Sunday 16 September 2012

X-Men #118: ...and breathe...

The X-Men escaped from the Savage Land last issue, and now find themselves in the Drake Passage on a rubbishy little boat as X-Men #118 opens. They are rescued by a ship, which just happens to be on a secret mission for the Japanese government. The X-Men immediately ask to contact base, thankfully, but the ship is maintaining radio science and the X-Men are taken below as "guests". That's it for the X-Men this issue.

Back at Westchester, Jean is leaving the mansion (possibly for the last time), while Lilandra tries to figure out how to make coffee and bagels for Xavier, who has done his usual thing when he loses a team of X-Men and sunk into a depressive funk. Before we know it, Xavier has launched into a flashback, where he gives us a good chunk of his life story, or at least bits we'd not seen before.

First up, we get the full skinny between him and Moira. They'd met when he was doing his doctorate, and quickly fell in love. They became engaged, but then Xavier was drafted, and spent three years serving (during which the stuff with his step-brother happened, but it elides mention of that). When he was convalescing from wounds, she broke off things by letter, and returned to Scotland. He then went travelling in the Med, first to Kirinos and then to Cairo, where he'd been pickpocketed by a young Storm. Chasing her, he encounted his first Evil Mutant - Amahl Farouk (the Shadow King) and defeated him. He omits his trip to Israel (because Claremont hasn't yet invented it), and then mentions his journey east to defeat Lucifer. He then formed the X-Men, and after a number of adventures in which he nearly got them killed, has got them killed.

Rather than be supportive and suggest they might not be dead, or even that young mutants still need support and training, Lilandra instead begs Xavier to go back with her to Shi'ar space, which he assents to.

On our last page, Jean is at JFK airport, and bumps into Misty Knight (they are no longer roomies, unless the comic is using the Whovian usage of the word "erstwhile"), who is taking a flight to, by a strange coincidence, Japan, to help out Colleen Wing. So, I've got a good idea what's going to be happening in #119. Misty doesn't know the X-Men are missing, and Jean doesn't tell her, which will provide no end of complaints for me in subsequent entries.

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