The X-Men get to go to space!
Originally Published June 1976
So when we last left off, Banshee, Jean and Wolverine had escaped Stephen Lang's secret Project: Armageddon base, only to learn, the hard way, that it was in orbit the entire time.
Fortunately, Lang is a benevolent villain and decides to send his Sentinels out to rescue them so that, you know, we can keep reading the comic.
Having discovered this fact, Peter Corbeau wrangles the remaining X-Men (Cyclops, Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler) a ride on a Starcore shuttle to fly to the rescue. The various teammates have mixed feelings. Crawler thinks it's all good fun, Cyclops is worried they'll be late to save Jean, Storm is dealing with her claustrophobia, and Colossus reveals that he had an older brother who was a cosmonaut who died on the Launchpad.
This causes him to freak out and destroy his space suit by transforming into his steel form - which is not ideal, in case, you know, they need to survive in the vacuum of space later or something.
The "Starcore crew" feign requesting an emergency stop at Project Armageddon's base (actually a repurposed SHIELD orbiter) but Lang isn't falling for it and sends Sentinels out to destroy the interlopers. In response, Corbeau rams the shuttle into the base so they can disembark (??!!) but in the fracas, Storm is sucked out through a puncture hole.
Outside the base, Storm faces certain doom, alone without life support and being hounded by Sentinels.
However, you should never underestimate the power of a woman being written by Chris Claremont, as Storm discovers that her powers do indeed work in space and she blows the thing away with solar-powered hurricane winds.
Storm notes that the Sentinel lets out an almost-human scream, and she wonders if this means she has broken her sacred vow never to take a human life - although she realizes that she may have to do so as an X-Man someday.
Inside, the X-Men do battle with the Sentinels, and while Cyclops chides Nightcrawler for his showboating, Kurt points out that he was recruited out of the circus, so he can't help what's in his blood.
If I haven't already noted this point, I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunities later but I want to now: I really do love the character mix of the "All-New, All-Different" X-Men. Whereas the original X-Men's personalities were only blandly, shallowly sketched, Claremont and Cockrum take care to truly define each character's personal philosophy, background, and modus operandi, and keep true to it at every moment.
Does this mean occasionally laying it on too thick with repetitive inner-monologues? Perhaps, but back then every issue really could be someone's first.
With the Sentinels scrapped - in record time, Cyclops notes (which Lang later reveals is due to incomplete Trask crib notes leading to these bootleg Sentinels being second-rate) he charges off to find the big boss and give him these hands.
However, Lang reveals one last trick up his sleeve as the X-Men must now face...
The X-Men??
Well, given the real Cyclops is standing right there and Lang's whole thing is robots, I'm sure there's some chicanery involved, but we'll have to wait until next time to find out.
Further Thoughts:
In the midst of this issue we are also shown an interlude of a mysterious individual revealed to be Black Tom Cassidy, Banshee's evil cousin, who wields a magical blasty stick, so keep an eye out for that later.
The story also gives us a news broadcast (hosted by Geraldo, ew) leading up to the X-Men's rocket ride, where they are supposedly an international crew of regular plain-Jane astronauts and not mutant superheroes off to fight giant robots. The language used in narration is a little weird and definitely Claremonty (in that it takes a seemingly ordinary subject and makes it creepily sexual.)
The news feature also mentions Judge Chalmers (from the last Sentinels story, remember) who is now on the pro-mutant side.
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