U1C #8: "The Curse Of Craeliach"

(Where we've come from, and where we're going.)

Comments

After the intergalactic threats and interpersonal melodrama of the last three issues, this story seems like something of an oddly low-key choice for the final issue of the book.  Perhaps this was intentional. You can't run at full throttle forever, particularly when you're rounding off a series, after all. 

Even so, though, I would have thought that, say, a quieter issue delving into the after-effects of the battle against the Knights of Hykon (particularly when it comes to Scott and Jean) would have made more sense than finishing the run with what's essentially a police procedural with added leprechauns (the kind of thing Angel might have done on a week it didn't want the audience to think too hard).

The pacing here is a little odd too, I think.  The mystery of who killed Old Finnan is wrapped up within thirteen pages, and then the supernatural fireworks begin.  I wonder if this was originally intended to be two -parter, in which the reveal of a Sidhe presence in Cassidy Keep would have functioned as a cliff-hanger.  Having said that, as a single issue this certainly has a decent level of pace to it, so maybe this was the plan all along.

It's nice to see that Banshee is a big believer in tradition beyond those of his Irish lineage.  No sooner has he worked out who the killer is than he's telling everyone to gather together in the evening so that he can unmask the killer with due pomp and exposition.  If Agatha Christie had written stories about leprechauns being done in by chamomile tea (I find it hard to have much respect for a species that can't even process chamomile, but then mongooses presumably say the same thing about us and cobra venom), they might have looked a little like this.

Banshee's deductions are actually pretty impressive.  No hidden information or off-panel occurrences here, he works the whole thing out from an absence of light in the apothecary store-room and an acrostic in Finnan's "suicide" note.  Like I said, this all seems to be travelling at exceptionally high speed, but it certainly doesn't sacrifice story logic in the process.

Then we're on to stage two of the story, where the apothecary's grandson Declan reveals himself to be half-Sidhe, and then begins his roaring rampage of revenge (TM Quentin Tarantino).  At this point the issue loses me a bit.  I can see both the dilemma and the comic potential in the X-Men being assaulted by a vast force of almost entirely helpless creatures, but be in real danger because they can't fight back because their assailants are possessed, but that sits somewhat uneasily with both the tragic murder of one of Sean's closest friends, and with the idea that Declan is a genuine threat.  Once the trolls show up and start smashing Colossus around, it becomes impossible to determine just what the story is aiming for.

It does recover itself at the very end, though, as Sean points out that Declan's lunatic schemes were only ever hatched because everyone else in the Leprechaun community (how often have those words been written side by side, I wonder) treated him like shit because of his lineage.  As metaphors to the mutant condition (which itself is a metaphor, remember), it's kind of a strange one, but it just about works.  Stronger still is the image of Kurt and Sean beside Finnan's grave, talking about the future as they watch the sun sink into the Atlantic.  Some might see something bittersweet, even meaningless, in Kurt's optimism, expressed as it is only a couple of months (from our perspective) before his death, and half a decade after Banshee's.

I'd disagree, though.  If there's one thing I think the X-Men are about, above all, it's that the fight for something you believe in doesn't become worthless if it never actually arrives.  What matters here isn't that Kurt is imagining a reality that maybe doesn't ever take place (depending on how your interpret his words), it's that if Kurt knew what was coming, it wouldn't alter his choices in the slightest.

And that, at least, is a worthy ending to this series.

Clues

This story takes place over three days.

We can assume that the murder took place on the same day that the X-Men defeat the Knights of Hykon, and that Sean, Kurt, Peter and Logan travel to County Majo some time the next day.  With Uncanny X-Men: First Class now concluded, then, we'll place UXM #110 the day after this story.

Date

Saturday 20^th to Monday 22^nd of February, 1982.

X-Date

 X+3Y+292 to X+3Y+294.

Contemporary Events

Murray Kaufman, New York DJ and "fifth Beatle" (he had various connections to the band, including a stint as George Harrison's room-mate) passes away, aged 60.

Standout Line

"This is the dumbest fight I've ever been in.  Hands down." - Wolverine.

U1C #7: "The Shattered World"

(Grounded indefinitely.)

