Primarily concerned with setting up a Big Event Issue 150, the story here is secondary. What this issue is all about is Magneto.
We get a potted history of his status as the team’s first and greatest foe. We get the X-men returning to Antarctica to confirm that the villain is very much alive and plotting something. And we get reminded that Cyclops is currently the “guest” of Magneto on his Atlantic Cthuloid Atlantean Castle Complex.
All of this conveniently frees up space in the next issue to not go over all this old ground and get straight to that issue’s story. Job Done.
Fun Panel
Kitty’s teenage exuberance shines through in this issue. From her outrageous teen skating costume, to her reckless stowaway routine and finally her insecure internal monologue as she tries to come good.
That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense
Quite how Magneto rescued Garokk when he tumbled to his doom is not quite clear. Those previous issues seemed to make it pretty clear he’d fled long before the X-men’s Savage Land adventure.
If we squint a bit at the plot, I guess you could suggest he was sneakily hiding nearby all the time. But even that doesn’t quite explain why Garokk- an ancient God with his ruthless utopian ideals to rule the Savage Land – seems to have accepted becoming Magneto’s shuffling servant Igor
Having noticed how little paneltime Nightcrawler gets early in the run, he’s really coming into his own now.
He opens this issue in a great full page panel – and it’s obvious Cockrum enjoys drawing him as his escape and his return to try and rescue his friends is superb visual swashbuckling.
He isn’t quite the finished article as a character though. It’s made clear a number of times that, alongside his appearance, he has a Demonic aspect to him that comes out in growling and howling when riled. A potential Mr Hyde subplot that never really materialises.
Overall, this is a fun finale to this epic Cockrum relaunch three-parter. The ending is a little bit lightweight – it all just stops because Doom decides it does, and Arcade seems fine after an apology. But as an exercise in twists and traps, and Claremont’s endless inventive fun with super powers it’s great.
Last but not least – Angel finally gets to do something. Good for him!
Fun Panel
Big fan of the sequence where Nightcrawler and Wolverine take down Doom. Cockrum captures just the right mix of goofy but with a real sense of threat.
None More Claremont
As the front cover trumpets – this issue Storm goes rogue. Which isn’t quite accurate. In reality Storm goes Dark Phoenix.
Claremont writing another female X-man go Godlike/Crazy/Hysterical/Weird so soon after that classic storyline does feel like a rehash. Her power is unleashed and uncontrollable, she denies herself and becomes even cruel, possessing only a vague sentiment towards her closest friends.
It’s a sad cliche in comics that female super heroes that become too powerful seem to inevitably become hysterical and dangerous. Phoenix and the Scarlet Witch being the two biggest examples. This issue hints at the same well-trodden path is being considered for Storm.
I’m glad they ultimately don’t go down it. One of the implications of this issue – the power levels displayed are Storm’s innate power potential – gets quietly dropped going forward. It’s a shame that they couldn’t just reconcile a woman with Godlike powers and not going insane in the story. Instead she’s de-powered (literally for a time).
Interestingly Claremont was going to explore a character embracing incredible powers and the consequences of it when he brought Rachel Summers into the story. It’s an intriguing experiment and we’ll come to that later but ultimately it probably illustrates just how hard this character is to write without falling back into establish cliches.
It was a Product of its Time
Oh – and obviously Storm’s clothes mostly fall off when she becomes a God. Because Reasons.
The Cockrum Relaunch Story continues, with the All-̶N̶e̶w̶ Quite Old Actually X-men going on a mission in Murderworld. The issue wastes little time in getting to what Murderworld stories do so well, individual heroes caught in their own personal deathtraps before breaking out and into each others and generally building the chaos.
It’s great stuff, and once again, reinforces my idea that this version of Arcade would be great for a modern MCU movie. I am struggling to think who they might cast, though. I initially think of someone like Sam Rockwell, Ryan Gosling or even Simon Helberg but they’re probably too old now. Arcade has to be a young spoilt brat. Someone on a Disney or Nikolodeon kids TV show suddenly given a darker edge. Half the cast of Glee turned out to be one the Dark Side, so maybe there’s someone working in those type of shows today that could fit the bill.
Fun Panel
The ending to Don’t Look Now We could have had.
It was a Product of its Time
I’m a big fan of Polaris’ costume. Even by the standards of comic book heroes, its insanely impractical. It doesn’t even feel like a product of the early eighties. It has real fifties vibes. In an awesome way.
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.
Huzzah! We’re back into Space with Cockrum! And he’s brought lots of new friends!
The All-New X-men are testament to Cockrum’s visual creativity when it comes to designing new heroes. But this issue takes that talent and turns it up to eleven. Its a visual feast as The Imperial Guard and the Starjammers burst into the story. All looking awesome and all ready for a smackdown.
Pages 2-3 of this issue are a double spread that features the Imperial Guard and its a page I could look at for ages. All the Guard members look distinct, and interesting. You could give this to a kid and they’d have endless fun devising a name and powerset for all these characters. And when I say kid I, of course, mean me.
And if that wasn’t enough, in burst the Starjammers. Another fun visual creation, with the added bonus of being rebels.
