New Mutants #3-#4 / Uncanny X-Men #167

New Mutants has been leading in to #167 (cover date March 1983), but there's a problem, in that #3, which finishes the sequence, was released two months later, in May 1983, and #167 started with the New Mutants all watching television, all unaware of the Brood in Xavier's head.

Any story actually dealing with the Brood (rather than having it as a background element of Weird Stuff) in New Mutants will therefore not only see our team fail to deal with the problem adequately, but end with them not even recognising one.

And so we get #3, where Dani becomes aware the a monster, nobody believes her, it manifests in all their presence and then... it is revealed to all be a dream (caused by Dani's fear powers, under an outside influence). They even get as far as hypothesising that Xavier is linked. And then they go and see some TV, the five of them.

So, that moment in #2 where Stevie realises the only person who could have run the advanced training problem in the Danger Room, is Xavier, is just plain wasted.

Couple of other bits in #3: Moira and Sean talking about having children again, with Moira moping about not having had a son by Xavier. And Illyana, who Sean catches doing some kind of ritual to do with Belasco. Whatever it is, that can't be good.

#167 itself starts quite hilariously. The X-Men, having concluded there is a Brood egg in the Professor in #166, go straight for the mansion (bypassing the Proto-Utopia island, I suppose, although maybe they went there first and that's why they're in such a hurry), and then attack the group of children in the common room. This is not your usual superhero misunderstanding - the X-Men know full well that the kids are new students of Xavier's. It's just that subduing them is going to take less time than explaining matters.

The New Mutants prove less of a pushover than Cyclops was expecting, but ultimately are defeated. Just in time for them to find Xavier in the final stages of Brood incubation and watch him turning into a Brood Queen. The Brood beats the boys (Cyclops, Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler) to a standstill, but then the artillery arrives in the form of Warbird and Storm, and the Brood Queen is taken down.

Just as they are about to kill it, they discover that Xavier's personality still exists within, and spare its life. By an amazing coincidence, the Starjammers have the technology to clone Xavier's body, and then "transplant" the mind. This works very well, and even gives him shiny new legs. Until he tries to stand on them, they buckle underneath him, and he discovers his mind needs time to adjust.

And what are we to make of this notion that Xavier has drawn together the New Mutants specifically to lay eggs in, mentioned in #4? Well, if you examine what happened more closely, it doesn't make much sense. Xavier was depressed after the apparent loss of the X-Men and Lilandra, and the idea to train Karma was practically forced on him by Moira, who also provided Rahne. Psyche he got a letter about, and then he only picked up Cannonball and Sunspot because they got entangled in Pierce's schemes. So, at what point did the Brood's influence manifest? If we can blame anything on it, perhaps it's the reason Xavier has decided not to form another team of X-Men to go on missions, but instead to keep the tasty tasty children safe and close.

#167 is also the issue in which the issue of Scott and Alex's grandparents are raised. Turns out, they have some, which is complete news to Scott, as if he's never thought about the issue before. He's not a John Doe, he knew the name of his parents - it's never occurred to him to check? Why, for that matter, wasn't he placed with them instead of being put in an orphanage?

And finally, Lilandra was stranded too, with the X-Men. Gladiator turns up, wanting an audience with her. He declares Deathbird unfit to rule, and suggests a space rebellion! And sets us up for a bizarre page in which Lilandra goes and gives Reed a piece of her mind for refraining from killing Galactus, apparently intended as a bit of cheeky revenge at John Byrne, after Byrne retconned the Doom in #145-#147 as a Doombot.

Finally, coming to New Mutants #4, it's one of those unusual X-Men stories where the only superhero element is the good mutants themselves. The "villain" of the piece, who has been making harassing phone calls to Stevie, is, shockingly, the new character introduced on page 2. Edgy stuff.

Uncanny X-Men #164-#166: Breaking Brood

Uncanny X-Men #164 adds another to our little cover gallery of women exhibiting primal forces surrounded by worried onlookers. This time, it's Carol Danvers, formerly known as Ms. Marvel (until Rogue stole her powers in Avengers Annual #10), who is accompanying the X-Men on their random space excursion.

They've escaped from the Brood's ship, onto the Empress Lilandra's yacht, but Hunt-Master T'Crilee͞'s fighter is ordered to disable and capture them. (wow, I never thought I'd get to legitimately use that Unicode character - COMBINING DOUBLE MACRON ABOVE, in case you're wondering, which you probably aren't).

