Uncanny X-Men: Fear itself

Collects Uncanny X-Men #540-544.

I read the issues when they were published in the monthly Finnish edition of the X-Men. These are the only issues we saw of the whole Fear Itself storyline.

Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artists: Greg Land, Jay Leisten
Publication year: 2012
Publisher: Marvel

Apparently, this is a part of much larger cross-over event at Marvel but I think it stands pretty well on its own, once we’re told what changed Juggernaut. I don’t like this collection as much as the previous one but it has potential for something which haven’t really been seen much in the X-Men comics in recent years: character development, especially for Peter, Kitty, and Illyana. (Actually, there might have been character development in the Schism storyline but that wasn’t published here.)

The first four issues focus on X-Men vs. Juggernaut and the last issue is Mr. Sinister talking (to himself) about X-Men’s history and especially recent events.

Juggernaut has gotten even more invincible because he got magical powers on top of his Juggernaut powers and he’s walking to San Francisco. The X-Men try to stop him. For some reason, Juggernaut speaks only gibberish and needs a henchman to speak for him.

Some of the people of SF are holding a rally against mutants saying that the mutants should leave SF and that they aren’t humans. However, the (young) mayor disagrees and says that the X-Men are welcome to stay. When Juggernaut is spotted, Scott and Emma let the mayor see what they are planning. Scott sends small teams against the Juggernaut, wanting to slow him down and get rid of his helmet so that Emma can zap him. Unfortunately, instead of she zapping him, Juggernaut zaps Emma, and the X-Men have an epic fight in their hands.

Meanwhile, Illyana has apparently endangered her friends to get revenge and now she’s considered a renegade. She’s imprisoned in a special X-Men prison. Her brother Peter is, of course, very concerned for her but she doesn’t appear to regret anything. Even her former best friend Kitty says that Illyana has changed so much she’s not really the same person anymore. However, when it becomes clear that Juggernaut can’t be stopped with mutant powers, the X-Men really have only one expert in magic, so Scott has to turn to Illyana.

Also, Namor is trying to take Emma away to be his queen. Sadly, he doesn’t succeed. Emma also sees a dream of a fiery bird returning and tries to kill Hope.

The story starts in a pretty usual way for the X-Men: intolerance and a huge enemy to fight. Scott is the central character; he’s very cold and calculating and convinced that he needs to be that way in order to protect the mutant race. Sadly, the world agrees with him. He says to the mayor that he doesn’t want to send the mutant kids into battle but he will if it becomes necessary. That’s essentially what he does: what is necessary to survive. He feels that he’s responsible for every hurt and death, and the others seem to blame him, too.

The fight against Juggernaut is shown in brief glimpses of various tactics which the mutants try against him. Otherwise, the fights would have take a lot of issues. Now, it’s almost a side story for everything else. One X-Men is changed a lot and I hope he won’t be just promptly changed back but the writers get to explore his new status more.

It’s a pretty average X-Men story and nothing fundamental happens here. Unless, of course, one X-Man’s transformation lasts long.

 

Uncanny X-Men: Breaking Point

Collects Uncanny X-Men #534.1 and #535-539.
I read the issues when they were published in the monthly Finnish edition of the X-Men.
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artists: Terry Dobson, Rachel Dobson, Ibraim Roberson
Publication year: 2011
Publisher: Marvel

The collection starts with an issue focused on Magneto. Now that he’s living on Utopia, the X-Men want to do something about his public image and they want other people to know that they don’t need to fear him anymore. So, Magneto agrees to meet with a PR professional and they have a very interesting conversation. Meanwhile, a couple of A.I.M. terrorists claim that they have a way to trigger earthquakes and they want the city of San Francisco to pay so that they don’t use their weapon. The mayor calls in the X-Men.

The next four issues deal with the aliens we met during Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men. S.W.O.R.D’s leader agent Brand contacts Cyclops because a warship from the Breakworld is coming to Earth. Scott takes with him the group who went to Breakworld, minus the new member Armor and plus Magneto, and heads to orbit. The X-Men and Brand break into the warship and are in for a surprise: the deposed Powerlord Kruun and his people are actually refugees looking for a place to stay.

