X-Men #115-#117: Return of the Shadow

X-Men #115 is another landmark issue, introducing as it does the concept of Cyclops' moustache.

Cyclops reckons he looks a bit like Corsair, which triggers a one-panel hint at his origin (him and Alex were pushed out of a plane carrying his father, Corsair and mother, Kate, we don't know why yet).

Both sets of X-Men (Jean and Hank, who are back at the mansion with Xavier and Lilandra) and the others, who are recuperating in the Savage Land (back in Antarctica, after it's brief trip to Tierra del Fuego in the late 1960s), think the rest of the X-Men are dead and are mourning. You couldn't do this today, as surely Ka-Zar would have a satellite phone. Well, Scott isn't able to mourn for Jean. He, rather prophetically says that "after the shuttle flight [...] she wasn't the girl I'd loved anymore", which Storm is quite harsh on. Wolverine is properly mourning for her, though, his first love, we are told! And in #117 we get the first claim that he can "heal real fast".

X-Men #112-#114: More Magneto

X-Men #112 picks up immediately from the end of #111, with the X-Men strangely staying their hand because it is convenient to the plot. They're all in a wagon, which Magneto is sending into space. But they don't know that, and instead Cyclops tells them not to attack because of a vague sense of unease.

It then takes a couple of panels to helpfully clarify the relationship between Mesmero and Magneto. Magneto somehow knows about the robot Magneto tag-teaming with Mesmero and claiming to be Lorna's father (We never did find out who built that and why, did we? We'll see if some later writer picks that up.)

Magneto then explains what he was doing there - he had left Muir Island (it gets a name, finally!) and tried to attack the X-Men at the mansion but found it empty, only to find Beast calling, who he then trailed to Texas. During this description, Claremont's captions finally make the transition from narration to full-blown prose. I quote:

"Why?" Cyclops asks, after Wolverine reluctantly sheathes his claws.
"Why us, Magneto? Why now?"

Nightcrawler 'ports out and finds out that the wagon is quite high up, and barely survives the experience. They then realise they'd better not kill Magneto yet. Except: the team here contains Storm, Banshee and Phoenix, who can all fly, Colossus, who we have already seen can easily survive a terminal velocity landing. That leaves Wolverine (who is not yet being written with super-healing as a power, admittedly), Cyclops, Nightcrawler (who can teleport) and Beast. Surely getting everyone down safely should not present a problem.

So, once they get to Magneto's secret Antarctic subvolcanic city-sized base (seriously, it's 5 square miles, and it's just him this time as far as I can tell), then they attack him. Ineffectually, despite having had time to prepare telepathically, and despite their encounter with him in #104 which should have had them training specifically for this. And they've got Phoenix with them, too! Magneto has decided to take revenge on them for turning him into a baby (even though really that was Xavier and the X-Men didn't know a thing about it), and places them in a custom prison, where their motor controls are regressed to those of a 6 month old...

Magneto then goes on a spree attacking research installations in Australia and New Zealand, and in particular Woomera. We're given handwavy excuses for why the Fantastic Four, Champions and Avengers are unavailable to stop Magneto, which is important in establishing the feel of a larger Marvel universe. If the X-Men were free, we could accept them turning up first to deal with Magneto, but it needs to be shown that nobody is around to stop him.

In this era they were quite good at giving footnotes for other storylines (indeed, Magneto's attack on Cape Citadel way back in issue #1 was mentioned), but these go unannotated. Do these refer to particular contemporary stories? X-Men #113 was released in September 1978. Gentlemen of Leisure have the Avengers being "under virtual house arrest" being a reference to Avengers #181, which is a bit weak, not only because it was released in March 1979, but also Beast was part of the Avengers line-up there. The identification of the Fantastic Four breakup with Fantastic Four #191 seems plausible enough, though.

Xavier and Lilandra are on holiday in Kirinos in the Cyclades in Greece (and we discover in a narration that Moira had dumped him, back in the day). It appears to have escaped the Internet's attention that although this is a real island group, Kirinos is fictional. Claremont will use it again. He's upset that his "telepathic rapport" has been broken, but apparently not enough to turn on the television, where he would learn of Magneto's reign of terror. Magneto feels stronger than ever since his reversion to adulthood, and has managed to get up to his asteroid base (last seen in X-Men #5), which is now given a name - Asteroid M. (Magneto likes naming things M, doesn't he? Just like Xavier seems to like naming things X. He also has a big 'M' flag).