This does not work out so well for the Brood. They'd been experimenting on Carol in #163, and they triggered something within her. She becomes Binary! An enormous power, fiery and bright, taking the shape of a bird, which would seem to be such a brazen Phoenix knockoff that I'd call it plagiarism if it weren't for the fact that the name "Claremont" is on these pages and the ones 40 issues ago.

It also doesn't work out very well for Storm, as she accidentally breaks her vow never to take a life. She only meant to use her space lightning powers to stun them, see. And then she senses a life developing within her. At which point Wolverine comes clean about the eggs.

Our X-Men are left in a desperate situation with a bunch of character-defining stresses. Storm doesn't want to take any life, even parasitical life developing within her (the word "embryo" is used repeatedly, as if to nail the point home). Cyclops is prepared to put aside his "don't kill" policy at the great danger. Nightcrawler prays, and Wolverine is a materialist. As Cyclops gets ragier fighting (due to the development of the Brood), he swaps roles with Wolverine, an irony which is pointed out by Logan and foreshadows their eventual reversal thirty years hence.

Warbird and the Acanti fix everything. We are left with a dangling point: one egg is left, which must be Xavier. Oh dear.

Uncanny X-Men #162-#163: Feeling Broody

As we saw in the last post, Claremont and Miller have just written the definitive Wolverine miniseries. At more or less the same time (October 1982), that Wolverine makes his appearance narrating Uncanny X-Men #162 and #163.

Having been taken to space at the end of #161, they've been captured by the Brood and are revealed to have been implanted with eggs, showing our more Alien-like Brood. Wolverine had one, but happily if it's a legitimate Brood implantation, the mutant body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down. He sets to work rescuing the others. Some of them can see the situation for what it is: some can't, and it's getting through to them that's more important than punching. Which is not to say that the punching is worthless.

After they've got the team back together and going after the Brood, Cyclops and Wolverine have their largest argument so far. Wolverine wants to kill the Brood Queen, but Cyclops isn't having any of that: "X-Men don't kill", he says - a retcon if ever I heard one. It might help if Wolverine actually told the others about the eggs, but no, we have to have our melodrama.

Lilandra agrees with Wolverine, but the story cops out at that point, as the plan to send a forward detachment (Storm, Nightcrawler and Sprite) to Lilandra's yacht works, and they are teleported away. This sort of last-minute technical solution to a moral dilemma is something they've lifted straight from Star Trek, too, alongside the transporter they used to do it with.

Uncanny X-Men #154-#157: First Brood

Uncanny X-Men #154 starts with the mansion still mostly wrecked. Storm and Cyclops are still there (and Storm's still leader, although she asks Cyclops if he wants it back and he declines). The other X-Men have now moved to the island that had previously been Magneto's base in the Bermuda triangle, citing a wave of anti-mutant sentiment. Islands and mutants are a thing, evidently.

In space, Corsair is fleeing towards Earth, bringing with him a protracted four-issue story arc involving Lilandra and the Shi'ar and the Starjammers and the Imperial Guard and Deathbird (now seen in these pages for the first time, having debuted in Ms. Marvel #10 in October 1977). We also have the Brood, who display none of their later Alien-like traits, instead acting mostly as thinking minions of Deathbird, who of course, eventually turn on her.

Characterwise, the most important bit in this is Corsair revealing himself as Cyclops father. This makes the timeline rather wacky. Corsair has been gone for 20 years, it keeps repeating. And Scott was ten, wasn't he? So Cyclops is 30, now? That can't be right, can it? Corsair keeps referring to his wife as "Anne" for several issues before realising his mistake (she'd already been named "Katherine") and calling her "Katherine Ann".

#157 teases the return of Phoenix on the cover, which is way sooner than I'd expected. Turns out to be Kitty dressed up in costume. This is a good moment for her (as is the bit where she phases into space), and she's rapidly becoming actually competent. She's 14 now, we're told in the next issue, and Peter is 18. And so far there's no actual indication that he's acting on any attraction that may or exist, so this is staying firmly off the Chart. The age of consent in New York is 17, by the way. I do not know what it is in Shi'ar space, but I would guess that the Starjammer counts as a U.S.-flagged vessel.

We end up with Lilandra restored to that throne, but Professor X in a coma. Oh dear...