Whedon’s run left a few tangling plot points and this collection ties them up, although I’m really surprised if we don’t see more of the aliens. I liked this storyline a lot until the very last issue. A lot of crucial things happened there off screen. We’re told about them but not shown them and the conclusion feels very abrupt. One moment Kitty is in great danger and the next… the cavalry has arrived and everything is puppies and sunshine.

I really liked the focus on Kitty. Ever since she came back, she’s been stuck in a phased form and that’s finally cleared up. This was actually a bit of a nostalgic feel to me because Claremont did the whole stuck in a phased form thing first.

I like Colossus but he’s never been a favorite character. I actually think he’s the wrong guy for Kitty no matter how long they’ve been on-again, off-again couple, but it’s great to see Kitty happy. The story had great small moments, like Kitty and Peter on a date even though they can’t touch and Magneto wanting to know more about the Breakworld metal. Then again, I wasn’t too fond of the Frost/Brand snarking but luckily that was kept low. I really enjoyed Kruun’s attitude towards Peter which is very understandable. I think the whole Breakworld thing brought some more story focus on Peter which is good.

The last issue seems like a one-shot with a very different artist and focus on Hope. A group of men kidnaps her in front of her team of the five new mutant and Wolverine leaves to save her all by himself. The story has a few touching scenes between Hope and Logan but otherwise it felt unnecessary. We get to see the new mutants who were introduced in “Five Lights”. However, in that story Idun was twelve but this time she’s clearly an adult, which was disconcerting.

Overall, I liked this collection better than the previous one.

 

Uncanny X-Men: Quarantine

Collects Uncanny X-Men #530-534
I read the issues when they were published in the monthly Finnish edition of the X-Men.

Writer: Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen
Artists: Greg Land, Justin Leisten
Publication year: 2010

Quarantine continues the story lines in the previous collection, The Birth of Generation Hope. The mutants are catching a flue which also shuts down their powers. Utopia island is quarantined and only a few X-Men are outside it. Therefore Archangel, Pixie, Dazzler, and Northstar are effectively the X-Men and they get help from Storm. They respond to an attack and get… super powered fans.

Meanwhile, the rest of the cast are frantically trying to get to the bottom of the flue; how to cure it and where it came from.

Elsewhere: In the previous story, Emma Frost convinced Kitty Pryde and Fantomex to help her to get her secret prisoner outside Utopia before anyone can know about him. The secret prisoner is Sebastian Shaw. Unfortunately, Fantomex doesn’t seem to know how Shaw’s powers work and he tries to kill Shaw by dropping him from an airplane. Big mistake.

The ideas in the virus story are interesting but I can’t help to think that it has all been done before and better. First, the virus was way too powerful – it quickly took down all of the X-Men’s big guns. Compared to that the resolution was way too quick. The virus story reeks of a one-shot but unfortunately I don’t think the mutants can just blithely assume that all of the virus has been accounted for and nobody else can use it. The virus depowered Magneto, Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine, Psylocke, Namor…

What I really liked, however, were the fans. They are rich kids who want to get superpowers themselves. Of course they do – who wouldn’t! I also really “enjoyed” (if that’s the correct word for a new villain who I look forward to getting the tar beaten out of him, repeatedly) the idea that someone want to get the rights to the mutant genome because he wants to get money out of it. I also really enjoyed the new X-Men in action, especially the interaction between Allison and Pixie. It’s too bad that the artist was Land and the women don’t look human.

I really didn’t care for the Emma Frost story. Beside the fact that I loath Emma as a “hero”, I didn’t really like Kitty whining all the time that Shaw shouldn’t be killed. She didn’t have any suggestions of how to contain him, though. And Fantomex was just stupid.

Overall, a mixed bag.

 

Planetary: All Over the World and other stories

Collects Planetary #1-6 and Planetary preview originally published in G13 and C 23.

Writer: Warren Ellis
Artists: John Cassaday
Publication year: 1999

The three people which make up the Planetary crew are mystery archeologists: they want to find out the secret history of the Earth. And oh boy, are there secrets to uncover! Planetary has many literary references from Jules Verne to Edgar Rice Burroughs but mostly Ellis riffs off of popular superheroes, such as the Justice League and the Fantastic Four, and makes them the antagonists.

For too long now many of the superhero comics, at least the ones I’m familiar with, have become dark and depressing and, well, unheroic. I’m usually sick of it. The real world is depressing enough. But here it actually works and I think it’s because Ellis gives us wonder to go with the darkness.

