X1C (v2) #14: "Lava Man Attack!"

("Our destructive robot pal.")

Comments

Hoo, boy.  I would not want to be Dr Stack right now.  Just as soon as you've discovered that your mechanical progeny won't defend his new team-mates without your express orders ("He appears to be carefully recording our demise for posterity!"), it turns out that all the other robots back at the lab have joined hands for a few quick choruses of "Kill All Humans!"

It's like Sophie's Choice, only you've built the machine that's making you choose in the first place.  Think of the stress!

Actually, remove the body count and this is pretty much what life is like for all academics, all the time.

You have to feel for the X-Men too, advancing into a tunnel filled with Lava Men whilst trying to keep quiet about the fact that Aaron could go nuts at any moment (having already seen that "go nuts" can include detaching his head and using his arms to slaughter indiscriminately everything within a ten foot radius).  They try to keep him as at ease as possible, but the ungrateful robo-wretch still goes mental the very instant he gets his face torn off. Which is probably the sort of thing that would invalidate the warranty, I suppose, but even so...

Seared by lava or disemboweled by an android with a terrible hair cut?  Man, there are some tough choices on offer today.  Not least our own, which is whether we should feel gypped that we're watching the X-Men fight creatures fashioned from living molten rock, instead of watching a crack team of US soldiers blowing the crap out of a small army of killer robots. 

Truly this issue is a moral minefield.

Clues

This issue takes place over a few hours.

Date

Friday 21^st April, 1979.

X-Date

X+Y+20.

Contemporary Events

Dominic Zamprogna (James "Jammer" Lyman in Battlestar Galactica) is born.

Standout Line

"Stop hitting yourself.  Stop hitting yourself." Telekinetic powers = all kinds of bitchy fun.