Uncanny X-Men #262-#263: I Heard You Like Tentacles

I posted my "help wanted" ad for "Ukko" on Tuesday, and by Sunday night I had sketches of the first panel in my inbox, from a artist I'm thrilled to be working with. I've posted them to the Ukko twitter account if you want to check them out. So, that's one New Year's resolution ticked off.

Uncanny X-Men #262-#263 will always be known primarily as the story in which Jean Grey's arms are replaced with tentacles by Masque and she kinda likes it.

Let's review how we got here (for I have been disregarding subplots). Banshee and Forge have left Muir Island searching for the X-Men, having heard a rumour. They've been trying to keep things on the QT from Moira, because she has been wearing clothes that are frankly quite inappropriate in a work environment. They saw a news report about Dazzler being alive, so decided to go to North America, and seem to have stopped off at the X-Mansion, possibly to check what's going on with Callisto who hasn't reported back after being sent to make sure the security systems on the basement are fine. There they meet up with Jean Grey and get involved in an adventure with Morlocks.

So. Masque is our villain here. Masque does things that are a bit twisted, even for Masque: apart from the tentacles on Jean and the I-Have-No-Mouth routine on Banshee, there's recognising the amnesiac and powerless Colossus and altering his skin to look metallic even though it isn't really. This sets up a great scene later on when he breaks through into his steel form and this comes as a great surprise to the smashees. But the more disturbing action is the one that goes against his usual M.O. - restoring Callisto's beauty.

We don't know a massive amount of Callisto's backstory yet, but it's plain here that she had to do a lot of mental work to accept her physical appearance. This is also tied in to her status as a Morlock - because of that convention of Masque altering them all. Suddenly changing her appearance back again, and playing mind-games is a savage attack on her identity, and a deliberate rejection of her from the group, by someone who sees her as a race-traitor. This book just got political again.

Uncanny X-Men #195/Power Pack #12: Power Pack

Uncanny X-Men #195 is a cross-over with Power Pack #12. Power Pack are a relatively recent creation (1984), and are a bunch of pre-teen siblings (the Powers) who get superpowers from a space horse (but not the same type of space horse as Beta Ray Bill) and have adventures.

#195 starts with the Power children finding their parents have forgotten them. This is part of a sinister plan by the Morlock Annalee to abduct them, with the aid of Masque (who has reshaped their faces), and Beautiful Dreamer (who has the ability to alter memories), and presumably Sunder (who has the power to steal furniture). Katie Power - the youngest - avoids being captured by the Morlocks.

So, this is another Morlocks stealing people story. So far they have tried to steal Kitty Pryde, Angel, Kitty Pryde (again) and now Katie Power. Their existence was problematic at best already (as no realistic effort has been made to extend a hand to them by the heroic characters), and now they seem to be acting as stand-ins in unsavoury tales about gypsies. We have privilege hierarchy here: the respectable heroes (the Avengers as typified by Captain America), looking down at the X-Men, who themselves look down on the Morlocks. Callisto has some sense (I suppose she knows she'll get it in the chest if this continues), and puts a stop to it, so that's all sorted. I count at least 40 Morlocks on the front row of that crowd, by the way. There must be hundreds of them.

Our X-Men in this issue are Wolverine, Rachel, Rogue and Shadowcat, which is oddly enough (bar a couple of members of the O5 and Gambit, who doesn't exist yet) the initial core staff of the Jean Grey School. Nightcrawler is off having a solo series. Wolverine makes the decision to place Shadowcat in charge, which is a bit curious. On the one hand, he's clearly not ready for leadership, and doesn't really want people to rely on him. But his ability to do this will means he sees himself as a king-maker. She manages it well, though, and I'd say she's being written as a competent 17 or 18 year old (#196 will say she's 15). That trip to Japan sure aged her!

Uncanny X-Men #192-#193: If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be X

Things have got very dark, very quickly.

