UNCANNY X-MEN #104: The Gentleman's Name is Magneto!

Magneto is back and all grown up and ready to make his return to supervillainy!

Originally Published April 1977

Having vanquished Black Tom and the Juggernaut, the X-Men have been dispatched from Ireland to Scotland's Outer Hebrides, specifically to Muir Isle, where Moira MacTaggart's mutant research center is located. They are having some trouble acquiring transportation.

It turns out that any second-thoughts ones might have about lending watercraft to mutant adventurers is apt, because within moments the boat is destroyed, seemingly torn apart at its metal joints. After washing up on the shore, they are quickly brought face to face with their assailant...

Being that one of the X-Men is made of metal, and one of them has the power to have metal claws, they are uniquely ill-suited to be fighting the Master of Magnetism...

Down by two in the first inning, Storm, Nightcrawler and Banshee mount a feeble counter-attack. For whatever reason Banshee is the only one whose power can stand up to Magneto, but quickly, he too is felled in honestly spectacularly brutal fashion.

Cyclops and Moira have arrived too, with Scott being a trifle annoyed that this is the first time Xavier has ever mentioned any kind of longtime partnership with MacTaggart's Research Lab, but if you've spent literally any time around Charles, you should probably be ready for secrets and lies.

When they arrive, they find Moira's chosen housesitter, Jamie Madrox (the Multiple Man, last seen in Giant-Sized Fantastic Four #4), who relates the story of how Magneto came to be re-aged back to a buff adult man, his hatred for humankind intact.

Cyclops begins to sense that there is a bigger game afoot and that Magneto is actually only a pawn in it. Magneto, he surmises, is only here to distract them while the real threat is toward Xavier himself. He promptly collects his teammates and beats a hasty retreat.

And that's where our story leaves off, with the X-Men racing back to New York, and Magneto basically left to his own devices, triumphant by any definition.

Lastly, we are shown three brief scenes, which will surely all converged soon: for the first time, we see a dashing space pirate on board his ship speaking to a large amphibian guy named Ch'od...

We see what we can only assume is our Rebel Space Princess finally at Earth, only to be targeted by her brother's torpedoes...

And we see Erik the Red with his hypno-pawns Havok and Polaris perched outside the X-Mansion and ready to strike as Jean Grey's parents pay a visit. What timing!

To be continued!

Further Thoughts:

There is shockingly little to this issue, as the X-Men fight Magneto, get their clocks cleaned, and then retreat when they realize the entire thing was a distraction. It's kind of a double-edged sword because it establishes Magneto as an extremely powerful force to be reckoned with, but also not a problem right now as they have bigger fish to fry, making this a significant shaggy dog story.

It helps develop the ongoing story of the space opera the X-Men are about to be sucked into - the one that's been simmering on low heat since Xavier's visions began and only upped briefly when Erik the Red made his appearance - but in and of itself it's not much of a read. It feels a bit like Magneto was just slotted in to one part of this otherwise unrelated story in order to catch some sales from readers who might have been waiting for the X-Men's greatest foe to appear. And hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, but it feels like a waste.

As something of an aside, we find that Dragonfly of the Ani-Men has escaped from Muir Island. It seems weird to point that out so Claremont may have figured on using her again, but according to Wikipedia she wasn't seen again, anywhere, until an issue of Quasar in 1990. 

Somewhat more meaningfully, we also learn that something called "Mutant X" is also in danger of escaping, while a caption teases that we'll hear more about that later... and hopefully that comes before 1990.