The Uncanny X-Men #198, OCT 85, (w) Chris Claremont (a) Barry Windsor-Smith
Jason Ritz and Freddie Wadsworth have urged to start my reading on this task with Marvel, but I was reluctant to start with something as deep as Claremont's X-Men out of sheer cowardice due to my lack of knowledge of the characters, continuity, etc etc etc. I believe this issue has set me straight.
Turns out that Storm is going through a crisis of conscience of her own as well. This is by no means a stand-alone issue (there's too many head games for that) but it's a nice little story tied up in a nice little package. She's been hit by a bullet and that's cracked her skull, and she's lost her powers. Ororo spends the first half of the issue facing visions of her teammates and her own fears.
She meets a young pregnant woman in the desert and proceeds to take her village so she can get the help she needs in delivering her baby. What follows is a quiet tale about loss for the whole and what individuals can do to stem that tide.
Story, art and paneling were top notch. Looking forward to reading more.
To ease my fears, I was happy to find a scorecard y editor Ann Nocenti in the Bullpen Bulletin for the summer's (not Summers, get it?) X-titles that were all written by Claremont, giving me a proper order in which to read them. Turns out my booty includes them.
I'm glad you are enjoying jumping into the deep end of the pool! Claremont and the Xmen are classics. When I was a kid, I had collected a straight run of Xmen even from before the relaunch of the title with Giant Size #1 when Colossus and Nightcrawler and the gang joined the team.
ReplyDeleteI'm loving these quick reviews, pal. Love the format, love the writing. Keep up the good work.