For example, in the very first issue of Planetary, the “villains” (if you want to call them that because they are really just defending their own world against the meddling of our “heroes”) are clearly alternate universe JLA. But in that very same issue we are also given a group of heroes to root for and they are based on literary references, such as Lord Blackstock who was raised in Africa, and Doc Brass who is modeled after various pulp magazine heroes.

In the other issues we get to meet an island of monsters, a vengeful ghost, and more. I love this comic!

Pretty much the only complaint I have is that compared to everything else, the three main characters are quite bland. The Drummer remains a cypher throughout the whole comic. He’s a walking information nexus and he can manipulate and access info pretty much at will. His only personality trait is that he irritates Elijah Snow. Jakita Wagner is a pretty traditional super heroine: she’s beautiful, very strong, fast, and almost indestructible. She’s also an adventurer at heart; she bores quickly. Elijah Snow is the focal character. He’s what I’ve come to understand is a default Warren Ellis hero: a cranky old man who yet loves humanity and is concerned with the future of humanity and Earth. At the start of the story, he has significant gaps in his memory and getting his memories back is an integral part of the story.

This is a solid opening to the series. Many of the issues feel like they are stand-alones but they have repercussions later in the series. And of course, in issue six we meet the enemy: the Four. They are three men and one woman who went into space at the same time as the US launched the first Apollo mission. But the Four went there not because they want to explore it but because they were sent there by secret, and evil, government agents. The Four were transformed during the space flight but they use their new powers and knowledge to get more power to themselves and to stay hidden from the world. Now, I’m a huge fan of the Fantastic Four and I still love this twisted alternate version. They’re terrifying.

Cassaday’s art is gorgeous. He can also change his style to fit the mood of the story, as is seen in the third issue which looks and feels more like a movie than a comic.

Oh, and if you haven’t read the comic but are interested in doing so, do yourself a favor and stay away from the Planetary Wikipedia pages. All of the secrets are revealed there and at least to me a big part of the fun was finding out things alongside with the characters.

 

Uncanny X-Men: The Birth of Generation Hope

Collects Uncanny X-Men #526-529; Uncanny X-Men: The Heroic Age (one shot).
I read the issues when they were published in the montly Finnish edition of the X-Men.

Writer: Matt Fraction
Artists: Whilce Portacio, Leonard Kirk, Ed Tadeo, Jay Leisten, Harvey Tolibao, Sandu Florea
Publication year: 2010

This isn’t really a stand-alone story, but an epilogue to Second Coming and a prolog to the next story arc. In the Second Coming, Hope Summers came back to the present X-Men continuity and when she came, new mutants began manifesting their powers again. Cerebera identified five new mutants on Earth, and Hope and a group of X-Men are going around the world to meet them. However, it seems that all of them are manifesting their powers in erratic way and are older than when the previous mutants first manifested their powers. In this story we meet four of the five new mutants: a 19-year old woman in Canada, a young student boy in Mexico, a 12-year old girl in Nigeria, and a man in Tokyo. The X-Men only have to fight one of them; with the others, the X-Men end up saving them from their powers.

Hope also visits her mother’s grave and finds out more about her family. She and Cable went to the future when she was just a baby, so she doesn’t know anything about her biological parents.

Meanwhile, Emma Frost is scheming behind the other X-Men’s back (that’s what you get when you allow into your group someone who tortures other people for fun). While Scott knows that Emma is meeting with Tony Stark, who is trying to convince Emma that it’s a good idea for all hero types to work together, poor Scott doesn’t know that Emma is making an alliance with Namor and keeping Sebastian Shaw a prisoner right on the Utopia island. Hilariously, (to us readers waiting/fearing for the train wreck to arrive, not so to the characters) Bobby is talking a PR woman who insists that if she will work for the X-Men she must know everything that’s going on.

In Second Coming Kitty Pryde came back to Earth. She had been inside a bullet shaped bomb keeping it intangible so that it wouldn’t explode. Magneto was able to get her out. However, she’s still in intangible form and the X-Men scientists are looking for a way to cure her. Meanwhile, she’s confined into a tank which has a low EM field but she can’t talk. When Emma reluctantly agrees to become a telepathic link between Kitty and her love Peter, Emma finds out to her horror that Kitty finds out all about Emma’s dirty little secrets. This is a very interesting development because Kitty has never trusted nor liked Emma and she’s sure to keep the ex-villain on her toes.