X-Men #135-#137: Dark Phoenix unleashed

The Dark Phoenix Saga (X-Men #135-#137, or more broadly the entire run since #129) is over-rated.

There. I said it.

Now, I better be careful here. I'm not saying that it's dreadful, you understand. It's just it simply cannot withstand the heaps of praise placed upon it.

Jean, who has been messed with by the Hellfire Club, manifests as the Dark Phoenix in Central Park, and flips out. Scattering the X-Men, she then flies into space, and starts eating tasty suns. In particular, she eats D'Bari, destroying five billion souls. At this the Shi'ar, allied with the Kree and Skrulls, decide that the Phoenix must be stopped. She then returns to Earth, to her childhood home in Annandale-on-Hudson (and we meet again her parents, this time adding her sister Sarah - who is a mother herself), where she is confronted by the X-Men, in a last desperate stand. Briefly retaining control, she begs Wolverine to kill her, but then recedes into insanity again. After a mental battle with Professor Xavier, she is able to retain control, taking again the name Marvel Girl.

At that point the Shi'ar turn up. They're gonna kill her (how do they plan to do this exactly is unclear), but instead they are challenged to a duel by the X-Men. We then get a dozen pages of X-Men fighting the Imperial Guard. Dark Phoenix then manifests again, begs to be killed by Colossus (he's reluctant to, saying he's never killed before, the liar). Ultimately Jean triggers a Kree deathtrap left here on the Moon (did I mention this was all on the moon?), and passes away.

So, first problem: lots of this plot relies on our characters being either plain idiotic, or making unforced poor decisions. Cyclops not picking up the phone, Xavier leaving for the Shi'ar before he's certain what's going on with Phoenix, Jean not telling anyone about the timeslips until too late, and then the decision to infiltrate the Hellfire Club, thus handing them Jean on a plate. Secondly: the theme of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" is paper thin here. There's no consideration of the mechanics of how that happens in actual human psychology. It's just treated as a sort of biological law, like it's gravity or something. Thirdly: well done on killing off a crazy, not particularly well-characterised woman, who can't deal with advanced mental powers and was attracted to the idea of living more simply in the 1780s. Way to go there, supposedly progressive comic book title.

Particularly since she was presumed dead, Scott has sensed there is something wrong with Jean, that is wasn't really her. That's a pretty good out, if they ever decide to bring her back.

X-Men #107-#108: "Where No X-Man Has Gone Before"

It's been four whole months since the X-Men went into that star-gate in X-Men #105. They arrive in X-Men #107 to find themselves in a double-page spread, prominently featuring a very large crystal, and a number of aliens in brightly coloured costumes, called the Imperial Guard. These are all apparently Legion of Superheroes expies, but the only one I spotted myself was Gladiator being Superman. I suppose that tells you how much I know about DC.

They are somehow able to communicate with the X-Men (I suppose aliens really do all speak English after all?), and quickly compare notes. Gladiator, who appears to be lead alien-in-costume, refuses to give up Lilandra, who is a traitor to the empire. Rather than try and find out more information (how do they know what Lilandra is saying is true, after all?), they are met with defiance and a large optic blast.

This lasts a few pages, before we find that D'Ken and Shakari are forcing Lilandra to watch this. D'Ken is doing a typical evil villain gloat, as well. X-Men get Lilandra free, and we finally get the infodump we've been waiting for. Lilandra's brother wants to unleash the force in the M'Kraan Crystal, the "deadliest weapon in history", and tried to have Lilandra executed for opposing it. She escaped, and then established a telepathic rapport with Xavier because of the events of X-Men #65, where he beamed altruism into space. D'Ken found this out, contacted the local agent, Devan Shakari (not an exile, then?). The crystal opens a gate, that can can be accessed every million years.

Gladiator is there, politely waiting for Lilandra to finish expositing, and when she's done, the punching starts again. Then suddenly the Starjammers, a motley collection of aliens led by a bloke with a moustache called Corsair (and including a catwoman protesting she's not called Hepzibah), who we'd met on the last page of #104, turn up too, and start shooting at the Imperial Guard. At this point the story gives up and just has everyone speaking English explicitly, apparently having been taught it by Corsair, who is very definitely American. Jean mindscans him, and is shocked by finding out it is someone significant to do with Scott. But it's too late. The gate opens! And reality itself may cease to exist!

