To Me, My X-Men Comics! - Uncanny X-Men Issue 109
In which giggle fits are inflicted and George Lucas adds to his fortune
PREVIOUSLY IN THE UNCANNY X-MEN: Half-assed Avengers, whole-assed Phoenixes and indeterminately-assed John Byrne art
As the Yoda-phrased title of this issue (‘Home are the Heroes’) would suggest, the heroes are home from their jaunt in outer space. Does this mean we get an issue of them unpacking, sorting through their unopened mail and purging their DVRs of excess episodes of Would I Lie To You?, with nary a burst of senseless fisticuffs in sight? Ha ha ha! Of course not, my naive young padawan. Oh, sure, they do their best, but it’s all to no avail, as we’ll see.
Before the senseless fisticuffs, however, everybody potters around aimlessly. Banshee deposits a Scottish kiss on Maid Moira. Storm strips naked in the attic and dances with her plants under a conjured rain shower. Jean tries to explain to her parents how she’s now at one with the Phoenix Force. (“Is that what’s making you dress like a common harlot?” asks her dad.) Scott mopes like nobody’s business. And Nightcrawler invites Colossus to a new arthouse flick he’s heard good things about. (“I believe it’s called Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope?” he says. “Episode Four?!?” says Peter. “I can’t come in halfway through a story! What if I don’t know the backstory of microscopic organisms that power the protagonist’s spiritual abilities?”) Nothing out of the ordinary in any of that.
Oh, and Logan? He’s out in the forest hunting deer. Where, by ‘hunting’ he carefully explains he means ‘getting close enough to touch without killing in any way, because where’s the fun in gutting somebody other than a human enemy who has instilled a berserker rage within me?’ Wolverine, PETA spokesman. Alas, his ‘hunt’ is disrupted by some clown called Weapon Alpha and the pair of them fight for several pages, dragging several picnicking X-Men into the imbroglio in the process, until Weapon Alpha lets slip that his battle suit is ‘the ultimate product of Canadian technology’ and everybody is so overcome by giggle fits that the comic has no choice but to come to an inglorious end.
MVP: Gotta be Maid Moira. Not only does she get on Kurt’s case about the unrivalled stench of his BAMF-ing, but she also later gets zapped by an energy blast that ricochets off Colossus and falls into a lake. Hilarity, thy name is Moira McTaggert.
Next Issue: X-Men baseball! Plus, John Byrne has a rest. Boy, those two (2) issues he drew sure must have tuckered him out.