I recommend reading Second Coming before this.

 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ring of Fire

Collects issues 1-3 of the miniseries with a couple of pages of concept art.

Writer: Doug Petrie
Artist: Ryan Sook
Publication year: 2000 (during seasons 4/5)

The comic is set during season 2 (between “Passion” and “I only have Eyes for You”), while Angel was Angelus and we get to see him interact with Spike and Drusilla. In the show, Spike/Angelus snark were funny but unfortunately, the comic doesn’t reach that level.

The story starts on a Japanese ship which is transporting cargo that the crew thinks is cursed. They’re almost right: Angelus is on board. He kills almost all of the crew, leaving just one man alive (a crucial mistake), and takes the cargo which turns out to be a suit of magical samurai armor which can summon a powerful demon. Spike (in the wheelchair), Drusilla, and Angelus start working to summon the demon Kelgor.

Meanwhile, Giles is having a hard time with Jenny’s death and that makes Buffy and the gang uneasy, they even wonder if he can do his job anymore. During a fight with the resurrected Kelgor, men from a mysterious government agency arrest Buffy.

The main story line is pretty similar to usual Buffy stories. However, there a lot of great moments in the comic such as the return of Kendra. She was really underused in the series and I was happy to see her back. Giles is also all dark and Ripper like which is always fun. The writer Doug Petrie wrote quite a few episodes and it shows.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really care for the art, it looks almost smudgy. Drusilla didn’t look anything like the actress. However, it seems to me that the art improves in issues 2 and 3. I also think that in the end the mysterious government agents are pretty pointless. Unless they are actually from the Initiative but that wasn’t confirmed.

 

Essential X-Men vol. 5

Writer: Chris Claremont
Artists: John Romita Jr., Barry Windsor-Smith, Michael Golden, Bret Blevins, and Steve Leialoha

Collects UXM #180-198, UXM Annual 7, 8

This is another collection full of classic story lines and characters. It’s also quite dark in tone but so was the previous collection’s Brood storyline.

This collection deals with a lot of relationship stuff and introduces a pivotal character: Rachel Summers, Scott and Jean’s daughter from alternate time line. Her time line was glimpsed at in “Days of Future Past” and in issues focusing on Rachel we get to see the horrible (but by now quite familiar to fans) future where mutants and superheroes were (will be) hunted and put into concentration camps. After the X-Men of that time die, Rachel travels back in time in desperation to try to change her present and the X-Men’s future. Instead, she cames to an alternate past. We’re also introduced government’s mutant inventor: Forge. And several enemies: Selene who is a millenia old vampire-like mutant and Nimord, the super sentinel from Rachel’s future.

Kitty and Storm finally settle their differences. Kitty has been horrified by Storm’s changes but they finally face the fact that Storm can’t live her life the way Kitty would want her to, but the way Storm wants to and needs to. Then Colossus brakes up with Kitty and she leaves the X-Men for a while. Meanwhile, Rogue has to face her own demons, Carol Danvers’s memories.

Then, Gyrich shoots Storm with a weapon Forge designed. It’s supposed to strip a mutant from his or her powers – and it works. Storm loses her powers and is devastated. For awhile she’s still with the X-Men and proves that she’s still a warrior even without her powers. But in the end she decides to return to Africa to find a new direction to her life.

In this collection, government’s paranoia towards mutants escalates. Senator Kelly is heading the mutant registration act and agents like Gyrich, who has worked with the Avengers in the past, are looking for ways to neutralize mutant powers completely. The start of the collection has a lot of magic in it, too. Unfortunately, none of the X-Men have magical powers so they have to rely on allies to save them. This look pretty grim.

Meanwhile, the X-Men battle foes from Selene to Kulan Gath and the Morlocks. Warmachine’s father Magus is also introduced. The X-Men fight Juggernaut and Rogue has to combine the powers of several X-Men to beat Nimrod.

The collection is quite dark in tone with Rogue’s and Rachel’s mental problems and Storm losing her powers. The hatred that ordinary humans feels towards mutants is also prominent.

Annual 7 is much more whimsical in tone. Here, the X-Men come face to face with… Galactus, who steals their mansion. However, Xavier contacts them and tells them that while this is a very powerful being, it’s not Galactus. The X-Men chase the being to various places before finally getting to the bottom of the story.