What I don't understand is why Lilandra has been even brought here in the first place. She'd run away to get the X-Men's help, but her ship had been destroyed. If it hadn't been for Shakari taking her back in the star-gate, then the X-Men would not be here to try and stop this. Has D'Ken really had her brought here solely so he can gloat? That would be very supervillain, wouldn't it.

Well, OK. So it's a universe-threatening thing, this M'Kraan crystal. And for once the response to the threat seems big enough, as our our friends Starcore, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers all get involved. Oh, wait, no, they all wash their hands of the matter and leave it to the X-Men and Starjammers.

Jean manifests as a giant fiery bird and fixes it. She uses the power of Phoenix, aided by Storm and Corsair, and the medium of long narrative captions.

After this happens they go back home. Lilandra comes too.

Some little character notes: Nightcrawler teleports carrying someone. He's never done that before, he says. Banshee worries about never telling Moira he [loves] her when he thinks he's about to die. Hepzibah says she's feline not mephitidae right there in her first appearance. Through Jean, we learn some things about Corsair. He answers to "Major Summers", and he had a wife, Kate, and that something terrible happened to her. Oh, and he's Scott's dad. She tells Corsair that but not Scott, which will surely lead to trouble. So, Summers finally falls prey to Claremont's "must have improbable backstory" tic. What are the odds of your father turning out to be a space rebel against your teacher's new girlfriend's space empire? Quite good, apparently.

And most importantly, X-Men #108 has Beast say "oh my stars and garters" for the first time in an X-Men comic! I am very happy to have made this discovery. I assume this means he's been saying it in Avengers for a little while now.

X-Men #105: These Are The Voyages

X-Men #105 opens with our team arriving back at the Mansion in a hurry, to find Erik the Red, who has come for Xavier. He's out, though, and he didn't even leave a note. Now, I'm not sure what's happening here. They've realised Erik is after Xavier, so they flew back on the Blackbird... without phoning ahead?

In space we finally meet the Shi'ar properly. Lilandra, who was formerly Grand Admiral, is fleeing in her ship from an Imperial Cruiser. It is weird quite how Star Trek it is. The bridge and transporters are a ringer for the Enterprise's, they report to each other in Star Trek ways (Earth is a "Class M" planet, which is Starfleet jargon for Earth-like, there's a "ship's log", an "imperial date"), and a science officer called "Mr. S'lar". Weirdly, there's talk of a Shi'ar Prime Directive, as if a galactic empire can have some kind of doctrine of non-interference (given later information I'd suspect the Shi'ar's real prime directive would be "destroy all people manifesting powers associated with fiery birds"). The Shi'ar ship shoots its "photon torpodoes" at Lilandra's ship, destroying it, and then skidaddles off, having excreted bricks when they've looked at the "Encounters with Galactus" section on Earth's Wikipedia article.

So, Lilandra beams down to Xavier's location. He's visiting Jean and Misty. We just got the backstory as to how they moved in together: they said it's utter coincidence, they were both attending the same viewing. But that might not be reliable, as Jean's parents are there, too. Anyway, Xavier telepathically flash-teaches Lilandra English (in a relatively unusual acknowledgement that aliens are unlikely to speak English), which is the first time this has been used in quite that way (Jean, of course, sucked m4d p1l0t1ng sk1llz out of Corbeau's head in #100). Thinking about it, I wonder if he did the same thing for Colossus? How likely is a young lad who has never left the collective farm to speak good enough English to quickly join an assault force?

Anyway, Erik the Red and Firelord, turn up. Jean manifests as Phoenix and attacks Firelord, while Erik the Red explains his backstory - he's really Shakari, and has been exiled to Earth by Lilandra. Erik sets up his portable stargate (which he didn't use to escape his exile because I don't know), grabs Lilandra, and goes. Jean then clumsily explains Lilandra's backstory by telling Xavier something he already knows because he dumped it into her brain off-panel earlier that issue. Her brother is going to destroy the universe, and she wants help. Phoenix powers open the gate, and the X-Men depart, leaving Firelord for Xavier and Misty to deal with.

One of the nicer touches of the issue is Jean's parents, who are continually boggling at the crazy shit going on around them, in exactly the way real people would. It can be read as them not knowing about any superhero stuff, or just as them being surprised at the manifestation as Phoenix.

The oddest thing is the way that Alex and Lorna were casually killed in a flashback, by Firelord. At least that's what Erik thinks... Say it ain't so...