Cramming all this into an issue something has to give, and to be honest its in the story. There’s almost too many characters for the limited pages the slugfest gets, and then we get a huge amount of exposition. The issue needs to go over exactly why the X-men are in space. It then has to cover who exactly Lilandra is and why the X-men are rescuing her. It then explains to us who they are rescuing her from (and the underwhelming mystery of Erik The Red get’s explained yet again) as well as the backstory of the location she’s been take to before finally telling us the kidnapper’s evil scheme.
It’s a lot and the issue does creak at times, but ultimately I rather an issue did too much than too little and when the narrative is flagging I’m more than compensated by Cockrum’s toy box of all new super characters.
Fun Panel
That thick spine of the omnibus means that this photo can’t do justice to this double spread!
That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense
At the finale of the issue, we learn that the evil villain’s plans with an Ancient Cosmic Power Source cause the entire universe to blink out of existence for a fraction of a second. In the final few panels, this sets up a cliffhanger where scientists back on Earth detect this blink and panic that the universe is on the edge of destruction. But how could they possibly detect this if the whole universe blanks out of existence. Any equipment that could use to detect this would blink out of existence to?
Any Googling
I did have a quick check to see whether the Starjammers had much of an independent life in comics. This is 1977, the year of Star Wars. So much potential for an ongoing Starjammers comic. Slightly shocked they didn’t get one at the time. What were you thinking Marvel?!?
A relentlessly paced issue, this is Claremont not messing about when it comes to storytelling. Last issue’s cliffhanger is quickly resolved, alongside getting the remaining Earthbound X-men into Space, setting up a future storyline and bringing us to another cliffhanger.
Indeed, the whole shebang feels incredibly cinematic. Cockrum’s art captures a swashbucking action adventure tone, while the structure frequently cuts between players as the various storylines come together.
There’s not actually a huge amount of story here. Nor much by way of characterisation. But a collection of set pieces that lead nicely to a truly unexpected, and slightly odd, cliffhanger.
Fun Panel
This is the first issue I noticed that the cover collection of faces doesn’t have Thunderbird. Which made me think when had they removed him. Turns out, he was never there. A clue that he was never going to be on the team long term!
Also the old Nostalgic in me misses these on the cover. The little faces of the heroes you could expect to follow inside always seemed intriguing. It also, in a good way, reminds me of the faces that used to appear at the start of classic Hollywood cartoons. “Hey! This comic doesn’t feature Bugs Bunny or Droopy, but we can promise you the adventures of these freaks!”
None More Claremont
Claremont is rightly famous as a writer for his long-running story arcs, but in these early issues he’s dropping ideas and concepts that had the potential to be developed but which never actually are. Last issue we saw the abandoned concept of Wolverine being a mutated animal, and this issue we learn of Colossus’ lost cosmonaut brother. It’s a story Claremont never got round to telling, so its interesting what he ever had in mind for it.
Mutant Mailbag Mayhem
One of the joys of having seventies letters pages in the reprints is that it always feels like seeing into another era. This isn’t a page designed to push the corporate line, but instead to reflect the feedback they’re getting and earnestly trying to answer genuine questions. There’s a great question highlighting the somewhat sappy Lorna dialogue a few issues back, and the response builds a credible answer to this valid criticism. Maybe its coming from the age of Twitter but its fun to see disagreements aired like this.
You also get complete addresses printed with the letters! I wonder what happened to Murray Baughnon?
A great thing about reading from the start is noticing elements that emerge in Claremont’s writing that were key to getting you hooked on the book. The opening of this issue has a great few pages of the characters in downtime. Their interactions are relaxed, and natural. Each panel, each caption just giving you fun details about the character.
Of course, it can’t last and three pages in The Sentinels arrive, heralding a slugfest that Cockrum executes perfectly. And after that the pace is relentless. As giant mutant-killing robots, the Sentinels are pure b-movie sci-fi threats, led by a cackling b-movie Bad Guy. This issue illustrates why both those concepts have so much mileage.
Fun Panel
I’m a big fan of costumes that can only real work in comics. Storm’s outfit definitely falls into this category. It looks absurd, impractical and just a tad male-gazey. But you also great simple panels such as this
That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense
It feels a bit mean putting this here, because its not really bad writing. But its a definite WTF (WTX?) moment when it happens. In reality it was meant to be setting up a fascinating storyline where Wolverine was revealed not to be a human mutant with an animaloid mutation – but a mutant wolverine with a humanoid mutation. I love this idea, even though I can understand why it was dropped. (I think it emerges later on in the Hellions as the character of Catseye, but that’s never been confirmed.)
Any Googling
I guess I should google the Sentinals backstory in all the earlier issues. But to be honest everything that seems important about them is established in this and the previous issue. So don’t really feel the need.
None More Claremont
Claremont’s commitment to Banshee’s Oirish accent is an ongoing source of amusement – but definite points in this issue for “An’ on that note, me boyos, Moira ‘n’ I’ll be movin’ on ourselves… we’re t’be showin’ each other the sights o’ New York“
The X Marathon 