Uncanny X-Men #192 follows two strands. Some of our X-Men wait for Kitty and Wolverine at the airport, where Xavier and Rachel survey passing thoughts and are shocked at the extent of anti-mutant prejudice which has erupted recently. Meanwhile, the others fight Warlock's father, Magus, at the mansion, and drive him off (again, if you hadn't been following New Mutants this would be very opaque).

Several months later, Xavier is finished with today's lecture at Columbia, musing to himself how he's enjoying his new part-time job. As he is presented with a good-will card, he is beaten to a bloody pulp - as a "mutant lover" - by some of his students, no less. Callisto saves him, outfits him in bondage gear, and spirits him away through the underground tunnels that we learn spread even to Westchester.

There, they find a ransom demand from James Proudstar, younger brother of the deceased X-Man John Proudstar, a Hellion and calling himself Thunderbird. He's taken Banshee captive, and hidden him somewhere bitterly ironic: Cheyenne Mountain, the place that John died. He blames the X-Men, and in particular Xavier, reasoning that Xavier must have been using mind control to get James to die. He's unaware that Xavier simply used cheap reverse psychology.

The X-Men are faced with a dilemma, in the truest sense of the word. James has set them up. They can rescue Banshee and render themselves outlaws, or let him die. Wolverine doesn't think they've got much choice, but he lays it out clearly for them. What they probably should have done (as I pointed out for #158) is have a deniable dirty ops squad that wears different costumes, but that'll have to wait a while.

The raid goes badly. Thunderbird has been trailed by three of his classmates from the massachusetts Academy: Empath (Manuel), Roulette (Jenny), and new girl Angelica Jones/Firestar (originally invented for the TV show Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends, being brought into the comics for the first time here), who cause all sorts of confusion. Also, they'd hoped to be able to use Rachel to track, but she's having flashforwards to her days as a hound (and also, to how she got taken back in time in the first place - Kate triggering a post-hypnotic suggestion when all was lost on a mission). Instead, this is Kitty's job, and she gets him to safety. But much of the rest of the team is left in there, and Thunderbird has gone after Xavier.

This is Nightcrawler's first real mission as field leader (Storm has gone on a second attempt to go back to Africa, again by ship. Maybe she's developed a thing about flying now she's depowered), and in the true tradition of X-Men leadership skills, angsts about botching it.

Ultimately Thunderbird can't make that killing blow, and matters are patched up. But he's done his real damage: the X-Men are now clearly implicated in an attack on NORAD. And remember, the government knows where they live. The Hellions are evacuated back to the mansion, and are offered places at the Academy, but decline. The X-Men agree to let them leave, which is a bit curious when you consider Emma Frost's previously established recruitment tactics, but hey, I guess they've got some considerably bigger fish. The X-Men certainly seem to have abandoned the strategy of pre-emptively visiting every new mutant they find on Cerebro. Apart from the Hellions there are also the Morlocks, so perhaps sometime since the #120s (when they went after Kitty and Dazzler) mutants have become common enough that this is impractical? Which would also tie in nicely to the increased mutaphobia.

On the other hand, the Hellfire Club are involved in a naked power play at this point. They want control, not material social change for mutants in general - and they "pass" as human and know their money will protect them if they can't. So - a rich elite throwing a minority (which they are a part of) under the bus to gain power! Pretty cutting stuff. May as well make the senator be called Larry Craig and be done with it.

That dystopia that Rachel comes from is not just something that might happen in the future. It is happening, now.

Uncanny X-Men #190-#191: X-Manhattan

Uncanny X-Men #190 is another fantastically weird one.

New York has gone a bit odd. Specifically, it has been turned into a giant Ren Fayre, by the wizard Kulan Gath (who escaped from a piece of jewellery in #189), with the Morlocks as minions. Buildings, people. Outside, in DC, they're having a crisis meeting about this, as people in DC tend to do. Val Cooper is forced to put her faith in those people in brightly coloured costumes and capes.

But the heroes are affected, too. Well, most of them. Not Spider-Man, and not Warlock (making his first appearance in Uncanny only a few months after being introduced in New Mutants). Storm and Callisto are able to escape to New Jersey (not a phrase anyone uses much), and are contacted there by Selene, who has hijacked Rachel's powers, and wants to stop this madness as much as anyone else.

