UNCANNY X-MEN #158: The Life That Late I Led...

The X-Men and Carol Danvers throw down with Rogue!

Originally Published June 1982

We begin with our heroes, Carol Danvers and the Starjammers, engaging in a little recreational sparring match:

Peter Corbeau is monitoring Carol's bioactivity during this exercise, because I guess that's his thing now. He reads that even though Carol no longer has her "powers" per se, the thing that gave her her powers (Exploding Kree weapon? Blood transfusion from the original Captain Marvel? Something to do with the Nega-Bands? I'm not sure) left her in top physical shape, so even though she can't fly through a wall or whatever, she's still, like super strong and fast and tough and could totally beat up your dad, yuh-huh.

Meanwhile, Carol's friends the X-Men are also around, and they've got an issue, besides Kitty wondering if her mutant powers have given her super-feelings for Colossus.

No, that's... that's just hormones.

Professor X has been comatose ever since he tried to use his telepathic abilities in the last issue and had his brain friend by some unknown source. The heroes have hired Oracle, the resident psychic of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, to reach into Xavier's brain and see if she can scoop out some gunk, but she gets assaulted by a bad trip of her own:

Seems like something's going on and that something might involve the Brood? Kooky.

With their minds linked, the psychic backlash causes Xavier to seize control of Oracle's body and lash out at the medical instruments keeping him alive, seemingly attempting a strange kind of suicide by proxy. Wolverine manages to stop it by, um, breaking the plane of the axis of the matrix of their interface, or something, with his claws. Sure.

Oracle tells us that Xavier is somehow at war with himself, and that his recovery - or non-recovery - is completely up to him. Way to pass the buck there, Orky.

What's worse, Kitty arrives to reveal the news that they're talking about the X-Men on TV. Senator Kelly is back on his big "Mutants are bad" kick. Even though the X-Men prevented him from being assassinated some time ago, Kelly's big point is, "What gives them the right?" Which, you know, is a take.



John Stossel can hardly believe this.

Moira points out that Charles had once worked with the U.S. Government (remember Agent Amos "Fred" Duncan?) and so they have files on the original team and likely the new one as well - which is not ideal when you about to be branded enemy of the state. Kitty suggests they do the sensible thing, which is write a virus that will erase them from the government's systems.

Those Starjammers, they're the real heroes.

Meanwhile, out in Arizona or New Mexico, wherever mesas are, we see the Guy called Havok and that sweet kid Lorna Dane whipping up some chili (the main thing people in the southwest eat for every meal) when they are started by the arrival of some unexpected guests...

Hope you made enough chili...

Meanwhile, the X-Men have infiltrated the Pentagon using Carol's and Wolverine's military clearances.

Now, you may recall that Mystique, the leader of the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, is using the Pentagon as her home base, right under the U.S. Military's nose, under her guise of Raven Darkholme. So naturally, it's not long before Carol runs into an old friend...

You may also recall that Rogue is the reason Carol lost both her powers and her memory/sense of self, so she is not the biggest Rogue fan. Rogue knocks her silly, then tussles with Wolverine when he tries to stop her from escaping.

She lays a smacker on him, too, to put him in a coma and absorb his powers. Storm scoops him up to make a retreat, leaving the virus project to Carol as she slips away in the commotion while Rogue tracks down the X-Men and continues the brawl. Unfortunately, when she tries to absorb Storm's powers, she learns what Emma Frost learned the hard way - it is not easy being Storm.

Elsewhere, Carol has made it to the Computer Lab to erase the X-Men from the memory banks, but she has been followed by the shape-changing Mystique in the guise of SHIELD Director Nicholas Fury (here depicted in his classic David Hasselhoff form.)

Carol uses her infinitely superior physicality to dodge a bullet, play possum, then physically trounce her foe. She has Mystique arrested then goes about her business. However, she accidentally stumbles on her own files and takes a moment to reflect on what she once was, what she has lost, and what she has become.

In the end, she also gets the X-Men's records erased, and leaves off with the promise of a new life ahead.

I'm sure Carol will go on to have many great adventures as a normal human woman who is, again, very, very strong and fast and smart and capable.

Further Thoughts:

Provided you are into all of the Carol stuff and not irritated that it has shouldered the X-Men into side characters of their own book, this was a nice little story, with the fight between the X-Men and Rogue and, yeah, the weight of the Carol story.

It's funny how the attempts to clear Carol off the decks, and then the work done to correct those attempts, have resulted in her becoming a fairly compelling character with her own arc and unique baggage, not just someone who is very powerful and super capable and just gosh darnit better than anyone else. I mean, she's still that too, Claremont makes it very clear to us, but at least she has a sense of pathos and gravity to the proceedings.

Although I've got the admit, the business about her lost identity and memory is so inconsistently done it's hard to really get invested. She had previously said she remembered none of her life in the military with Logan, but now she's recounting her bona fides to him and waltzing around the Pentagon like she lives there. It's hard to suss out what she has actually lost and thus what she has to feel mopey about besides losing the ability to fly (which, admittedly, would be a shame.)