Broken Frontier

Uncanny X-Men hits its landmark 500th issue this Wednesday and to celebrate this momentous event the Broken Frontier team will be sharing their memories all this week of some of their favorite issues of Uncanny and its related titles.

Today it's the turn of  reviewers Tonya Crawford and Lee Newman who give personal accounts of two fondly-remembered 1980s stories that were very different in terms of tone and content...

Uncanny X-Men #153: In Sickness and in Health
by Tonya Crawford

The year was 1981; the title of the story was "Kitty’s Fairy Tale". I’ve never forgotten it…

Like a lot of people, I suppose I have a fondness for the comic books of my youth. While returning to some of those stories as an adult results in a wash of nostalgia, oftentimes it also reveals that the stories are really not as good as we remember them.

In 1981 I was eight and caught a bad case of the stomach flu. I spent most of my days lying on the sofa, wrapped in blankets, being miserable and subsisting on a diet of chicken broth, Cream of Wheat, dry toast, juice and tea with honey and lemon. Upon coming back from a trip to the grocery store my mother presented me with a treat – a new coloring book and a comic book… Uncanny X-Men #153.

My mother didn’t really have much experience with comic books; she simply grabbed something off the spinner rack at the store that looked interesting. Strange as it may seem, I had never read a single X-Men comic, had never even heard of the X-Men and knew nothing about them. Still, I was starved for something to read and I dug into the story immediately. While I may not have gotten all of the continuity references in the story I immediately picked up on who and what these characters were.

In this issue the X-Men were recovering from an attack by the Hellfire Club and starting the process of cleaning up and tearing down the rubble of the school in order to start rebuilding. When little Illyana Rasputin, sister to Peter "Colossus" Rasputin was afraid to go to sleep she asked young X-Man Kitty Pryde to tell her a bedtime story. Kitty wove a fantastic tale in which all of her teammates played roles. Unknown to her, however, said teammates were, one by one, gathering outside Illyana’s bedroom and listening in on the story…

Under writer Chris Claremont this story-within-a-story managed to enchant and charm. Throughout the issue Claremont emphasized that this group was more than just a team. For this moment the X-Men seemed like an honest to goodness family. Still, the story lingered on afterward for me if for no other reason than the fact that the ending has just a touch of bitterness to go with the sweet.

The art by the late, great Dave Cockrum and Joe Rubinstein also is still a treat. Unleashed, these two men created fantasy versions of the familiar characters and their costumes that were perfectly in tune with both the characters and the fairy tale setting. For example, the transformation of Nightcrawler into a skirt-chasing, Smurf-like creature called a "Bamf" was worth every laugh it gets – And still is. Wolverine’s transmogrification into a short, rude, beer swilling, troll-like thing known as "The Fiend With No Name" was also a gentle, delightful parody. On the flip side, however, Cockrum and Rubenstein’s redesign of Storm into a true elemental goddess is still powerful and creative even after all these years.

"Kitty’s Fairy Tale" never did leave a lasting impact on the history or continuity of Uncanny X-Men. It was a standalone issue designed to provide some breathing space between major story arcs. And yet, despite that, it stands the test of time as the perfect melding of super-hero comic book with fantasy fairy tale. It is a crowning achievement by Chris Claremont to show the lightness and humor behind the misbegotten mutants as well as the love and camaraderie that really lay behind the characters – even at their most difficult times.

Over the years the comic books that physically survived my childhood, several house movings, and a great many "spring cleanings" by my mother are few. I still have my copy of Uncanny X-Men #153, however. The spine is rolled, the pages are yellowed, the color is faded, the cover is dog eared… and I would not trade it away.

Uncanny X-Men #186: Lifedeath: A Love Story
by Lee Newman

1984. A good year by all measures. A double issue of 40 pages of story was only $1.00 and Chris Claremont could still tell a compelling tale, even if his dialogue was still a little bit clunky.

With Storm depowered and possibly dying thanks to a weapon of his design, Forge nurses her back to health and in the process they fall in love. The secret of the weapon threatens to drag them apart at the budding of their romance though. The X-Men was always the soap opera of the popular super-hero books and this one does not fail on that effort. There are big monsters and social commentary, but at its heart this book is just about people and their relationships.

Claremont’s ability to get inside the heads of both his characters is ably assisted by the lines of Barry Windsor-Smith and Terry Austin’s inks. Together the trio skillfully jump from Forge’s holodeck-like abode and the modern stylings of his domestic look. It’s a neat trick that would have been a mess otherwise.

Batman and Spider-Man were my thing. The X-Men were always my little brother’s thing. I let him read mine (except when Batman was really good and then I would torture him with not giving it up), but he always let me read his X-Men books.

I can remember scoffing at Storm’s change in hair do and I can remember laughing at a love story, but I secretly wanted to read them. The scorn directed at my brother was meant to belittle him and to retain my macho man image. At 11, that was an important thing for a boy. Almost as important as my Pete Rose Rookie card and my status as a starter in Little League.

The real trick is that that creative team was able to get most of the boys that read comics to read this straight up romance story and not bat an eye. Even at that age it was entertaining to me. Ah, to be young and unbiased again. I guess there are 185 comics to check out that predate this one to help me find where I lost my innocence.