Together, those that remember anything persuade those that don't that Kulan Gath needs overthrowing, while they remain suspicious of Selene's motivations. And so the X-Men are included in that rallying call: "AVENGERS ASSEMBLE", and help defeat the evil wizard.

It's just the X-Men's luck that they were an essential part of the solution which winds back time so that none of this ever happened, and nobody remembers it. Not even Val Cooper, who was looking like she might be turnable. Captain America is going to remember it, though. Shouldn't he be doing something against this anti-mutant hysteria that's being whipped up? Mutants must lead the struggle, but they need allies, especially when they are in such urgent danger. Topical!

Uncanny X-Men #169-#171: Morlocks and Rogue

Uncanny X-Men #169-#170 is a little two-part story which introduces the Morlocks, followed by an epilogue in #171 which also features Rogue. They've captured Angel (who is living with Candy Sothern - that version is coming up so frequently I can't quite believe it's a simple misspelling), and Callisto plans to wed him.

X-Men stop that, but at what cost... Storm defeats Callisto in a fight "to the death" (Callisto gets better in #171), because she sees no other option, thus continuing her spiralling descent since the Brood eggs arc. Caliban, who we'd met in #148, is now seen as one of them, seeking out new recruits for them, and helps provide the information they need, in exchange for Kitty agreeing to stay down there with him in the tunnels, and be his friend.

Meanwhile, in Alaska, we've still not yet met Scott's grandparents, but he's become fascinated by Madelyne Pryor. Who is not just similar-looking to Jean Grey, but is the spitting image of her. And turns out to have survived a plane crash on September 1, 1980. I simply don't believe Claremont's claim that this was all originally supposed to be a coincidence. Why do that - why have the little tease "How'd you know that's my favorite breakfast"/"Simple - I'm a mind-reader"?

And somewhere else, in a safe house, Mystique is having strange dreams, not unlike the ones that Jean Grey had during Mastermind's brainwashing of her (a narrative caption curiously pegs her birth year as 1953, which not only rules out the long Wolverine-like appearances throughout the century, but also means she cannot be Nightcrawler's parent. Er, not that we know that yet.)

She's going by the name "Raven" even in private with Irene, now. And Rogue has run off, apparently also under the influence of Mastermind. Where could she have gone? To the X-Men's mansion it turns out (er, so that's another on the list of people who know where to find the X-Men - it must basically be common knowledge by now), where she begs for help.

The result of this is slightly spoiled by the cover (Rogue joins the X-Men!), but it's good stuff anyway. Storm and the X-Men are strongly against it - despite having offered refuge to the Morlocks that very day; but Binary reacts more violently. Xavier makes a Patrick Stewart Speech (I do wonder whether there's a little mind control going on here), and the matter is settled. Rogue joins, and nobody quits, apart from Binary, who hasn't really been hanging around the mansions since they returned from space anyway. Not enough meat of this is made, I think.

Xavier's relatively liberal attitude to Rogue - welcoming her in even over the objections of his team - can be compared to the Morlocks, who remain in the tunnel system. Sure, they make a token effort to invite them back, but Storm could try a little stronger - she is leader now after all - they could suggest someone comes and visits on a trial basis. Once more we see the X-Men's passing privilege raise its beautiful head. Nightcrawler says that he's found it OK upstairs, apparently forgetting that he's had access to an image inducer. Even on a practical level this is odd - Healer and Masque would be very good additions to the team in so far as their power-sets - is this a case of prejudice defeating even practicality?

And, finally another little sub-plot! Crikey, Claremont does like embedding them in, doesn't he? While Xavier and Lilandra are looking at Rogue, the other X-Men go have a session in the Danger Room. Illyana programs it with Belasco's realm, and when Kitty tries to turn it off, she uses a kind of strange sword (that has come from nowhere) to stop her. Something's going on here, but looks like we've got another slow burner.