The Uncanny X-Men #176-180

The Uncanny X-Men #176-180

Originally released in 1983

Written by Chris Claremont

Art by John Romita Jr.

It's been a while, so I wanted to get back into the superpowered soap opera that is Chris Claremont's X-Men. Picking up where I left off, the first issue is catching up on Cyclops and Madelyn Pryor as they are in the honeymoon phase of their relationship.

It's painful to go back to this, knowing what happens later.  I've read the Inferno arc and a bit of X-Factor, so I know that Cyclops abandons Madelyne and their kid once he sees that Jean Grey is alive (in what seems to be a low point in the character's history), Madelyn goes insane and becomes the Goblin Queen, and their kid is sent to the future to become Cable, growing up without his parents. It makes these moments where Cyclops is happy with Madelyne and wants to raise a family hit harder than they might have been intended to at the time.

Cyclops isn't the only one involved in family drama, though. Mystique is currently leading the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and she is convinced that Professor Xavier brainwashed her adoptive daughter Rogue and forced her to switch sides.  Her ties to Nightcrawler are also hinted at, though I'm not sure if it had been fully revealed at this point that they're mother and son.

In a bid to get Rogue back, the Brotherhood attacks the X-Men during a night out on the town, while Mystique goes after Rogue personally. In the battle, Colossus is super-heated and then frozen, leaving him in what is effectively a comatose state with a haunting image.

Kitty believes that a device made by Reed Richards can help to save him, but in the process of breaking into the Baxter Building, she is kidnapped by the Morlocks.  One of the Morlocks, Caliban, is infatuated with Kitty and intends to marry her whether she wants to get married or not. (Making it creepier is that she's explicitly only 15 in this story)

Throughout this, Nightcrawler is tending to Professor Xavier, who was attacked by Mystique. I find it darkly funny that Nightcrawler is worried about the effect that this will have on Illyana/Magik, seeing her brother turned into a statue and worrying about her best friend being kidnapped, while Illyana is thinking things like "Death is an old friend of mine."

Thankfully, Colossus gets the help he needs and Caliban realizes that he can't force Kitty to love him, so the whole situation does work out in the end.

However, elsewhere, a new form of anti-mutant hysteria is brewing. Previously, mutants had been viewed as a threat because they were viewed as an existential threat to humanity, that they were going to replace humans as the dominant species on the planet.  It's a nebulous and irrational fear, but racism doesn't make sense and isn't justified by any sort of logic.  At a government meeting (one that even Henry Peter Gyrich, Marvel's racist obstructive bureaucrat extraordinaire, feels like is going too far), the concern about mutants becomes more practical.  America almost has a monopoly on superhumans (there are teams and superheroes or supervillains in other countries, but they're few and far between compared to the ones that live in America in general, and it feels like New York City in particular), but mutants can appear anywhere, and with powers like shapeshifting and teleportation, they could assassinate politicians and disrupt military operations with ease.

This doesn't immediately impact the X-Men, seeming more like it's setting up a distant threat and reframing the reason behind anti-mutant hysteria. (the Sentinels, to my knowledge, were made by extremists like Bolivar Trask, but maybe this leads to a story arc where the US government creates Sentinels?)  The problem that they face in issue 180 is more personal.  As the leader of the X-Men and the leader of the Morlocks, Storm has taken on a new appearance (styling her hair in a mohawk and wearing lots of leather) and become far less gentle, and Kitty seems almost afraid of her when they were close friends beforehand.

Meanwhile, Colossus is fretting about his budding relationship with Kitty, feeling out of place in America and thinking that her friend Doug Ramsey (later known as the mutant Cypher) would be a better fit for her.  As it turns out, Doug is being scouted by a school that's secretly run by the Hellfire Club, and Kitty volunteers to go undercover to make sure that he's okay.  Before she leaves, she does manage to reconcile with Storm, despite Kitty's stubborn refusal to accept that change is a part of life.

After Kitty and Doug get on a plane, Xavier and the rest of the X-Men head to Central Park to investigate the source of a psychic scan that he had been feeling for several issues now.  The source just appeared - a massive structure that, once the X-Men are inside, whisks them off to another world.  This story is to be continued in Secret Wars! (which I've already covered on my old blog)

Kitty's story continues in New Mutants, but this seems like as good of a place to stop as any.  Reading this issue does a good job with giving me extra context for Secret Wars, like why Kitty was absent or why Colossus seemed to fall in love with an alien woman so quickly.  Even though I'm unfamiliar with these specific stories, Claremont's X-Men run feels comforting and familiar to go back to. This incarnation of the team is a joy to read about.