Thoughts

After a front cover that promises all sorts of villanous mayhem, this settles down into an issue of moving the story along for all the characters quite nicely.

Nothing of any real important happens, but the wheels keep spinning and you finally get a sense that things might be going somewhere.

It’s also probably the best issue so far for the X-men. Storm and Xavier get a showdown over his taking control of the X-team. It’s an interesting illustration of just how ruthless Xavier is – he bsasically tells Storm she either follows his orders or he’ll make her – but it seems a bit too ruthless. If you were reading this the first time, it feels like a hint that this might not be Xavier. That coupled with his insistence they don’t join the Heroes – a strategy that we still have not been given any possible reason for.

Still Shooter continues to write the Mutants as basically useless in a fight. If they are not just being hammered by second-tier villains – as Wolverine and Rogue quickly are – that Cyclops is just going to stop them fighting back with the “heroes don’t kill” line. Here it does feel like a really simplistic retread of a conversation that’s been had in the main X-title a number of times. Again, on the first read this feels like it might be setting up Cyclops – as a man of principle – to take on the increasingly ruthless Xavier. Likely alongside Storm. That would seem to be where the story might be going. This is to underestimate the craziness here, I expect.

Also the issue mentions events in a Dazzler issue where she took on Galactus (!!) without bothering to mention the issues this story takes place in. Thankfully in 2024 there is Google, and I discovered it was Dazzler 10 & 11 from 1981. Which is a genuinely bizarre story from a title that seems to be struggling to know what to do. Re-reading it made me feel quite a bit kinder towards the craziness in these Secret Wars issues.