Comments

For a series that so far has relied heavily on snappy patter and light-hearted hi-jinks, this issue is something of a surprise, since at it's core it's really rather sad.  Having spent an issue demonstrating the Knight's childlike and solipsistic approach to combat, and another issue letting us know just how terrifyingly dangerous that makes them, this issue focusses on the horrible toll that combination has taken on the universe.

Perhaps one can feel some small sympathy for the Knights of Hykon: a martial order so powerful and so dedicated that one day they find they've beaten every villain their dimension has to offer.  When you build your life entirely on doing your duty through combat, ultimate victory must be almost as unthinkable as ultimate defeat.  Perhaps we should be neither surprised nor disapproving to learn the Knights solution was not to change their definition of duty, but rather their definition of the enemy.  Alliances long-forged in wartime quickly became enmities during what the Lifecode calls "the torture of peace".

It's only when the Knights start chucking planets at each other that everything goes wrong, when it becomes clear to everyone but the Knights themselves (along with Lifecode, the summation of Hykon culture and achievement granted sentience) that they were only ever in it out of self-aggrandisement.  Their desire for victory was the only motivating factor, and the enemy destroyed or the damage done in the process were matters of supreme irrelevance.

Given all this, the righteous anger of the X-Men, Cyclops and Nightcrawler in particular, is impossible to deny.  The sheer rage that boils up within our heroes at the thought of twelve thousand years of collateral damage during a war game that doesn't even have any meaning is truly impressive to behold, and deeply melancholy to consider.  When Lifecode tells Xavier that her charges have fought for millennia "with no consequence" I half expected him to Scanners her right there and then.  And Nightcrawlers fuck-you to Bone Dancer as he punches the alien out is pitch perfect:

You are not warriors!  The men in women in this room -- these soldiers who died trying to save their worlds -- they were warriors!

You are vicious children.  It's time you were punished. 

And punished they are, robbed of Lifecode by Lilandra as vengeance for the Shi'ar worlds they have obliterated, and forced to remain on the barren rock of their birth, weaponless and finally, horribly, at peace.

Like I said, it's a very sad tale, even if the heroes do win out in the end and the trail of destruction has finally come to a halt.  Some wounds are just too long, too wide, and too crippling for you to feel much joy at the point when they stop bleeding.

Beyond the horrors unleashed by the Knights of Hykon, there's still more sorrow to be tasted in the unravelling of Jean.  Not only is she on the brink of losing/dumping Scott, without any apparent idea as to which of those two options is more likely or preferable, she learns sotto voce from Storm that the Knights are at least partially responsible to turning her into Phoenix.  And how does she feel about that?  "I have literally no idea."  The fact that Scott clearly has no problem knowing how to feel - if his eyebeams stopped working, he'd try to bite through the Knight's armour and suck out their blood - is doubly saddening from our perspective, firstly because of the obvious yawning gap between our heroes', but because we know that this story ends in the conflagration of the Dark Phoenix' callous exterminations, the exact crime for which the Knights' guilt so contemptible.

Minutes later, Jean watches Scott seemingly try to murder Cloud Runner with the power of his own rage. "You destroyed the woman I love!"  It's at that point, I think, that it finally clicks for Scott - he's not struggling to stop himself losing Jean.  He's already lost her, and he just couldn't accept that because someone who looks just like her and who answers to her name is still walking around the place.  After the X-Men return home, and Nightcrawler confesses his surprised delight that the team made it through without casualties, Scott and Jean say goodbye to each other in silence.  Of course, where Scott is involved, there was never any real chance of anything so useful as words being involved.  And that's a sadness all in itself.

Clues

This issue follows on directly from the last one, and takes place over the course of a few hours.

The trees in Boston have regained their leaves, which suggests this story takes place a little later than we're currently assuming. Having said that, we're still bound by Corbeau's description of Phoenix's birth being a few weeks ago, so I think we'll just have to assume an early spring this year.

Date

Saturday 20^th of February, 1982.

X-Date

 X+3Y+292.

Contemporary Events

President Reagan and Pope Jean Paul II clash over the use of sanctions against Poland, currently under martial law to allow the government to crack down on protesters and activists.

Standout Line

"If you start hummin' the Stars n' Stripes, bub, I'm walkin' back to Quebec."