Thoughts

Claremont is back to his granny music in this issue, with a sentimental tale about a poor ugly Caliban hopelessly in love with Kitty Pride, who finds a fairy tale redemption at the end.

It runs the risk of being trite but avoids it mainly thanks to two great pieces of character writing. Firstly Kitty Pryde’s reactions to events at no point feels like it’s being contrived or forced to fit into the fairy tale narrative. Instead it remains that of a teenage wannabe super hero who just now happens to have to find her way through a very fairy tale scenario. She’s a great audience identification figure throughout, and her final sacrifice comes across as genuine, brave and relatable.

The other aspect that stops it all getting to mawkish is that the main antagonist Callisto is straight out of the darker world of fairy tales. She exists in a universe of cruelty and death, rather than a more sanitised Disney-esque take on the genre, tapping into earlier version.

But even then she’s not wicked for the sake of wickedness. Her character – and especially her anger – gets a full outing here. A leader of the outcasts that make the X-men seem mainstream, who has been toppled by those very same “socially acceptable” X-men. It makes for a great antagonist.

Alongside that, John Romita Jr has a field day with the grotesques of the morlocks. They’re a fine motley crew of interesting powers and stereotypically monstrous looks. From a pretty two dimensional set-up, they’re a fascinatingly diverse lot in looks (and powers)

Fun Panel

That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense

As someone who came on board the X-men originally in a few years time, this version of Leech is truly bizarre. He’s far far away from the “Green Twin” to Artie that he becomes. Here he’s very much the basic morlock. Sad, weird looking. While it’s a great power it’s a bit too much of a cliched character to not mourn the reinvention.

Mutant Mailbag Mayhem

ARE YOU WACKO! A small corner of New Jersey has lost it over Rogue joining the team. I hope Chuck Sottosanti stuck around.