Apparently, some reprint editions also contain the four issue X-Men/Alpha Flight miniseries. I liked it; it had a quite a mythical feel to it.

 

Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft

Collects issues 1-6

Writer: Joe Hill
Artist: Gabriel Rodriquez
Publisher: IDW Publishing

Locke & Key is a comic with multiple mysteries for the characters to solve. The story starts with the Locke family: the parents Rendell and Nina, and their kids Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode. The first issue alternates between the past and the present.

In the past the Locke family is vacationing in Mendocino Valley where the parents are brutally attacked. Rendell is killed and Nina is brutalized. Kinsey and Bode are hiding from the two attackers while Tyler confronts them. The attackers are teenagers who knew Rendell.

The present starts with Rendell’s funeral and then Nina takes her children to live with Rendell’s brother in the big Keyhouse in Lovecraft, Massachusetts. The family is trying to start a new life but they all have issues to deal with. Tyler knew one of the attackers, Sam Lesser, and ended up beating him throughly, so that Sam has multiple scars on his face. Kinsey lives in constant fear. She changes her hair to a less radical style so that the other kids wouldn’t stare at her in school. And Bode finds a magic doorway which separates his body and spirit. The he finds a girl who lives in a well. Of course, nobody believes little Bode.

I found the first issue a little confusing because of the many shifts between now and then, but once the story starts rolling, it’s much clearer. The family dynamic is great. Even though the family has suffered a great loss and they are all trying to cope the best way they can, they are also trying to support each other. Tyler especially is trying to push down his own pain and fear, and be the rock for the others. He even thinks about killing himself at one point but realizes that he can’t do that to the others.

It comes quickly clear to the reader that the Keyhouse is a magical place and the Locke’s uncle Duncan seems to know more about it than he’s saying. Sam Lesser also knew something about the Keyhouse that prompted the attack. Issue four focuses on Sam’s side of the story.

The first trade of Locke and Key is a full of mysteries and may questions, as is usual for the first part. It’s also quite violent and doesn’t sugar coat the aftereffects of violence.

 

Essential X-Men Vol. 4

Uncanny X-Men #162-179, Annual #6; X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills

Writer: Chris Claremont
Artists: Paul Smith, Dave Cockrum, John Romita Jr., and Brent Anderson

This is a collection full of classic storylines and characters who are affecting stories even today.

The collection starts with the Brood space adventure storyline. This story is darker than most of the previous ones because the queen of the insect like aliens has infected the X-Men with her eggs. When the eggs hatch, the host will die and the new alien has all of the host’s abilities. Often enough the X-Men face a possible death or injury in battle but this time they have time to think about things and know that there’s no escape. Wolverine even contemplates killing all of his team mates to spare them the agony of what’s to come. Wolverine’s healing powers were able to destroy the egg inside him so he’s the only one without an egg. Colossus, Storm, Kitty, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, and Lilandra have all been affected. However, the group is given a chance to fight for life; instead of just destroying the Brood Queen in a suicide mission, they can save the huge aliens, the Acanti, whom the Brood are enslaving as their living ships. Also, Storm has elemental powers in space!

This story is a milestone also for other characters: Carol Danvers (former Ms. Marvel, the future Warbird of the Avengers) gets Binary powers and joins the Starjammers, and the New Mutants make their first appearance in the X-Men comic although the apparently already had their own comic. When the X-Men are away from Earth, Xavier has recruited another team of young mutants: Cannonball, Karma, Psyche, Sunspot, and Wolfsbane.

Kitty’s pet dragon Lockheed is also introduced.

In issue 168, the Morlocks are introduced. While Caliban made an appearance in an earlier issue, he seemed lonely and not part of a group of mutants. Here, he’s part of the Morlocks, who are deformed mutant who live underground in the sewers, and resent the X-Men for looking like humans and so being able to live in the sunlight. Storm has to fight their leader Callisto for Angel’s freedom and has to face the changes in her since she took over as the team leader.

Madelyne Pryor is introduced and Xavier accepts Rogue into the team.

