UNCANNY X-MEN #155: First Blood

Corsair and the X-Men hunt for the real kidnappers!

Originally Published March 1982

There's a lot going on right now. Corsair, Cyclops' secret father, the pirate outlaw from space, has returned to Earth because the Shi'ar are under the impression that Earthlings are responsible for the kidnapping of Empress Lilandra and the attempted overthrow of the Shi'ar government. This crazy mixup has put the entire planet Earth in jeopardy, so of course, Scott has his mind focussed on the task at hand.

Namely, brooding about how he just found out that Corsair is his father, and that Storm knew and didn't tell him. Totally appropriate.

Cyclops' misplaced anger plays out over two solid pages of railing against, Corsair, Storm, and even the late beloved Jean, who knew, and shared a psychic rapport with Scott, but still kept that little secret.

I get why Scott is so upset - nobody likes to be deceived or have information hidden from them, especially when that info pertains to their long-thought-dead parent. But looking at it from every angle, it's hard to blame anyone. First, Scott is mad at Storm, who deflects by saying she promised Jean she wouldn't tell. Then he manages to get briefly upset at Jean - saintly deceased Jean - then lastly at Corsair, whom he calls deserter for never dropping by Earth to check on him. Corsair points out that he thought he was saving his children, and then thought he had watched them die (how did they survive their parachute going up in flames anyway?) - so he was of the impression he had nothing to go back to Earth for, what with the whole kidnapped-by-aliens thing.

By the time he and Scott met, yes, he did decide to keep that a secret, but he was too deeply ensconced in the lifestyle of a space pirate with no intention of visiting home again there was no point on kicking up a fuss aboit it. Plus, he had the earring and everything.

Cyclops is still busy unloading his baggage (you know, he did grow up unwanted in an orphanage and later developed debilitating mutant powers that made him an outcast; that does warrant some processing time) when the Shi'ar beam the whole jet onto their mothership, and the other X-Men from down on Magneto's island as well - with Kitty in the middle of a swim, and the Prof still in his Indiana Jones Cabana Hat.

The Shi'ar have abducted the X-Men as a courtesy just to say that they're pretty sure someone from Earth has kidnapped the Empress, and they'll either find her, or burn the whole planet to the ground without giving a eff. (Again, let's not dwell on the hypocrisy of this being the exact sort of thing they punished Jean for in the first place, I don't really expect interstellar autocracies to hold themselves up against double standards.)

Some of those present are a little skeptical Earth has suddenly developed a knack for space travel and a desire to get into the Empire-toppling game... on an intergalactic scale anyway.

Professor X, invoking the rights bestowed on him by being Lilandra's smooch partner, manages to get the X-Men a single day - or as the Shi'ar Chancellor Araki puts it "One rotation of your world about its planetary axis" (they're from space, you know, so they have to use Nathan Pyle funny alien talk) to find the real culprit.

Think of that poor property!

The Shi'ar also ask that the X-Men leave some hostages behind as a sign of good faith. Professor X opts to leave Nightcrawler and, in a sign of his true sensitivity toward his youngest charge, 13-and-a-half-year-old Kitty, to be the captives of this hostile invading alien force. Hasn't the girl been through enough? Her parents are getting divorced!

Prof has a plan though, and downloads all of his knowledge of the Shi'ar to Kitty's brain, via an extremely subtle mind-link.

Seamless.

On Earth, the X-Men seek the Avengers' help but are only able to reach new recruit Tigra, who seems lile she might as well not even be in this but sure. Professor X, mindprobing like the fate of the world depends on it, is able to narrow down the location of the kidnappers to exactly New York, USA. Convenient!

The X-Men wander around for a while, with Storm and Corsair pairing off to better reflect on the day's drama. Corsair notes that Earth doesn't feel like home anymore - it's more advanced than when he left it, and yet far less advanced than the culture he's now a part of.

Reflecting on how he never returned to Earth, Corsair notes that after his wife was killed by D'Ken, he was a broken man, and how you would have to go through something like that to fully understand. Say, where has that Jean been lately, anyway?

Even Chris Claremont is getting tired of trudging that yarn out month after month.

In a city of eight million, of course the X-Men do manage to stumble into the only rogue Shi'ar in town. She goes by the name of Deathbird, and she knows how to make an entrance.

I haven't seen an entrance this smooth since The Shockmaster.

Despite that opening stumble, Deathbird proves herself a fairly formidable foe against the X-Men and their Avenger ally.

What's more she has backup - slimy, tentacled giant bug-like alien guys called The Brood. They zap Storm and Corsair with a ray called a Psy-Scream (You scream...) that causes them to believe they are fighting their worst fears.

Now, I had thought that Storm's worst fear was being buried alive, but I guess that's a hard thing to fistfight, so a giant cat monster will have to do. (Corsair's worst fear looks to be the Soul Drinker, which is hard to argue with.)

Once the Professor is able to restore his senses, Corsair identifies Deathbird as part of the Shi'ar Rebel faction, but he doesn't know from Brood. Wolverine eagerly tests his mettle against the alien monsters, and Colossus gets the worst of it, eventually being put down for the count by an acid gun taken directly to the chest, saved only by Storm's monsoon powers washing and cleansing the affected area.

Scott and Corsair gain a new respect for each other based on their similar traumatic experiences, just as Deathbird manages to fight her way out, using Professor X as her hostage.

This raises a question as to what happened to the injured Piotr, who had been left to guard the Prof following his bout of acid reflux. Unfortunately, it is very much as indicated on the story's cover...

As you can see, Wolverine is extremely pessimistic about Colossus' prognosis, but considering he has a three-foot javelin stuck through his chest, it's hard to doubt.

What's worse, the X-Men aren't given time to properly process this:

This particular twist may be putting a hat on a hat, but it's not like it's uncalled for in the story. And with that, we're to be continued...

Further Thoughts:

Here's an issue brimming with ideas, which I think is guaranteed when you put Dave Cockrum and space opera together. We get another species of alien monsters for the X-Men to fight in the Brood, who come equipped with a host of inventive weapons - not only acid guns and psycho-beams, but tangle-webs and other gimmicks. They indicate some interest in Professor X specifically and the mutants in general, possibly for some nefarious purpose. It's interesting to think how the rogue Shi'ar Deathbird came to be allied with these creatures.

All throughout the issue, we see Colossus taking the brunt of various attacks as if to pique the reader's interest in paying off the cover. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not - at various points in history comic book covers were planned independently of the contents, but if they knew they were going to feature Colossus' lifeless body being cradled as a way of drawing readers in, it makes sense to engineer a few teases before the conclusion. If I'm a reader, I'm probably going in skeptical, after years of stories in which characters supposedly die, but end up all right. This comic really, really wants us to think Colossus has died a brutal death here.

Back on the Shi'ar ship, Kitty's love affair with fashion continues, as she uses Shi'ar technology to whip up some hot new togs, but in reality she claims she's using the knowledge of the Shi'ar that the Prof smacked into her brain, and her own computer skills, to snoop around. What will she learn, I wonder?

Don't worry about legalities - Marvel had the rights to Star Wars comics both then and now!