UNCANNY X-MEN #160: Chutes and Ladders!

They grow up so fast...

Originally Published August 1982

We begin with the X-Men on their island getaway.

While waiting to hear the latest on Professor X's coma, Storm, Colossus, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Kitty have a somewhat impromptu sparring match. Unbeknownst to them, someone is watching and taking the measure of their powers, and I don't mean Colossus' little sister Illyana.

No, this mysterious person actually seems quite interested in the little Russian Snowflake, beckoning her away from the adults and into the dark, mysterious hallways of the ancient alien complex they inhabit - you know, the one where they haven't fully mapped out yet and is decorated by terrifying grotesque statues and yet the X-Men have seen fit to move right in.

Kitty goes searching for the kid, but stumbles into some kind of teleportation circle and disappears.

Before long, her teammates follow...

Kitty finds herself in one of Bowser's Castles, or a reasonable facsimile. It's dark and creepy and scary and who knows what may turn out to be lurking in the shadows. Fortunately, there's someone familiar there to greet her...

Un-fortunately, she soon learns this is not the Kurt she knows when he touches the 14-year-old in a decidedly non-family-friendly fashion - as clearly as can possibly be depicted in a comic approved by the Comics Code Authority. (I can't, in good conscience, replicate the panel here.)

Like, we get it, this is a version of Kurt that is distinctly off-putting, corrupt, gross and wrong. You cold probably establish that without having him commit a sex crime in your comic.

Kitty runs off and finds herself face to face with the guy who is seemingly running this show, a feller called Belasco, who is not shy about letting it all hang out.

Um.

Elsewhere, Storm and Colossus have materialized into the Limbo World, lost and confused but knowing they have to find Illyana, who they suspect may have been abducted. They don't find Illyana, but they do find a gross tentacle monster, which attacks Storm. Colossus is teleported away yet again to Parts Unknown before he can help.

That's when something really strange happens, and Storm is transformed into an Amalgam (no not that kind - well, actually kind of) of Colossus and Wolverine and herself, to fight the monster off.

Back at Belasco's throne room, the Master of this Dark Dimension™ encases Kitty in a crystal that "Inhibits (her) phasing abilities, making escape virtually impossible." Kitty thinks to herself, "That's what you think," but in this case it would appear he is correct as Kitty does not actually manage to save herself at this time.

He goes on to explain that this pervy wretch is in fact the real Nightcrawler, twisted and bent to Belasco's will.

Belasco relates his own origin as a Sorcerer and Disciple of the "Dark Ones" who want to invade and conquer our plane of reality. He had recently attempted to summon them in the pages of Ka-Zar, only to be banished to this interdimensional limbo for his trouble. But he intends to use little Illyana as part of his latest angle to get the Dark Ones back on Earth. He calls forth his henchman S'ym, a monstrous brute, and we find out that the skeleton that's been chilling on the ground for the whole scene possesses a familiar set of claws - Wolverine is already dead and it appears it has been that way for some time!

Just to rub it in, Belasco tears Kitty's own skeleton out of her body and shows it to her, which 100% has to be near the top of the list of Most Needlessly Evilest things that have happened in this comic book.

Belasco presents Illyana with a medallion and tells her that someday, when she grows into her power as a sorceress and a woman, and the Five Bloodstones are in place, she will "ascend to a glorious destiny." Yeah, I think a recruiter from World Financial Group gave me that same pitch once.

What is it about inhabiting a demonic interdimensional limbo that makes everyone such a creep?

Just when you think things can't get any more twisted, who do we find watching this Devil and his Midnight Mass but the original, non-pervy Nightcrawler, who is just as confused as we are about what's going on!

Elsewhere, Storm awakens to find herself alone with no hint of who her benefactor is - what power enabled her to survive the attack and who has provided her some clothes to replace the ones that were destroyed by the monster's tentacle goo.

We see that whomever it is is rocking a good old fashioned cloak of mystety.

Finally, we find Wolverine - still alive, somehow, despite our visual hints to the contrary. He encounters the remains of a long-dead Colossus, who bears the markers of having reached old age before he died (his shiny metal hair has flecks of gray in it I suppose.)

