The X-Men are at Murderworld, where all of the rides are unsafe but at least the lines aren't long.
Originally Published August 1979
Hired-killer Arcade has kidnapped the X-Men and trapped them in his deadly theme park Murderworld, where they face a diverse array of funhouse-inspired traps.
Now, you may be thinking "But Arcade managed to get the drop on each of the X-Men with ease, why didn't he just execute them there?" And he's glad you asked. While tending to his hostages (Colleen Wing, Amanda and Betsy,) he decides to offer them - and by proxy us the readers - some insight into his mindset when designing and building a theme park that murders you.
It seems our man Arcade started life as a spoilt rich brat in Beverly Hills, where he committed his first murder to obtain his parents' wealth. Once this was done, he decided he had a taste for blood and a knack for murder. In fact he was so good at hired-killing it he became bored by the conventional tools of the trade and decided to inject some whimsy into his executions by using his ill-gotten inheritance to design and construct a fabulous amusement park of death.
Question: Do they have Funnel Cakes?
This all checks out for me - I suppose by this point in history we have too curious an audience to simply accept a theme park of death as a granted, but the explanation comes just this side of self-aware, masking the real reason (you can't just kill the X-Men.)
As Arcade briefly explains all this, Cyclops and Wolverine struggle with their latest challenge - their pal and teammate Colossus has been brainwashed into the deadly Proletarian, a Soviet avenger here to bring the downfall of western society in the form of concussions and lacerated spinal columns for those American capitalist pigs, his former friends the X-Men. He's also dressed like Communist Mario, which may or may not be redundant depending on your reading of that game.
Unfortunately for the Prole, the funhouse setting is lousy with secret doors, as he knocks both Wolverine and Cyclops through separate ones, to where link up with their teammates Banshee and Nightcrawler respectively. In each setting, two X-Men prove better than one, and they are able to destroy the menacing bumper cars that had been threatening 'Crawler, and sniff out the holograms from the real threats in Banshee's WWII air-to-surface combat scenario.
Now, their escape only leads Wolverine and Banshee to a maintenance tunnel being guarded by robotic replicas of Magneto and the Hulk, but it's something, isn't it?
Elsehwhere, Storm is trapped on her own in a rapidly flooding room, facing a lack of air and an attack of claustrophobia, which I'm really starting to see as a burden when superheroing. Gasping for breath, she bravely swims down in hopes of finding the source of the water, and via that pipe, an escape route.
Having escaped the bumper cars, Cyclops sends Kurt in search of Arcade's control centre, where he lays out the mastermind and his Bad Janet Ms. Locke, but is overpowered by a second henchman using knockout gas - presumably he, Betsy, Colleen and Amanda will all be murdered shortly.
Cyclops happens upon Wolverine and Banshee - and soon they are joined by an unconscious Storm, who washes up when a pipe bursts (this was her doing, via her lightning powers.) However, just as Cyclops revives her, the Proletarian arrives for the next round.
The steel-skinned Russkie has his decadent American former-friends dead to rights when the team reminds him about love and friendship and maybe American cheeseburgers, and he snaps out of it.
This is why you can't settle for just a quickie afternoon brainwashing, folks. True psychological manipulation takes years of intense conditioning.
Having run out of tricks, Arcade literally shrugs "You can't win 'em all," and pushes a button that causes the floor beneath the X-Men's feet to become a metal cocoon that sends them on a lengthy ride through various underground tunnels until they emerge an unknown distance away at an abandoned Bronx amusement park.
Before long, Nightcrawler and the ladies are air-dropped in, safe and sound, to prove seriously nobody really dies in these comics (except Thunderbird.)
Having escaped with their lives, Wolverine is eager to tear the place apart to find Arcade an exact his revenge. Cyclops talks him out of it, reasoning that they don't know where Arcade is (fair) don't have a warrant (somewhat unimportant) and can't even prove a crime had been committed (I'm sure they could figure it out.)
Much like Arcade's backstory "explaining" why the elaborate death traps, this explains why they don't just go hunt Arcade down, beyond "We want to bring Arcade back sometime."
The end... for now.
Further Thoughts:
I was going to call Arcade the "Willy Wonka of Murder" but the actual Willy Wonka was far more effective at murdering, so that's not really fair. Then again, his targets were helpless kids.
As I mentioned, the whole concept of Arcade adds up as far as I'm concerned, but not without some work. You have to buy that 1) This guy really loves, and is great at, murder, but also 2) Getting a kick out of watching a possible murder is more important than actually committing said murder in a guaranteed reliable fashion and collecting payment for it. Once the creators have successfully established this, there's really no barrier to enjoymentas far as I'm concerned.
This was a fun story. The X-Men's escape from Murderworld was as much skill and guile as it was dumb luck: if I'm Arcade, I assume Colossus as the Proletarian is going to murder the X-Men, rather than throw them through the trick walls so that they can regroup and face threats together that were meant to be fought solo. It's not the most sophisticated epic, but it's a really good-quality comic book adventure - winking slightly at the audience as it provides a very surface thrill.
It also features perhaps - and I feel like I've been paying attention but I may have missed it elsewhere - the first reference to Wolverine specifically having "unbreakable bones" instead of just vaguely being described as tough, a quick healer, etc.
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