In retrospect, I find it quite curious that Xavier lets Rogue into the X-Men as soon as he accepts her as his patient. He does this despite the fact that the core X-Men say that they can’t trust the former criminal. That could be a dangerous element in a fight where the team mates have to rely on each other all the time. Not to mention, that Rogue herself doesn’t appear too stable. From a writing point of view, her addition is great; the X-Men have become such a close-knit group of loyal friends that they need a disruptive element. Wolverine used to be such and Kitty to extend is still, because of her inexperience, but they have both already proven themselves reliable.

Then, the X-Men head to Japan to Wolverine’s and Lady Mariko Yashida’s wedding. A mysterious villain stalks them with hints that the Phoenix might be returning while the Silver Samurai and the Viper try to kill Lady Mariko so that the Samurai can become the head of the powerful Yashida clan.

In the final issue Kitty has to face Caliban again and the promises she made in the earlier Morlock adventure.

Storm goes through huge chances here. Throughout the first half of the collection she has to make bitter decisions both as the team leader and as an individual. She vowed long ago that she would never kill but she has to kill the Brood egg inside her and the make the decision to oppose the Brood to the death. Later, she fights a duel with Callisto and essentially kills her. She’s questioning her beliefs and her place in the X-Men, and that also affects her powers and her connection of the Earth. Her feelings affect the weather around her and so she has to keep them under tight control and that’s chafing. Then she meets Yukio in Japan. Yukio is carefree and Ororo envies her. In the end, Ororo decides to stay with the X-Men and accept the changes in her.

Cyclops also goes through changes. He finds out that he’s not an orphan but has a father and grandparents. However, that isn’t explored much, in the end. He has a fling with a sea ship captain and then meets Madelyne Pyror, his future wife and Jean Grey look-a-like.

Kitty is just fourteen at the start of this collection and already she has to face death when the Brood egg hatches. She grows up a lot as is seen in the last issue.

I enjoyed this collection hugely. Because of the way that the Finnish edition of the X-Men was published, I didn’t read these stories first. My first X-Men stories are in the next collection, in the Claremont/ John Romita Jr. era, so I got to see the consequences of some of these stories first; reading Inferno before the first appearance of Pryor.

 

Essential X-Men Vol. 3

Collects Uncanny X-Men #145-161 and Annual 3, 4 and 5

Writer: Chris Claremont
Artists: Dave Cockrum, Joe Rubinstein, Bob McLeod, Bill Sienkiewicz, & Bob Wiacek

This a collection of classic Claremont tales. Most of the stories span a couple of issues and some subplots even five issues.

The collection starts with the X-Men confronting Doctor Doom for the first time. Arcade’s assistant Miss Locke has kidnapped all of the X-Men’s loved ones: Nightcrawler’s girlfriend Amanda, Jean Grey’s parents, Colossus’ little sister Illyana, Angel’s girlfriend Candy, Banshee’s wife Moira MacTaggert, and Kitty’s dance teacher Stevie Hunter. Apparently, Dr. Doom has kidnapped Arcade and Locke wants the X-Men to free him or she will kill the hostages. But Storm has a plan: she recruits old X-Men: Ice Man, Havok, Polaris, and Banshee. The active X-Men (Nightcrawler, Colossus, Storm, Wolverine, and Angel) head over to Doom’s palace and the other team tries to locate and free the hostages.

Dr. Doom captures one team and the other falls victim to Arcade’s Murderworld but of course, the teams manage to fight their way free. Doom encapsulates Storm into solid chrome. Unfortunately, she suffers from claustrophobia and this treatment makes her panic. Her mind gathers up elemental powers while she’s immobile inside the chrome. When she’s freed from the chrome, she almost destroys the palace and everyone in it before Colossus can talk her out of it. Dr. Doom and Ororo are attracted to each other but nothing comes out of it. This seems to be a recurring element in Claremont’s writing; later Ororo is attracted to Arkon and Dracula. Another recurring element is that Ororo misplaces her uniform and is wearing a lot less.

Meanwhile, Cyclops and her new employer/love interest Aleytys Forrester, a ship captain, have been washed overboard during a storm. They wake up on a new island which they explore for a few issues. Then they find out that they are on Magneto’s island. He has simply made the island rise from the sea.

In issue 148 Dazzler makes a brief appearance and Storm and Spider-Woman battle Caliban who is just looking for other mutants. Angel leaves the group because he can’t tolerate Wolverine and Banshee finds out that he has a grown daughter. This issue is quite melancholy.

