Reprints X-Men #122-131 and X-Men Annual #3
Written by Chris Claremont.
Penciled by John Byrne and George Perez.
Inked by Terry Austin.
Summary:
After a trip that took them around the world, the X-Men are back home at the X-Mansion. Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops is overseeing Colossus' training center in the Danger Room. Banshee and Nightcrawler are repairing the team's airplane, the Blackbird. Wolverine and Storm are planning to drive into New York City. Everyone is generally enjoying their downtime.
Scott later heads out to run errands around Salem Center. He's accompanied by Colleen Wing, who he began dating after the presumed death of Jean Grey. They have a serious discussion about where their relationship is heading.
In Scotland, Jean is trying to get on with her life without Scott. While shopping for clothes in Stornoway, Jean (literally) bumps into a man named Jason Wyngarde. When they part, he says he hopes to see her again, Jean says that would be nice. Wyndarde watches as Jean sails back to Muir Island. He thinks to himself that she will soon fall in love with him and that Jean will belong "mind, body and soul--to the Hellfire Club."
Storm Visits her old family home in Harlem. The neighborhood has changed a lot since her childhood. Storm enters her old apartment and is shocked to find that it's filled with teenage drug addicts. When they attack her with knives, she gets help from Misty Knight and Luke Cage!
Sometime after, all of the X-Men are captured. It's the work of Arcade, one of the world's most expensive assassins. When the X-Men awake, they find themselves locked inside Murderworld, the amusement park Arcade uses to kill people. Murderworld contains a deathtrap created for every member of the X-Men.
The X-Men are shocked when Colossus attacks them. He is wearing a different costume and tells them he is now called the Proletarian, workers' hero of the Soviet Union! Peter has been brainwashed and turned against his friends.
Shortly after that, Arkon the imperion, ruler of the planet Polemachus arrives on Earth seeking Thor. Arkon's home world is in a state of darkness and he believes the thunder god's lightning can restore its sunlight.
Subsequently, Moira MacTaggert performs some tests on Phoenix at Muir Island. Jean's powers have greatly increased and this has Moira a bit worried. She thinks that Phoenix is approaching a level of power akin to a god. MacTaggert isn't sure how long Jean can keep such power under her control.
Charles Xavier is in space with Lilandra at the Shi'ar Imperial Center. Professor X studies files that the Shi'ar have compiled on Phoenix after Jean saved the universe. Xavier comes to similar conclusions as Moira and heads back to Earth.
Back in Stornoway, Jason Wyndarde has a moment of introspection. Through his thoughts, we learn that he has been using illusions to disguise himself as various people who meet Jean. He plans to use his illusions to manipulate Jean and mold her into an alliance. This will help Wyngarde take power in the Hellfire Club, a very exclusive club of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. If Wyngarde succeeds, Phoenix' amazing powers could become a force for evil.
Jean begins to experience "time slips" where she finds herself in the 1700s, wearing clothing from that era. It's the work of Wyngarde, part of his plot to force Jean to join him and the Hellfire Club.
Subsequently, Hank McCoy, better known as the Beast, decides to check on the X-mansion, which was recently abandoned when Professor X departed for space. The X-Men think he's a villain and attack. Beast is shocked and overjoyed to learn that Cyclops and the others are not dead.
Hank informs the X-Men that Jean is also still alive, so Scott calls her in Muir Island. When Lorna Dane answers the phone, Cyclops hears a scream and learns that Jean and everyone on the island are under attack.
The X-Men quickly fly to Muir and learn that a mutant known only as Mutant X has escaped from his holding cell in Moira's lab. Mutant X is a creature of pure psionic energy. He needs to possess the body of another person to survive, a process which kills the host. He takes the name Proteus and goes on a killing spree.
The X-Men meet with Moira and discuss how they should deal with Proteus. Moira says that Mutant X has only one weakness: metal. She also shocks Cyclops when she reveals that Proteus is her son! In spite of this, Moira is willing to do anything to stop Mutant X, even if it means killing her own son.
Can the X-Men find a way to defeat Proteus? Is it possible to stop Mutant X without killing him?
Finally, the X-Men return to the mansion in Westchester, NY where they are reunited with Prof. Xavier. After presuming them dead for months, Charles is very happy to see them alive and well. Their Cerebro device, which detects mutants, locates two heretofore unknown mutants, one in Chicago, the other in New York.
Unbeknownst to the X-Men, the Hellfire Club has been spying on them. The club's leader, Sebastian Shaw, tells Jason Wyngarde that they have bugged the X-Mansion and are able to access Cerebro. The Hellfire Club also sends agents to locate these new mutants.
Storm, Xavier, Wolverine and Colossus head to Chicago, where they meet with the mutant, a 13-year-old girl named Kitty Pryde. Professor X meets with her parents and asks him to send her to his school for gifted youngsters.
When Storm and her teammates take Kitty to a local soda fountain, they're attacked by men in armor. The X-Men defeat them, but then they are confronted by the villain who sent them: Emma Frost, White Queen of the Hellfire Club! She easily takes out Wolverine, Storm and Colossus with a telepathic attack. Emma later captures Charles Xavier and imprisons all of them. Meanwhile, Kitty Pryde escapes when she discovers that she has the mutant ability to pass through walls!
