(The dating game)
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Hmm. Well, if this isn't sunken Ry'leh, then it was definitely put together by the same architects. There's giant statues of squid-headed men all over the place. My kind of locale, obviously. With his eyes tied shut, Scott needs to rely on Lee to describe what's around them, but she's rather more interested in sexy kissy-times. Scott doesn't exactly give her the mosr sypathetic brush-off, though since he lost his fiancee less than two months ago and Lee jumped him whilst he was blind, that's probably not too surprising. It's certainly more forgivable than Lee's childish flounce-out (leaving a blind man in an alien city) or Cyclop's decision to destroy all ceilings until he feels better.
Over in Westchester, there are also storm clouds gathering. Quite literally, since Ororo is finding it difficult to control her powers, either due to after-effects of being turned into a statue a little while ago, or over Xavier and Warren angry argument as to whether Wolverine has any place on the team. Since Angel's case is based mainly on Wolverine ripping the face off the Stormbot, this seems pretty weaksauce. "Would it have made any difference if he'd faced a woman disguised as you?" My driving instructor once told me of someone who failed their driving test for driving through a deep puddle. "If a pedestrian had been there, they'd have been soaked." Warren's argument is just as ill-considered: "If the situation had been different, we can assume the reaction would have remained the same!" Angel wonders aloud whether he can bring himself to stay on the same team as Logan. Everyone else is polite enough to not point out that the team can probably get by without a dude who has wings, and if he set up a direct debit from his considerable accounts, no-one would ever need to bother speaking to him at all.
It's not all doom and gloom, though. A visitor arrives for Sean Cassidy, who's staying at the mansion - along with Moira and Ilyana - and informs him that she is his daughter. It's not yet clear why it's taken her so long to reveal herself to him, but that doesn't stop him being ecstatic about her arrival (Moira is somewhat less enthused, of course).
A few days later, it's time for a girl's night out. Ororo, Kitty and Stevie Hunter head to the nightclub Infinity, along with Spider Woman who they met during the "Secret Wars", in order to watch Dazzler perform another audio-visual tour de force. Whilst they wait for the star to emerge, however, Caliban is approaching, a man from the sewers dressed like a scarecrow, and with strong lines in mutant detection, emotional reading and manipulation, and referring to himself in the third person.
The entrance of Caliban causes some disturbance, and first Kitty, then Ororo and Jessica, head away from the stage to investigate. By the time the two women have reached the scene (delayed by having to change clothes inside a pea-soup fog), Caliban has already grabbed Kitty. He's rather more powerful in this issue than in future appearances, being able to not only prevent Sprite from phasing away, but puhnching Spider-Woman through the side of a wall when she attacks him. Despite his power, though, Storm is able to lightning-bolt some sense into him (nice trick if you can pull it off), and he agrees to let Kitty go. Poor bastard just wanted some company, and no-one was around in the sewers to explain how polite society and/or prostitutes work.
Meanwhile, back on the mysterious island, it turns out Scott and Lee aren't alone with the Cthulhu bas-reliefs after all. They're sharing the city with the only person in the X-books egotistical enough to require his own personal metropolis: Magneto.
Clues
This issue begins soon after the end of last issue, and continues until Sunday morning.
This is a difficult issue to place, because the timings inside it don't add up. On a minor level, Lee mentions that the city she and Cyclops are investigating wasn't there yesterday, but Scott mentions that it's been two days since his eyebeams were revealed to Lee, despite the latter happening during the huge storm which occurred the night before the island appeared.
More concerning is Lee reminding Scott that her father's funeral was only two months ago. This doesn't make sense, since Scott had been on the Arcadia for a month before Jock Forrester killed himself, which in turn took place after Christmas Day, and yet Nightcrawler mentioned only this morning (or yesterday morning; see above) that it was still the middle of winter.
Given all of this, there's no chance of a particularly satisfactory solution. The best compromise would be to move UXM #145-147 forwards, to allow at least some time for Jock's funeral, and assume Kurt's "mid-winter" reference wasn't entirely literal. We'll therefore assume that this is the day after the island appeared, and that the the team escaped Doom's castle at the beginning of March.
Date
Wednesday 2nd to Sunday 6th of March, 1983.
X-Date
X+4Y+336 to X+4Y+340.
Compression Constant
1 Marvel year = 3.63 standard years.
(Shadowcat is 22 years old).
 |
| Ghostface killed 'er. |
Bertha Wilson becomes the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada.
Helmut Kohl is elected Chancellor of West Germany.
Due to an economic crisis, the Irish government introduce a charge for applying for various public sector jobs.
Standout Line
"If Ororo could see me now, I'd bet she'd be so proud." - Sprite
"If I get my hands on that child, I'll wring her neck!" - Storm.
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