X1C #6: "The S-Men"

("I pity the Foo!")

Comments

These Skrulls are fun!  They're all clearly at the Ford Prefect end of the "approach to research" spectrum, but that's what makes them brilliant.  Watching ur-Cylops declare "I will destroy the cage lock with my death eyes!" as Marvel Girl orders Iceboy around is great fun, made all the better by the fact that the X-Men clearly find these impressions of their friends hilarious ("Oh man, Scott!  Why'd you free that thing? "What? Shut up, Drake!"), even as they're finding their own doppelgangers distinctly unflattering ("Platitudinous!  Indubitably!  Ontogeny!  Verbosity!", as "Bestial" puts it).

Go the "S-Men", then!  Mind you, I think they've missed a trick here:

Ironically, Sgt. B. Angel Baracus was scared of flying.

Anway, the young aliens are a gas.  Throw in two oddly cute Mole Man-spawned giant monsters, and you've got a lovely little story going on.

There's a good point buried in here, as well, namely that the X-Men have put massive amounts of time and effort (not to mention repeatedly risking their lives) into building up reputations as heroes, only for the media to instantly paint them as villains the instant some obvious pretenders show up.  As usual, speed and exclusivity beats the crap out of sensible fact-checking. At the end of a week in which major news outlets gave time to commentators to decry an anti-Mormon attack that Obama never used and for which no evidence exists he ever would use [1], it's a point well worth repeating.

Clues

This story takes place over two days.

Apparently either Bobby and Zelda are no longer an item, Bobby is hiding it from his fellow X-Men (Beast aside), or there are two Zelda's who work at Coffee A Go-Go (now renamed Coffee @ Go-Go; that's progress for you).  Or maybe they've had a fight?  We certainly know Bobby is still seeing Zelda at least as late as UXM #47, which is set after this issue.

Date

Tuesday 15^th to Wednesday 16^th April, 1980.

X-Date

X+746 to X+747.

Contemporary Events

The Americans detonate a nuclear bomb in the Nevada desert.

Standout Line

"Building up trust is hard.  Tearing it down is nothing."- Warren.

[1] Isn't interesting that the people who keep claiming accusations of racism against Obama are typically hysterical liberal over-reaction are suddenly telling us that when the Whitehouse suggests Romney is strange, they must secretly mean Mormonism isn't a proper religion?