As he ponders this, he is interrupted by S'ym, who is excited to have another chance to kill Wolverine.

S'ym is on the verge of stomping Wolverine's adamantium-laced skull in when the X-Men is teleported away. The demon explains to us that those teleport circles are a real nuisance here in Limbo - they appear without warning or cause, and can teleport a person to anywhere - and anywhen, our first hint that these warped and/or dead versions of our heroes exist due to what Neil DeGrasse Tyson woild call timey-wimey circumstances.

Luckily, S'ym is not lonely for long, as Colossus turns up - only slightly perturbed by the sight of his own dead body slumped against the wall - to finish what Logan had started. S'ym proves more than the Russian mutant can bear, and just as he seems ready to choke the life out of out hero, who should return but:

Wolverine and Colossus team up to shove S'ym into a teleport circle, thus disposing of that threat for the time being. Wolverine tell us that this was no coincidence - that hooded figure who has been running around used her magic to bring Logan back in the nick of time. But before we can learn anything more about her, she sends the two directly into Belasco's throne room to liberate Kitty and Illyana.

They are joined by Storm, soon followed by Nightcrawler, who had managed to switch places with his pervy doppelganger (Pervcrawler? Nightcreeper?)

Belasco, not really one for fisticuffs, gets away down one of his dark mysterious tunnels. Storm is ready to fly after him but she is stopped by the mysterious cloaked woman. And why should they listen to anything she has to say?  (Besides the fact that she's basically kept them alive all this time?)

Twist! It's an older, wiser, magical Storm!

She explains that, many years ago, when she was in the same position, she did chase Belasco down and it led to the doom and ruination of her friends and teammates. We've already seen how the rules of time and space don't really apply here, and now that's being put to use. Magic Storm is here to put right what once went badly.

This Storm, who has learned the dark arts to make up for her waning mutant powers, generously restores Kitty's skeleton to its rightful inside-her-body position.

Old!Storm ushers the X-Men toward the Last Teleportation Circle Outta Here while staying behind to ensure Belasco does not escape, but he manages to get a grip on Illyana, the one he wanted most.

A tug of war ensues...

Though Kitty loses her grip on Illyana for the briefest inatant, the X-Men manage to get her out of the portal just in the nick of time, except...

Yeah, that whole wonky time thing in Limbo. For Illyana, seven years passed while she was waiting to be rescued. Go figure!

She and Piotr have a touching reunion and he falls asleep guarding her bed. While she sleeps, she clutches a fateful medallion and remembers what someone once told her about it...

Further Thoughts:

Thpugh it is difficult to compartmentalize some of the icky aspects of this comic, I'm not exaggerating when I say that this happens to be one of my favourite individual issues of X-Men comics ever. It's a very complete one-part story with epic ramifications, an intriguing, mysterious set-up with twists and turns, action, excitement, horror, and a big reveal at the end. Like the previous issue, this could have been an annual, or it could also have been a multi-part saga, but it was a tight single installment that did everything it needed to in 22-pages, and wasted not a one of them. I even admire the horrific fates of the X-Men more than in "Days of Future Past." It feels more "real" because for a second it seems like you might actually be looking at a dead Wolverine or Colossus and at the very least are left confused and curious what's going on.

"But Scotto," you say, "If Storm stops them from dying, she never becomes the old lady who helps the X-Men to begin with!" To that I say that you, imaginary argumentative strawman, are too attached to the idea of paradoxes and time loops. Here we have a setting where time is meaningless - where reality itself is meaningless - for reasons of magic. It's the perfect place to dabble in these overlapping fates. So that Wolverine really does die and Storm really does become an old Sorceress and also the X-Men escape and survive because of it. The setting enables us to play with this warped version of reality, and not only does it explore it interestingly, it all does have its own sort of twisted logic. Just because it's not Back to the Future doesn't mean it's not solid.

Besides Nightcrawler becoming a groper, everything else about this issue worked for me. And now little snowflake Illyana has grown into a preteen so she can be Kitty's friend, and perhaps a mutant hero of her own, and also a mystical sorceress who may bring about the return of the Dark Ones? (You know, once those five Bloodstones are in place.) Interesting stuff.