In issue 149 Xavier sends the group to Magneto’s old base and they are attacked by Garokk who bears a grudge against Ororo. Kitty is ordered to stay behind but she sneaks aboard the Blackbird and is quite useful.

The next issue centers on Magneto. He gives the world powers an ultimatum to surrender, which they don’t do, of course, and the X-Men journey to his island. They unite with Cyclops and Lee. However, for the first time, we’re told about Magneto’s past as a Holocaust survivor and he starts to see that he’s becoming similar to the men whom he hates to much. This is a turning point to Magneto.

Next is a two-issue story arc which shows the true colors of Emma Frost. Kitty’s parents send her to school which is run by Frost and her cronies. Ororo takes Kitty to the new school and Frost take advantage of that; she switches her mind to Ororo’s body intending to infiltrate the X-Men. Meanwhile, Ororo is in Frost’s body. Interestingly, their powers remain with their bodies so Frost can now control weather and Ororo has telepathy which she isn’t used to.

Then starts a longer storyline. Shi’ar’s Empress Lilandra has been kidnapped and the clues point to Earth. Starjammer’s leader Corsair races to the X-Mansion to warn the X-Men. The Shi’ar give an ultimatum to the X-Men to find the Empress or the Earth will be ravaged. The Empress has been really taken by Deathcry and the Brood, and the X-Men will have to fight a lot of enemies, including the Imperial Guard, to assure Earth’s safety. However, Xavier falls into a coma. Scott finds out that Corsair is his father and learns more about his parents.

With issue 158 starts a string of one-shot issues. First, the X-Men decide to erase all knowledge of themselves from Pentagon’s files. Carol Danvers helps them get access but they run into Rogue and Mystique who are on their own mission in the Pentagon. However, Carol manages to erase all information about the team and about herself, too. Interestingly, Rogue is depicted here as an older woman with crow’s feet around her eyes and her two white streaks look like graying hair rather than the fashion statement they look like later.

The next issue is somewhat cheesy confrontation between the X-Men and Dracula. The famous vampire bites Ororo and tries to seduce her into a vampire. However, he respects Storm’s bravery, strength and beauty too much to force her to become a vampire. Yup, reads like a love letter to the wind rider.

The next issue, 160, is a classic. X-Men meet the demon Belasco for the first time. The demon kidnaps Illyana into his dimension where time moves differently and Illyana grows into a teenager until our heroes can rescue her. Belasco gives her an amulet with places for five stones and says that she will reach her destiny when all five are in place. 13-year-old Illyana returns with three in place and the X-Men don’t know how or with whom she’s spent her time in Limbo. However, Peter is still happy to get his sister back even though she’s clearly changed. I really enjoyed this issue because we get a glimpse of the X-Men from a different time line where they didn’t manage to flee from Belasco’s dimension.

The last issue centers on Xavier. He’s still in the coma and is dreaming about his past. Twenty years ago he encountered Magneto but knew him as Magnus. Together they fought the rising powers of Hydra. The issue also sets up the long Brood space adventure (one of my favorites).

Annual 4 explores Kurt’s past. In the middle of Kurt’s 21st birthday celebration, a strange statue explodes on his face and he seems dead. However, Xavier calls on Doctor Strange who confirms that the Nightcrawler’s soul has been taken. When Strange is scanning Kurt, his kidnapper appears: Margali of the twisting ways. She kidnaps the rest of the X-Men to Dante’s hell where the team has to fight a whole hell of horrors.

In Annual 5 the Fantastic Four investigate an alien woman who seems to shoot at nothing in the middle of New York. However, she’s a Shi’ar scout fighting against the reptilian aliens called the Badoon who wear invisibility suits. The Badoon ambush the FF, kill the Shi’ar, and kidnap Reed, Ben, and Johnny. Susan goes to the X-Men for help. Before she died, the Shi’ar managed to say “Arkon” and “Lilandra in danger”. So, the X-Men and the Invisible Girl travel to Arkon’s world. There they find out that the Badoon have taken over the world and the people need their help. Apparently, Ororo and Arkon are in love but decide to part ways because of their different duties. Arkon is quite a lover; when the Avengers visit his dimension, he and Wanda are attracted to each other and later he marries Thundra (so it’s not jut the women who are constantly in one romance or another).

This is an enjoyable collection of stories. However, they aren’t quite as good or memorable as the ones in the previous collection.