To Me, My X-Men Comics! - Uncanny X-Men Issue 102
In which the Juggernaut is up for a fight, and Xavier is in a mood
PREVIOUSLY IN THE UNCANNY X-MEN: Hospital beds! Exclamation marks! Authorial bitchiness!
Having spent the vast majority of the last issue watching the X-Men hang around Jean’s hospital bed, Claremont decides to switch things totally up this time around with page after page of relentless X-Men vs The Juggernaut action. The backdrop? Why, it’s Banshee’s childhood castle, of course. Where else would you fight the Juggernaut? Of course, it’s all a hideous social mix-up. It turns out that Banshee’s cousin, the villainous Black Tom Cassidy, thought he’d booked the castle for the weekend and had invited The Juggernaut along for some X-Box™ and invulnerable buggery. “Nuh-uh,” says Banshee, who is priggishly close-minded on all manner of castle reservation snafus.
In between the relentless fighting and childish taunting (Juggernaut calls Nightcrawler a ‘goblin’ at one point. Nightcrawler responds by calling Juggernaut a ‘needlessly literally-monikered villain-for-hire’), we find time for Storm’s secret origin. Turns out she’s a claustrophobic Kenyan orphan weather-controlling mutant. She’s also the founder and admin of the Claustrophobic Kenyan Orphan Weather-Controlling Mutant Facebook Group, which contains precisely as many members as you’d expect.
Back in the States, meanwhile, Professor X and Scott are getting on one another’s nerves. Without Jean or the rest of the X-Men there to calm the two of them down, a world-class hissy fit erupts. “You need to get to Ireland to help with this battle against the Juggernaut!” orders the Professor. “I think enough pages have been devoted to that senseless brawl, don’t you?” sniffs Cyclops. “You ungrateful, unspeakable cur!” shrieks the Professor, and immediately collapses with a case of the vapours. “The Vapours?” cries out Jean, from her hospital bed. “I love them.” “No you don’t,” says Scott, but his protests are drowned out by her feverish rendition of Turning Japanese.
MVP: Gotta be The Professor. Oh, sure, we spend a lot (a lot) of time on that stupid Juggernaut fight. But in one shrill panel, Chuck steals all the attention back to himself. Nicely done, Professor.
Next Issue: That goddamn fight with The Juggernaut continues, plus Storm’s Facebook Group gets another fan! (Total: 2)
Great cover!