UNCANNY X-MEN #153: Kitty's Fairy Tale

It's Storytime!

Originally Published January 1982

Just when the X-Mencwere done picking up the pieces from Kitty's battle woth the Demon, it's cleanup day again. Last week's tussle with the Hellfire Club took its toll on their mansion HQ and the heroes are all pitching in using their powers to help clear debris. Elsewhere Storm's injuries - incurred by her own self when she was stuck in the body of Emma Frost - are being tended to by former Avenger Carol Danvers, Captain Ms. Marvel, who was recently stripped of her own superpowers in Avengers Annual #10, and has been hanging out with the X-Men ever since.

The Prof also mulls over the fact that running a mutant superhero team costs a fortune and creates a lot of damage, and his resources are starting to get pretty strained.

Not to mention the insurance premiums

But most importantly, it's little Illyana's bedtime.

She's a little scared since lots of horrifying life-scarring things have been happening lately, so she might have some trouble sleeping. To ease her woes, Kitty decides to whip up a little bedtime story...

The story casts all of the X-Men in fantasy roles, with Kitty as the main heroine and Colossus as her hunky sidekick. And of course - please try to contain your shock - Jean Grey as the "Enchanted Princess." Do I need to say it? 0 Days Since.

These swashbuckling adventurers encounter, and rescue, the Wizard (Xavier) and his friend the Noble Prince (Cyclops) from being beaten up by some racist pirates.

The Wizard explains that they are on a quest to restore the Prince's true love, the Princess Jean, who had been transformed into a being of pure destruction in an attempt to save the Prince Cyclops and his land from destruction. Now, she flies about bringing death and misery wherever she goes. Sounds familiar.

The only way to restore Jean to her normal self is to zap her with a crystal containing her true self (you know, like the one that Jean's parents have in real life.) Alas, Phoenix sinks all the ships, ensuring the Wizard will never get close enough to properly use it.

Luckily, Pirate Kitty has a special friend for just such an occasion...

Yes, the story also features a sassy Dragon, standing in for the X-Men' iconic Blackbird Jet, named Lockheed, who speaks with Irish colloquialisms for good measure. He makes reference to the time Kitty nearly got him killed trying to destroy a demon, in one of the fun ways that the X-Men's "actual" stories play into this fantasy.

The Dragon takes them a ways but soon needs to stop for rest and refueling - er, feeding. They land on an island, where they encounter the cutesy "Bamf"...

The claustrophobic Genie-in-the-Bottle Windrider...

And the Tasmanian Devil-like Fiend.

Fiend actually loved the Princess too, but for whatever reason it didn't work out between them.

While all this is being told, the X-Men are gathering outside the door to hear Kitty's fable.

The adventurers band together and go in search of the Dark Phoenix. When they find her, of course they are hardly a match for her. The genie grants them all some extra flying powers to help distract the evil Dark Phoenix, until at last the Wizard is able to restore her true self.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The tale told and the kid asleep, Kitty is somewhat embarrassed to find she has been overheard, but the X-Men are overjoyed at her heartwarming rewrite.

Further Thoughts:

As I've pointed out several times, the book takes a long time to get over the death of Jean Grey - and if I'm being truthful, it never really happens, in the now 40 years since Jean's original death. You would think that taking the opportunity to re-live the entire thing again, already, would be tiresome to me, but I love this issue. It's very sweet, and fun, and has that kind of thing about what stories do for us even when we know they're made up - allowing us to rewrite endings and put things in order as we please.

It's interesting that, in the story, the Thingy that cures Phoenix is the snowglobe containing her true essence, which is an artefact that exists in real life - er, the X-Men's real life. If they had been paying attention to what they themselves had written, perhaps that could have used that as an out to restore Jean - through some kind of weird comic book mumbo jumbo scenario - but it just gets forgotten about. I mean, if they ever did want to bring Jean back as a real character. It's probably for the best if they don't.

It's just fun to see the X-Men - essentially fairy tale characters themselves in an updated context - distilled to these archetypal roles where they can be themselves and fill the slots for your traditional fable. Comics could stand to have more of a close relationship with these old sources. I'm actually surprised that, to my knowledge, the X-Men comics never returned to this particular well again.