UNCANNY X-MEN #102: Who Will Stop The Juggernaut?

The X-Men meet the cast of Deadpool 2!

Originally Published December 1976

So the X-Men - Banshee, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler - have fallen head-over-heels into Black Tom Cassidy's dungeon, where he and his good friend the Juggernaut are waiting to kill them. There's a lot working against the X-Men here, not the least of which is Storm suffering an attack of claustrophobia that prevents her from joining the battle.

Banshee locks up with his evil cousin, whose power is to shoot blasts of energy out of a stick. Wolverine attempts to go toe-to-toe with the Juggernaut and gets little support.

Don't mind me, I'm just cataloguing every instance of someone punching Wolverine out of the panel. They'll become much rarer soon.

There's a bit of a personnel problem for the X-team as Colossus is too concerned over Storm's wellbeing to get his head in the fight. Unfortunately, Storm is beyond help. She's trapped in her own mind, and by that I mean, we get a lengthy flashback giving her entire backstory.

And when I say "entire backstory" I mean entire backstory, as the tale begins with six-month-old Ororo Munro, daughter of Harlem photojournalist David and Kenyan princess N'Dare. They relocate from the U.S.A to Egypt, only to be caught in the Suez Crisis six years later (making Storm 26, for those keeping track.) A crashing plane traps the family under rubble, leaving young Ororo the only survivor.

Superheroes with dead parents? What will they think of next?

Young Ororo becomes a beggar-thief on the streets of Cairo (as one does) until her powers began to develop, and she felt a calling, wandering thousands of miles south to Kenya, where she assumed the role of weather goddess, which is where she met Charles Xavier and began this new phase of her life.

As if his psychic ears were burning, Charles senses Ororo's distress, interrupting a polite bedside conversation with Scott, Jean, and Jean's new roommate (Marvel's Blaxploitation heroine, Misty Knight.)

Jean, have you met this guy?

Prof ascertains that Black Tom and the Juggernaut are currently wailing on his charges and orders Cyclops to fly to Ireland to even the score. Scott points out, not wrongly, that he can't make it to Ireland in time to make a difference in this particular fight, and the new X-Men should probably learn to sink or swim by now anyway (hopefully they're a lot more prepared than Thunderbird was.) Prof responds with a typically inspirational speech:

The mutant Martin Luther King.

Really though, Scott is just covering for the fact that he doesn't want to leave Jean's bedside, and he happens to have a few good points. Speaking of Jean, something is definitely up with her since her little "episode."

I'm sure it's fine.

Back in Ireland, Black Tom taunts Banshee by pointing out his cousin isn't even curious why this is all happening - he reveals somebody is paying them to take out the X-Men, but tantalyzingly refuses to say who. I suppose Sean assumed Black Tom was in it for the love of the game.

Wolverine and Banshee are down for the count, as is Nightcrawler, who was also kidnapped by leprechauns over the course of the fight (wait what?) and Storm still battling her phobia due to the battle taking place inside, it looks bleak...

But oh hell yeah, Colossus has just woken up.

This is actually deftly-structured. Wolverine, scrappy as he is, is immediately shown not to be a match for Juggernaut. Storm, our "best hope" with her seemingly limitless weather powers, is out of commission. Banshee has a personal issue with Black Tom, so of course they pair up, and while Kurt is fast and agile, that isn't much use in a 1-on-1 brawl with the Juggernaut. It's only right that the story holds off until the end of the fight to bring in Colossus, a guy who, like Juggernaut, his whole deal is that he's intensely strong and invulnerable - we don't even know the upper limits of his abilities, so pitting theae two against each other is guaranteed exciting. But you can't just start there, you need a reason to build.

Unfortunately, "Petey Pureheart" (as Wolverine dubs him in this issue) comes up short, as does Storm's last ditch effort to gather her wits and throw some lightning, and we end with Black Tom and the Juggernaut gloating over their fallen foes. Next stop, Professor X's house, I'm sure!

Further Thoughts:

I know I say this a lot but there is a lot going on here. Not likely to change anytime soon, I suppose.

One thing that is casually dropped in here is that Banshee's and Black Tom's powers don't work on each other due to being kin, which I don't think was ever established before, but comes up every time Cyclops and Havok have a minor disagreement in the future.

As mentioned above, Nightcrawler is kidnapped (or rescued?) by a group of leprechauns who pop out of the wall for reasons unknown. If you don't think this is amazing, I feel bad for you. It's also introduced that Nightcrawler turns "invisible" in shadows, which, like a lot of the side-details being related in this issue, is a tad clumsy, but the creators have a quadrillion ideas to work in and no point in rationing them.

For a story with a pretty straightforward outline - X-Men fight Juggernaut and Black Tom - hardly a page goes by without a revelation, a tease, a twist or a meaningful moment - I even skipped Professor X having another psychic space vision, this time with the mysterious helmeted figure having something of a face.

If I haven't sad so before, Juggernaut is my favourite villain we've had yet, (besides Count Nefaria.) It seems very limited, simply being an insanely strong bad guy, but the degree to which he is a force of nature makes his appearances compelling. It also helps that he is both insanely strong and an obnoxious jerk. He and his best friend Black Tom met in jail and were sprung by the mysterious benefactor of the "murder the X-Men" project. They make a delightful pair.

Given how brutally Juggernaut clobbers the X-Men, the fight works basically as a framing device for all the other stuff - fitting, considering Juggy's first appearance used his offscreen approach to the mansion to frame another long flashback. Despite a few awkward hiccups, this is a great comic.

Wait, how strong is Wolverine??