In New York, Cyclops, Phoenix and Nightcrawler learn that the other newly discovered mutant can be found in a disco. The mutant is a singer named Alison Blaire, who uses Dazzler as her stage name. Alison has the ability to transform sound into beams of light and lasers. The Hellfire goons attack Dazzler, but Cyclops and Phoenix are able to help her defeat them.
When the X-Men learn of their teammates' fate in Chicago, they depart for the Windy City for a showdown with the White Queen!
Review:
The X-Men's adventures keep getting better with each volume of Marvel Masterworks. The stories reprinted in Marvel Masterworks: Uncanny X-Men Vol. 4 were my jumping on point for these characters. These are "my" X-Men. The way they act and the way they're drawn are what I think of when I think of the X-Men.
Story:
Chris Claremont and John Byrne really put the X-Men through the ringer in these stories. The book opens with a "quiet" story where the heroes get to rest and talk a bit, reflecting on the state of the team and what they've been through. It gives the creative team another chance to develop and define the characters. Storm's history gets fleshed out a little more when she visits Harlem. Wolverine tries to visit Mariko at the Japanese consulate. To me, this shows he's gotten over his crush on Jean and that the "softening" of Logan continues.
After that, the X-Men are captured and sent to Murderworld. Arcade is certainly psychotic and evil but he's a very entertaining character. He became one of their top villains in the future. Murderworld itself presents the X-Men with lots of interesting obstacles. Since the Arcade story was one of the first I ever read, he's long been one of my favorite Marvel villains.
I mentioned in my last review that I've never cared for the "X-Men are dead" subplot. That continues until page 107 of Marvel Masterworks: Uncanny X-Men Vol. 4, but thankfully Beast and Jean learn the others are alive, and vice versa. Scott and Jean have a nice reunion scene where they reaffirm their love for each other.
The Proteus tale is often overshadowed by the Dark Phoenix Saga that came a few issues later. But it's one of the best X-Men stories of all time. Cyclops at one point calls Proteus the most dangerous adversary they've ever faced, and it's an accurate statement. There are some disturbing overtones here. Proteus possesses the body of his father Joe at one point, and then attacks Moira. It's very Oedipal.
The word "rape" never appears in this book. But it's very strongly implied that Proteus was conceived as a result of rape and it's suggested that it's also the reason why Moira's son is evil. I can't agree with that, but Proteus is certainly one of the most frightening villains in Marvel's history. I don't believe Mutant X has ever been resurrected, and that's a tribute to the strength of this story.
Kitty Pryde shows up for the first time and she makes an impression right away. When X-Men are kidnapped, Kitty is forced into action and bravely frees the heroes. She would later go on to become one of the most popular X-Men of the 1980s.
Kitty Pryde shows up for the first time and she makes an impression right away. When X-Men are kidnapped, Kitty is forced into action and bravely frees the heroes. She would later go on to become one of the most popular X-Men of the 1980s.
Byrne and Claremont show us that Cyclops' leadership skills are ever evolving. He starts a fight with Wolverine and Nightcrawler in order to snap them out of their fear of fighting Proteus.
We get another one of Claremont's great "travelogue" narrations. This time, Chicago gets the Claremont treatment:
If there's anything to criticize, it's Scott's break-up with Colleen. Jean and Scott's reunion is nicely handled, but we never see any sort of "on-panel" talk between him and Colleen. When Jean telepathically picks up a "stray thought" about Colleen from Cyclops, he tells her "Colleen's a friend, nothing else." After Colleen gives Scott the key to her apartment (!), shown in the image below, she just disappears from the book after the Arcade story and is never seen again in the pages of the X-Men.
The Arkon story is bit of step down from the rest of the book. It's not bad, but it has nothing to do with the rest of the stories reprinted here. It also feels like the sort of story that would've made more sense as an Avengers or Fantastic Four adventure.
Art:
John Byrne and Terry Austin provide fantastic art in these stories. The Phoenix/White Queen duel is brilliantly depicted.
Another favorite scene is Proteus' attack on Nightcrawler and Wolverine.
Spider-Man makes an appearance in the Murderworld story, since he was the first superhero to face Arcade. He doesn't get to do much, but Spidey looks great (dare I say he looks amazing?) when drawn by Byrne and Austin.
When Jean and Scott search for a mutant in a disco, the art team even manages to sneak the Joker into the top left of the image below:
George Perez penciled the Arkon story, with inks by Austin. They do a nice job and I've always loved this image of Colossus on a flying dragon:
How Does It Look?:
The two pages below were scanned from a copy of X-Men #128:
Extras:
At the end of the book, you'll find three pages of original art, plus a character design sheet of Kitty Pryde.
Rating:
Marvel Masterworks: Uncanny X-Men Vol. 4 contains some of the greatest stories and art of the Bronze Age. The Proteus saga makes it worth purchasing all by itself, and the rest of the book is great too.
J.A. Morris' rating:
4 Sals!
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