UXM #26: "Holocaust!"

("In the jungle, the generic jungle...")

Comments

Truly the power of Kukulcan is terrifying to behold!  He can hypnotise guards, harness the power of the stars, and "[make] his way unerringly" to a building's roof!  What hope have the X-Men against such abilities; the power to feel the effects of gravity itself!

(Well, he can apparently also transform local Mayans into stereotypical Amazon tribesmen, but we'd probably best ignore that.)

If Lee crafted the world of the X-Men, and gave us some of its most iconic characters, then Thomas - whatever his other faults - can probably claim at least some of the credit of setting the X-Men on their path to superhero soap status (a baton that Chris Claremont picked up and ran with for decades).  The appearance of the Mimic in this issue helps move the comic from a set of discrete encounters to a genuine unfolding story, and the climax of the issue, in which Angel accuses Cyclops of deliberately hitting him with a blast of maximum THAK! suggests that the increasingly exasperating Warren/Jean/Scott love triangle might actually be going somewhere. [1]

Beast doesn't seem to be having too good a time of it right now, does he?  Having managed just last issue to forget the miraculous metallic legs his teacher had designed, this time around he fails to grasp the complexities of a textbook's index.  I guess his mind was simply on weightier matters, like how to unerringly get to a roof.

Clues

This story takes place over two days.  It opens with the X-Men still in the museum, and continues to the following day, when Jean arrives with various books for the professor to read (I guess she had no lectures that day - probably an arts student).  The team head to San Rico in their private jet and dispose of Kukulcan that same day.

Date

Thursday 14^th to Friday 15^th of June, 1979.

X-Date

X+440 to X+441.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.62 standard years.

(Iceman is 34 years old)

"I don't especially wanna hurt this overgrown pussycat...
but my ice fork will keep him at bay only so long!"

Contemporary Events

Standout Line

"Hank... Watch out!  That vine you were sliding on... is a boa constrictor!"  Another blow to the Beast's reputation as a deep thinker.  "That's no vine, it's a snake station(ary)!"

Sorry...

[1] Having said that, it's a bit irritating that so much of the set-up for this conclusion involves the characters leaping to conclusions on essentially no evidence.  Warren concludes Jean is interested in Scott based on nothing more than her scanning a room for him, and Scott concludes she's interested in him based on just as little evidence.  For Warren at least, this seems distinctly out of character: paranoia and moping really aren't his style.  On the other hand, it's nice to see Warren desperately trying to hide how much he's upset by seeing Jean hanging out with another co-ed.