get some nice moments together in space. And there’s a lovely moment where Kitty gets her first glipse of the cosmos. And not just any cosmos – Cockrum Cosmos!

Meanwhile back on Earth, the X-men have 24 hours to turn this case around and find the kidnapped Lilandra. Which means coming up against the second Xenomorph-style creature of the Claremont Run. Visually the similarity is there, but these Aliens feel much less threatening with their B-movie bad alien patter. But they do come across as a credible antagonist.

All these different storylines are deftly handled, and its a great issue. The only slight downer is the ending that pretends Colossus is dead. The exact same trick was pulled with the finals panels a few issues ago where Storm, trapped in the White Queen’s body, “kills” Kitty at the very end of an issue. It feels like a cheap and lazy cliffhanger. Maybe, at the time, readers with no knowledge of what happened next would have seen the cover and thought that it was just possible that this was the Russian’s final issue. But here its a bit of a damp squib at the end of the great issue.

Fun Panel

Cockrum designs great costumes – the type that can only really work in comics. But he also designs a great outfit in this issue for Storm to wear. Almost wish they’d use this as the basis for a brand new costume.

Any Googling

Deathbird turns up in this issue, and I initially assumed that this was her first appearance. Clearly Shi-Ar and up-to-no good, it fits to be a villain created for a plot about a kidnapped Lilandra.

Only the issue mentions her appearance in a relatively recent Avengers issue, which then mentions her as a Ms Marvel antagonist. Following this rabbithole, she first appears in that title in 1977 – not long after Lilandra’s first appearance – and is already clearly alien.

That’s also a Claremont title and its tempting to think that this was planned at the time. An avian villain exiled to Earth around the time Lilandra appears. If so, its fun to finally see it get a pay-off!