Uncanny X-Men #102
December 1976
Well, thankfully with this issue the pulp, place-holder subplot is concerned with a rather bitchin' battle between Juggernaut and the X-Men that starts at the very first page with a panel depicting Colossus being lifted off of his feet by a punch from Juggernaut whose fist is about the size of the Russian's chest. Wolverine is in the process of falling on his head, and Nightcrawler is... jumping. But the real tension in this panel comes from Storm, who's cowering in the foreground at the far right bottom corner of the page having a claustrophobic breakdown due to being in a dingy catacomb. So from the word "Go!" we are in crisis mode. I notice that writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum are great at really grabbing your attention with the very first page. Not a bad talent to have.
Not pictured: Shillelagh-Man (aka Black Tom)
Speaking of that lamewad, seeing as his mutant superpower seems to be shooting beams out of his shillelagh, Claremont wisely keeps him out of the action as much as possible, leaving him to bare-knuckle box Banshee since they are both immune to each other's powers for no apparent reason. I'd like to see just one panel of him hitting Banshee upside the head with the shillelagh, but sadly we are deprived. He also reveals that he and Juggernaut have been paid by someone or other to lure the X-Men into this trap, which is good, since I was worried Tom just wanted to kill Banshee so that he could have the castle all to himself, like Scar from the
Lion King, but with a shillelagh. You know, the more I say "shillelagh", the more I like Black Tom. Not as a character, cause he's a pube, but without him I would have no excuse to keeping putting "shillelagh" into my journal.
Luckily though, he's relegated to only a few pages, whereas the majority of the battle takes place between Juggernaut, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Wolverine. Given the dubious circumstances leading up to the fight it's surprisingly tense. Despite their best efforts, Colossus just isn't strong enough to hurt Juggernaut, Wolverine's claws can't penetrate his armor, and since it hasn't yet been established that Nightcrawler can teleport anybody other than himself he's likewise powerless. And Storm panicking in the background just ratchets up the intensity.
No matter how her friends try to reach her, she can't even stand, let alone fight (which leads to a pretty awesome bit where Wolverine interrupts Colossus, who is pleading with Storm, and hurls him at Juggernaut like a chair in a bar fight). In her distress we get to see a flashback of Storm's past where her parents are killed by a crashing plane during the Suez Crisis between Egypt, France, Britain, and Israel. Storm's claustrophobia came when she was buried in the rubble along with her dead parents. Then she was a street urchin, made her way to Kenya, became a god, yadda yadda yadda, I'm sure you know most of this. Flashbacks can be pretty ****, but in this case it helps to build tension even further in a fight that might otherwise be pretty run-of-the-mill.
It turns into a cliff hanger when Professor X, all the way across the Atlantic in New York, hears her psychic cry of distress. He and Scott have a rather heated exchange over Scott's unwillingness to leave Jean's side to help in a fight that would be over long after he got there anyway. This of course leads to Prof X giving one of those "You ungrateful little bastard! I gave you food and shelter!" speeches and then raising his hand to give Scott five-across-the-eye. I guess his pissiness brings on one of his Shi'ar visions, as he sees then Lilandra in a mirror. We'd seen the one dream several issues ago, and Xavier mentioned other dreams on several occasions, but for the most part the Shi'ar subplot had been completely under the radar.
Not Pictured: Professor X's belt.
Yeah, no can find the bottom panel with Lilandra in the mirror, but this is the real reason to dig this page. Oh, and Jean has a roommate named "Misty Knight". My assumption is that she is a stripper.
And just as **** is getting tense over in New York, we are plunged back into the castle, where the battle is reaching its conclusion. Juggernaut defeats Nightcrawler, Wolverine, and Colossus, and Black Tom
finally hits Banshee with his shillelagh. Twice. Even Storm, who manages to overcome her fear and offer some small amount of resistance, is overcome.
Even though follow up to the Phoenix storyline is rather scant, the parts that do matter are suitably ominous, such as Lilandra in the mirror, and a now awake Jean having an odd conversation with her roommate that implies that the Phoenix may be lurking just beneath Jean's consciousness. They also serve to add pacing to the battle that takes up much of the issue, which otherwise may have lacked much personality. Black Tom and Juggernaut still don't matter, other than as a distraction from the real plot, and I'm only mildly interested in whoever hired them, but they manage to make their appearance in this book pleasurable this time at least. The only real thing that I have against this issue is that after Nightcrawler is knocked unconscious, he is rescued and taken into the walls of the castle by leprechauns. What the ****, Claremont?
The Excelsior! Network: All shillelaghs, all the time!