We discover that Storm has such l33t th33f sk1llz that she can pick her way out of a lock even though she's regressed to babyhood. She's just that good. She then frees the rest of the X-Men, and they work out a plan for ambushing Magneto when he arrives. They then defeat him with teamwork! There's a moral lesson there somewhere. Unfortunately, in the battle the system that keeps the lava out has been damaged. Magneto makes a hasty exit. Jean flies after him (with Hank as a passenger), but only makes it as far as the Antarctic surface before passing out. Phoenix is immensely powerful, but only in short bursts - she burns out. The other X-Men are still trapped below...

X-Men has gone monthly now, for the first time since it was cancelled, which is just as well given this tendency towards serialisation.

X-Men #111!!11eleventy-one

X-Men #111 opens very unusually, with Hank McCoy looking for the X-Men, and having just found them at a carnival in Texas. He's there at the request of Lorna Dane, who had called the X-Men to request help dealing with Havok being kidnapped (see Marvel Team-Up #70, we're told), but had got no answer. Beast arrived at the mansion to find a large backlog of post. Moira, we know from #110, was going back to Scotland; Xavier and Lilandra have gone somewhere unknown on holiday; the X-Men themselves have ended up as attractions at a travelling carnival. What?

After chatting with "Slim" Summers (nice nod to his original name there, not a nickname that has been used very often since) and Jean Grey, he figures they've been mesmerised. But by who? Mesmero! The X-Men break free of his control and defeat him, which involves Wolverine punching people, and then Mesmero collapsing just as they go to confront him. And then we see, sitting in a chair, Magneto, who is Mesmero's boss or something? (Or is this another android?)

I'm not sure I like the idea that Mesmero is able to hyptonise the Phoenix, but this is nothing compared to what will happen a dozen issues from now. The decision to open the story in medias res and the use of Beast as initial protagonist (remember, he's not been on the team since the relaunch and wasn't part of the team that got captured on Krakoa - he's not been regularly portrayed as part of the X-Men for five years or more), make this stand out a bit from what would otherwise be a fairly generic story.

X-Men #110: "The 'X'-Sanction"

X-Men #110 has some punching, I think. There's some guy called Warhawk who comes and sabotages the holodeckdanger room. It's hinted that he was sent by some powerful forces, but the gang seem strangely fatalistic about trying to track down who sent him. It's a fill-in issue (by Tony DeZuniga, with Dave Cockrum), but you wouldn't really know, other than it being a little lightweight.

We get a tiny bit of inner life of Jean, in that she's scared of herself as Phoenix, but daren't tell anyone. We find out that Misty Knight has been calling her her "Kosmic Roomie", which is a codename I think is way better than Phoenix or Marvel Girl and she should adopt when she comes back in the 616. At the end, she signs back up with the X-Men full-time again, although in truth this is merely regularising the fact that she had never really left like the others in #94.

The most important part of this issue, however, is the baseball game, which was first suggested in #64 and now we finally get, eight years later. This will go on to be a regular downtime activity for our mutants.

X-Men #109: Department Eh

X-Men #109 opens with the X-Men finally all back at that mansion, with Xavier, for the first time in over a (publication) year. And they say that the early Chris Claremont stories progress in real time.

It starts off fun. Kurt gets in trouble for teleporting indoors (presumably because of the smell)! Moira and Sean kiss! Storm keeps plants garden in the attic and waters them! Gratuitous Storm shower scene! Colossus is writing a letter to his parents! Kurt is trying to arrange a double-date for him and Colossus with some people called Amanda and Betsy! He wants to see Star Wars. But Peter is going on a picnic with Moira and Sean. Storm is coming to! Wolverine wants to tag along so he can stroke some pretty animals.¹ Definitive confirmation that Xavier and Moira were an item.

There's some level of more serious stuff going on. It recognises the ending of the last issue was a little abrupt, as it goes in and inserts a bunch of things before they left through the stargate, including Lilandra trying and failing to assert authority as Empress, and Corsair asking Jean not to tell Scott about his paternity.

The dramatic core of this ought to be Jean telling her parents about becoming Phoenix, but we never actually see that, we're just told that it happens. Claremont is treating Jean more as a plot device than a character.

Anyway, it gets as far as page 11 without there being any punching at all, even Danger Room punching. But then Wolverine gets attacked by Canadians. Well, a Canadian, anyway. Weapon Alpha, a.k.a. James MacDonald Hudson, who knows him as Logan, and has been sent (following up from the threat we saw in Giant-Size #1) to retrieve Wolverine for Department H. They see him off, but he's gonna come back, with Alpha Flight. I especially like how Banshee calls him "Major Maple Leaf, or whatever ye call yourself".

I should probably mention that John Byrne is pencilling now. He took over from Dave Cockrum in #108.

1. I am, god help me, not making this up.