To Me, My X-Men Comics! - Uncanny X-Men Issue 99
In which the X-Men steal a rocket and Ron Howard does a rewrite
PREVIOUSLY IN THE UNCANNY X-MEN: Creator cameos! Hurricane disapproval! Sentinel whoppers!
The cover of this issue opens with Colossus asking the (presumably rhetorical) question, ‘Even if we escape the energy-spheres of the Sentinels, how can we survive in the vacuum of space?’. Spookily, this exact same line was inserted into Jim Lovell’s speech in Apollo 13, until audience testing and rudimentary fact-checking led director Ron Howard to ultimately go with the pithier ‘Houston, we have a problem’.
But that’s just a baseless lie I made up. What’s more important is that, within the opening pages of this issue, Wolverine, Banshee and Jean are recaptured. This, in turn, inspires the rest of the X-Men (Cyclops, Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler) to commandeer a rocket and head off to rescue them.
As you’d expect, NASA doesn’t even notice that a clown in a Cylon visor, a white-haired, white-eyed Kenyan, a Russian robot-lookin’ dude and a blue hobgoblin have snuck aboard their billion dollar rocket. Or if they do, they can’t be bothered rescheduling the launch. There’s the usual overly dramatic antics from Colossus (some nonsense about his cosmonaut brother dying in a rocket explosion) before liftoff, but before you know it, Scott’s piloting the ship straight into the path of some random outer space missiles.
As always, however, Cyclops’ slipshod flying skills don’t deter the X-Men. Somehow they make it off their rocket and onto the Sentinel spaceship. There, they blow up some random Sentinels and try to track down their captured comrades. Scott also goes in search of ‘Mr Steven Lang, so-called head honcho of this ball of wax’ and goes ballistic at him, presumably furious that anybody would even consider building a spaceship out of wax. “It defies basic structural engineering principles!!” he shouts.
Eventually, Jean drags him away, because there’s an important cliffhanger to deal with. Namely, the return of the original X-Men!
MVP: I’d have to go with Jean. Cyclops arrives on the Sentinel ship and she’s immediately in Scott’s head, demanding he come rescue them, kill those Sentinels, iron your costume and so on and so on and so on. No wonder Cyclops loses the plot at Lang and his wax at the end of the issue.
Next issue: It’s issue 100! And the gang brings up the century by fighting among themselves. Obviously.