X-MEN 104: The gentleman's name is FAGNETO

What, he's a fancy gentleman, and what else were you expecting from a title like that?

S0 the all new, all different X-Bags made it out of Ireland are are now on an island in the North of Scotland, the Outer Hebrides, talking to the proprietor of a hovercraft rental company, which are apparently not at all hard to find in the Outer Hebrides. Unfortunately the X-bags showed up in costumes (which even Banshee admits is retarded) and the hovercraft proprietor no longer wishes to rent to mutant folk (racist swine!) but since the X-Men all have super powers they just take it anyway.

So off they go to see Moira Mactaggart, who lives way the fuck up there and up till know all we know of her is that she is a past acquaintance of Xavier's and knows how to handle a machine gun. Then the hovercraft full of X-Men attacked and trashed (looks like Agnus MacWhiter was right not to want to rent to muties, way to play into your sterotypes, X-tards) and the X-men are transported against their will into the lair of Magneto! Which we all knew was coming because he's on the fucking cover (a rather uninspiring homage to the very first X-Bag comic).

But before those dudes can duke it out we cut to Cyclops landing in the HR-71 Blackbird (what, Xavier's just growing those fuckers on trees?) at Moira's place with Moira in tow. There they find Maddrox the Multiple Man (NICE!) who explains that Eric the Red broke into Magneto's cell where he was being held prisoner as a baby (yes thats right. Hey, I guess if you have the technology that certainly an effective way of disabling a criminal) and grew him back into a man. Um, whatever. And then Eric the Red and Magneto broke into Moira's futuristic compound on a remote Scottish island and took over. Apparently those two then discussed there plan to take the X-Men down within ear shot of Maddrox and didn't think twice about it.

Anyhow, Cyclops bolts to try and meet up with the rest of the team, who are in the meantime getting big time PWNed by Magneto. It doesn't help that the two toughest X-Men facing the Master of Magnetism, Colossus and Wolverine, are made out of metal.

After getting wailed on for like 4 pages Cyclops shows up to distract Magneto long enough for the X-Men to run away. Which they do, to the sevre displeasure of Wolverine, who informs Cyclops that he will never forgive him for turning the X-Men into cowards. Fucking pussy.

While getting their asses kicked, the X-Men also learn that Moira's weird little base thing is actually a holding cell for dangerous, captured mutants. We see a cell for Unus, the Untouchable, a Silver Age ass clown whose power is that hee can't be touched (gotta love those 60's) and one of the lame ass Ani-Men from the new X-men's very first mission. And finally the last door we see after the X-Men flee like bitches is a door marked Mutant X, which won't hear about again until like issue 125 or some shit.

Then there's the last page, which features (deep breath!): the first appearance of Cosair, a space pirate and his giant lizard-alien space friend, Ch'od; the space lady from Xavier's space dreams, flying around a giant bug-looking alien space ship; Xavier reuniting Jean Grey with her parents; and finally Eric the Red fiercely ruing his foiled plans and vowing Xavier's death by his hands. Quite a lot of stuff packed into 1 page and 7 panels.

So yeah, still heaps of 1970's comics nonsense, but we're finally seeing Claremont find his groove, and the comics are getting quite fun to read. Claremont is juggling a bunch of different plot lines, or at least teasing them, while sticking faithfully to the single story per-issue style of the day. Any of the last dozen or so issue could be read on their own, but the readers who tune in every other month (as they were published at the time) were rewarded for picking up on the subtle (and not so subtle) digressions snuck into various pages. And though Cockrum's art struggles at time (it's pretty lacking in detail and dynamic angles), its infused with enough energy and imagination that its no wonder this run became a kind of cult classic for super hero fans back in the day (ie autistic dorkwads who couldn't find anyone to play D&D with).

OK I feel like a total fag for that last sentence but it's ok because I'm going to feel even lamer in just a second when I declare my excitement for some of the even AWESOMER comics that are coming up next! The next one is called: PHOENIX UNLEASED! Oh, fucking radical!