Readthrough: Uncanny X-Men 99

[sheliak]

As the issue opens, three escapees are rescued from the vacuum of space… by Sentinels, narrating all the while. Lang takes the opportunity to gloat a little more about how impossible escape is.

Meanwhile... the news! The reporters describe a surge of anti-mutant sentiment following the Sentinel attacks. They specifically mention that the house of the pro-mutant Judge Robert Chalmers has been firebombed—fortunately when no one was home. Despite the sad lack of footnotes (perhaps the relevant issues were out of print and there was no point telling readers to seek them out?) he seemed to be a preexisting character, so I looked him up. He’s from the second Sentinel story (the one where Cyclops saved the day by talking the over-literal robots into fighting the sun). Chalmers was originally an ally of Larry Trask, but was disturbed by his extremism and ended up turning on him and arguing for tolerance in the end. I'm glad he's okay.

Meanwhile—despite serious solar storms, remember that—the Space shuttle is scheduled to launch with an international crew aboard. Of course, those astronauts headed into danger are actually the rest of the team, mounting a rescue! Classic adds an extra page (by new artist Jim Sherman) of them sneaking in, including Ororo dispelling the thick fog she used to cover their arrival.

Storm reflects on her claustrophobia, but it’s Colossus who actually loses it for a moment in the shuttle, shredding his spacesuit. This situation has brought back painful memories of his brother Mikhail, a cosmonaut, dying in an explosion on the launch pad. Doctor Corbeau, who's along for the trip despite his lack of superpowers (apparently they need someone who actually knows how the shuttle works), expresses sympathy, mentioning the astronauts who died in Apollo I.

(This will be retconned, but not by Claremont, and not for a very long time; for the time being, Mikhail Rasputin is dead.)



We take a moment here for a brief scene in Ireland, where poor Lawyer Flaherty barely manages to send a letter to Sean Cassidy—currently captive in space—before being attacked and probably killed by Sean's wicked cousin.

There's also a new page—drawn by Sherman, again—in which the Council of the Chosen (leaders of the Hellfire Club, and yes, there's a reason that they're not called the Lords Cardinal yet) conspire with Lang. Lang seems to be presenting himself as an ally in amoral science, hoping to use the X-Men to isolate and replicate mutant powers, which the Council intends to use for profit. Sebastian Shaw is skeptical, but the White King, Ned Buckland, brushes him off while internally gloating that he and Lang will soon utterly destroy the mutant subspecies.

We then return to the X-Men and Corbeau, who are approaching a space station that used to belong to SHIELD, until they abandoned it due to budget cuts. Presumably, Lang hijacked it sometime after that. Corbeau requests sanctuary due to the bad space weather. and is denied because everything afoot there is blatantly illegal top secret.

Of course, then Lang's nifty mutant-detection gizmo detects the X-Men, and he decides to send Sentinels after them. Curse your mutant detection gizmo! The Sentinels manage to damage the shuttle badly, and Storm (fortunately fully suited up) is sucked out into the void. At that point, Corbeau decides to ram the space station to get away from the killer robots, and I really can't blame him.

This leaves Storm on her own with a Sentinel. Of course, she handles that just fine. Incidentally, the narration decides to pick on the bad guy for once, telling the Sentinel how outclassed it is.



... but if she quit the team, she feels that she'd be letting her teammates down.

(The reprint changed a line about her using solar winds to "fly" in space and just had her mention a jetpack instead.)

The narrator even admits (reluctantly and grumpily) that the rest of the team are doing pretty well in their fight against the Sentinels that Lang predictably had inside the base. Colossus in particular is very angry with the Sentinels, blaming them for the danger Storm is in now. (Nightcrawler observes that Colossus is acting like he's in love, and for now, he does seem to have a strong unrequited crush on Storm.)

Despite how well they're all doing, Cyclops still manages to find fault with Nightcrawler's performance, telling him that he's being entirely too theatrical. Kurt's retort:

I have been a showman all my life, Cyclops--

--watch out for this other tin Frankenstein, my friend--

--it is in my blood, and I'm not about to change. For you--or anyone!

And just to drive the point home, he and Colossus perform an even showier team-up move, with a cute exchange in the midst of it.



Cyclops takes down the last of the Sentinels and insults them, saying that they're no match for the ones he fought last time.

Storm: I've always been very... difficult to kill, young one...

...but I must admit, I find the Sentinels easier to survive than your bear hugs.

(Colossus hastily puts her down.)

Meanwhile, Jean manages to telepathically contact Scott, telling him where the prisoners are and urging him to come to the rescue before Lang murders them. Scott sends the rest of the X-Men to rescue Wolverine and Banshee, and heads off with Corbeau to rescue Jean and the Professor, who’re being held separately (presumably due to being psychics).

In the original, Wolverine and Banshee are rescued off-page; Classic added a page in which their teammates arrive just in time to stop Wolverine from being tortured. (Oddly, Banshee seems to be naked except for the sails of his costume in this sequence--it seems obvious that the artist meant him to still be in costume and the colorist was confused, although given the presence of those sails, I'm not sure how they managed it... Maybe it was a really busy week.)

Scott gets to Jean quickly—and a good thing too, because Lang is aiming a gun at her when he gets there. Scott seems ready to beat Lang to death—Jean actually has to tell him to stop—when someone bursts in from the other direction, to Jean’s great dismay. Lang, of course, immediately begins gloating about how this is his true masterpiece and the heart of his plan…

And we leave off with this cliffhanger of a page:

Poll #21388

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

View Respondents

Favorite Scene(s)

View Answers

The News
1 (20.0%)

Colossus mourns his brother
0 (0.0%)

Liftoff!
1 (20.0%)

Poor doomed Lawyer Flaherty
1 (20.0%)

Ned Buckman out-sinistering Sebastian Shaw
0 (0.0%)

Storm vs. a Sentinel (again)
1 (20.0%)

The big fight (including the Cyclops+Nightcrawler tiff and Colossus's defense of Olga Korbut)
3 (60.0%)

Storm is reunited with the rest of the team
0 (0.0%)

The rescue of Banshee and Wolverine
0 (0.0%)

Scott, Jean, and Lang
0 (0.0%)

That cliffhanger!
1 (20.0%)

Something else.
0 (0.0%)

Any thoughts on this issue?

Next Sunday: Betrayal at the Hellfire Club!
Next Thursday: X-Man vs. X-Man... sort of.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

One thing I really appreciate about Claremont is that the majority of his villains have actual reasons for doing things. They don't just want to take over the world, mwah ha ha ha ha, they will have good solid reason for it, and for the way they're doing it. And there's always likely to be dissent in the ranks!

[sheliak]

True! (And almost every villain working with Steven Lang spends the whole time backing slowly away from him, because he is definitely too far on the mwa ha ha end of things for their liking.)