Uncanny X-Men #144: I always wanted to be a fisherman

Uncanny X-Men #143 had a brief few panels with Cyclops. He's left the X-Men, you will remember, after the death of Jean Grey, and has now decided to become a fisherman, on a ship captained by one Lee Forrester.

So, it turns out that Lee's dad, Jack, is suffering from terminal cancer (I dunno, this is about the time of the Death of Captain Marvel - I guess cancer just became un-taboo enough that comics are talking about it) and about to attempt normal suicide with a gun (which is pretty grim, even today).

Because the Marvel universe has what, about 50 people in it, this suicide cannot be allowed to proceed as normal but instead some sort of weird ghost thing called D'Spayre turns up, who - and I kid you not - feeds on despair. Or something. Anyway, Man-Thing also happens by and so does Cyclops and Lee and I don't even care any more. Defeated power of love, blah blah blah. During this we get our proper flashback to him and lil Alex falling out of a plane (and their ages - 6 and 10, rather older than I was expecting).

Back at the mansion, they're a bit shocked at the bill for leaving Kitty unattended for just a single issue (Danger Room and the Blackbird both wrecked), and Warren offers his chequebook for help for the first time.

The best bit of this issue is Cyclops cheating at pool with his optic blasts in a massive improbable way which implies he's has some kind of super-geometry power too.