The X-Men travel a lot further than Ohio to do battle with a race of sci-fi Conans!
Originally Published 1979
We begin in the streets of New York City, where, in a crackle of energy, a mysterious, buff, sci-fi looking ersatz Conan the Barbarian appears impressively out of nowhere in front of a Newsstand in his wooly trunks.
He travels to Avengers Mansion, agitated and in search of the Mighty Thor, but finds the team unavailable. He learns, however, that there might be a suitable replacement elsewhere.
At the X-Mansion, our team is tuning up in the Danger Room as usual. It's going roughly as well as usual (in that the X-Men are taking some lumps but at least not dying) when one obstacle triggers Storm's claustrophobia and she lashes out, causing the system to overload, and a lengthy several-page montage of mechanical mayhem as the X-Men deal with the haywire machines.
Once the threat is neutralized, Storm laments how stressful life has become,which, compared to being worshipped as a goddess in Kenya, yeah.
As the X-Men take a fiver, our Barbaric friend (Arkon by name) shows up and demands Storm's presence. This results in a brawl around the house, but Arkon is able to send Storm away to parts unknown using his yellow teleporting lightning, which he carries in a quiver (along with red, hurty lightnings.)
The X-Men follow suit, and find themselves smack dab in the middle of the planet of Space-Conans!
As Cyclops, Wolverine and Colossus fight their way through the crowd of aggravated warriors - the Imperions - Nightcrawler sneaks away to follow the mysterious Vizier to where Storm is being kept. But he makes a shocking discovery...
In only a few minutes, the Imperions have somehow whisked Storm away to another castle and outfitted her with this tasteful gown. They work fast. Oh, and they've also convinced her to lay down her life for some cause or other, if need be. Brainwashing, or just a hyperdeveloped sense of empathy?
The battlin' X-Men spot storm's trademarked lightning and zip over their on the back of a dragon:
Naturally, they're not in favour of Storm sacrificing her life to save a bunch of guys they just met and have also been trying to kill them all day.
Arkon explains, the planet of the Imperions is not lit by a Sun, but by a ring of energy that envelops it. Unfortunately, that ring flickered out not that long ago, dooming their race. At that time, they battled the Avengers, and Iron Man whipped up a battery of sorts that Thor could then charge with his Asgardian lightning. Bing-bang-boom, energy ring - and all this five years before Back to the Future was a thing.
(Now, as to why Stark can't share this miraculous gift with his own planet, perhaps there are just too many corporate interests working against it.)
Over time, the battery failed - they managed to fix it, but needed Thor's lightning to recharge it. without him around, Storm could seemingly work in a pinch, but as she is not the god of thunder, merely a mortal with the power to command the elements, it seems likely, even accepted, that she'll probably die in the process.
Honestly, it's a pretty big ask so I don't blame these guys for not being nice about it. Luckily, Storm was looking for a higher purpose in life today, so she's in.
Cyclops, ever the reasonable one, decides there must be a better way, and maybe the power generator can be converted to take his optic blasts rather than lightning.
Now, I'm just a simple small town back country recapper - I never studied physics and I don't know too much about supplying the power to an alien world, but it seems to me that Cyclops' optic blasts have normally been depicted as a physical force rather than an energetic one, and that using one to fuel your power supply would be like trying to shoot an AK-47 into your gas tank to fill it up. Furthermore, I do seem to recall earlier in the issue where Cyclops mentions his blasts being spent, without any solar energy left to fuel him. Even furthermore, the X-Men's crack science team of Wolverine (?) and Nightcrawler are able to reconfigure a machine designed by Tony Stark in a manner of minutes. I move this entire annual be adjourned and thrown out.
Everyone survives, and Arkon deems the X-Men to be friends of the Imperion for infinity, the end.
Further Thoughts:
I've already run down some nitpicks I had with the way this issue played out, but it was a good try at a big sweeping epic Annual story. The plot is actually quite thin, but that leaves us more time for George Perez to stretch out and give us expansive scenes of battles and chaos. Was this the only significant time Perez drew the X-Men? It's marvelous.
Plus, if you put "X-Men get zapped to a world of Space-Conans" on paper, the minimum should at least be an enjoyable crazy romp, which we get for sure.
The conclusion, such as it is, was a brave attempt at an "All Your Powers Combined" climax, like the ones seen in defeating the Z'Nox, Krakoa, and in a roundabout way the M'Kraan Crystal. The specifics strain credulity a bit, even for a silly nonsense comic book, and are worth chirping, but not really worth getting too bent out of shape over. What if they had used Arkon's dangerousred lightning bolts? Surely they had a storehouse of those somewhere. But that's a bit simple, and takes the X-Men out of the action.
What do we think of Storm's claustrophobia by now? It is a somewhat iconic trait, but is it too convenient way for her powers to go off the rails? When does the frequency of her attacks become a serious liability? Is this an accurate depiction of claustrophobia - extrapolated to apply to someone with control over the elements?
Lastly... Wolverine: Mechanical tinkerer? He's 100 Years Old and spent a lot of time living in the woods. He seems like the best candidate to not know how to program a VCR. He's already got a mysterious past, a violent unpredictable streak, a keen strategic mind, a communion with nature and a way with the ladies. Does he need to be all things to all people? This is where Wein and Cockrum left a gap in building the new X-Men, as they lacked a true scientific genius character like Hank McCoy.
Is this the first 'Antagonist falls for Storm' story? It won't be the last. All of Marvel's baddies were crushin' for Storm as badly as Chris Claremont seemed to be.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot to dig into about that, now that you mention it! As obnoxious as it can be, arguably Claremont's determination to establish and maintain Storm as a major personality is to the benefit of the X-Men and the Marvel Universe as a whole. Yeah, it sucks when a writer over-pushes their favourites but at least he put a lot of work into making her an engaging, deep character worth reading about, so she's not exactly Poochie.
ReplyDeleteStill, characters/villains fawning over her constantly, yeah, meh to that. (Could you say Arkon falls for her? After all, he was going to let her kill herself.)