The X-Men face off against the Freedom Force!
Originally Published June 1986
We begin with Storm, looking for a good time.
Specifically, while in San Francisco, she has wandered into a shadowy alley with the express purpose of roughing up some muggers in the discharge of their duties.
I kind of like it when the X-Men casually fight street crime as a sort of therapeutic workout. I know it's an oversimplified representation that places the locus of crime on the disadvantaged class that has been marginalized by society rather than those who created those conditions in the first place, but you still don't want to see innocent people get hurt for their walking-around money.
Anyway, Storm wrecks these dudes.
Once she has put the crooks away she is given a pat on the back by SFPD's Sabrina "Bree" Morrel who is happy to have crime-fighting mutants in town, unlike those corrupt cops on the East Coast who are more into Nimrods.
Back at the X-Men's temporary lodging at the
The X-Men settle in for a quiet night of doing dishes, until a postcard arrives from Alaska from Cyclops and Madelyne, talking about how happy they are (Hm, must have gotten delayed a few weeks.) Rachel is distracted while telekinetically carrying a pile of dishes, and smashes the lot of them.
Ray lashes out, but Rogue suggests maybe she should try therapy. Or at the very least, staring off in the distance and thinking very hard, which always works for her.
That night, as Kitty and David arrive home from their outing to the Lila Cheney concert, they are attacked by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants Freedom Force: Avalanche, Pyro, Destiny, Blob, Spiral and their latest recruit, Spider-Woman II. Not present, however, is leader Mystique.
They announce their intention to arrest the X-Men, and Rachel goes charging headlong into action.
Unfortunately, Spiral, with her magic nuh-uh powers, turns Phoenix's attack back on herself, taking her off the board for the time being.
When Pyro makes a massive firebird, the intense heat triggers a freak rainstorm, which Storm uses to feign that she still has her powers. She is assisted by a playing-possum Rachel, who uses her telekinesis to lift the leader into the air as if on the winds.
As intimidating as this is for a moment, Spiral cuts through the ruse using her super nuh-uh vision, and the fight is on. The X-Men are nonplussed to find their opponents using teamwork - usually they're up against foes who just do whatever and hope for the best. (Ignoring the fact that in at least one previous clash, the then-Brotherhood executed a pretty darn well-coordinated attack that nearly killed Colossus.)
The X-Men's host Jessica Drew, formerly Spider-Woman I, also wishes she could help, but she, too, has recently been de-powered. And it must be frustrating as hell to see some other woman besmirching her good name.
Things go from bad to worse when Rogue tries absorbing Spiral's powers and mem'ries, only to be overwhelmed by the sheer goop of it all. Spiral overtakes Rogue's body, robbing the X-Men of yet another one of their heavy hitters.
With her Spiraly powers she is able to do... whatever this is... to Shadowcat:
With that, the Freedom Force's victory is total and they prepare to take the X-Men into custody when Detective Bree Morrell -- close personal friend of the X-Men -- arrives. She asks whether the FF have any kind of warrant or anything. It turns out they do not.
 |
| Bureaucracy: The true hero |
I'm not really sure how jurisdiction works, but then again, maybe Blob doesn't either.
The X-Men decide they have to leave town once and for all before the Freedom Force return, thus ending their brief tenure in the Bay Area. Rachel reflects on how she would rather die than go back to prison.
Meanwhile, not so far away at San Francisco Memorial Hospital a familiar-looking redhead is admitted with multiple gunshot wounds. She carries no ID, and so is admitted as Jane Doe.
I don't know if you can tell or not, due to the total lack of context clues, but I'm being told that's (gasp) Madelyne Pryor! Scott's estranged wife! (Well, he's the one who estranged himself, but you get the gist.)
Gasp!
Further Thoughts:
Here's where the X-Men being such a strong ongoing really pays off because although this was not a bad outing, the main things that it had going for it are that it contained the themes and general vibe that can be found in any given X-Men comic, including considerations of Rachel's trauma and Storm struggling to lead without actively having mutant powers. As enjoyable as it is to ponder the irony of criminals like the Brotherhood Freedom Force working for the government on their anti-mutant agenda, there's not a lot of substance here besides a fight that the X-Men are never in sight of winning. Which is odd when you consider one of them nearly ended the universe a few weeks ago. (She gave most of that power back though.)
I still don't get what Spiral is doing linked up with the F-Force, other than Claremont really liked Ann Nocenti and Arthur Adams' Longshot miniseries and wanted to fold it all into the X-Men.
I do feel like this was a casually stellar outing for John Romita Jr. who has been quietly killing it for quite some time. He was always a good artist, (and ultimately, one of the all-time greats for his work woth Spider-Man, the Hulk and others) but he had the misfortune of beginning his run here undistinguished compared to predecessors like Paul Smith and John Byrne. But through 1984, 85, and 86 he's been the artist this book needs, giving the X-Men a distinctive edgy, angular, even paranoid character that's just this side of the uncanny valley, while never being any kind of slouch in depicting action or interpersonal drama. (Hair, on the other hand...)
There are reasons why art appreciation is not really primary the remit of this blog but I want to be on record that the art does matter and always will. Bad or unappealing art can wreck an otherwise good story, just like excellent art can't usually save a poor one. There are times -- as we have seen in the past and will see again in the very near future -- when the art of a comic book can utterly excel and transcend. And then there .are those when it merely conveys, in the best and most straightforward and effective possible way, the content of a story. Eliding that is not a slight but a tacit acknowledgment that it's doing what it's supposed to. Beyond that, we at Uncanny X-Cerpts strive to support our points about the quality and character of a story, and the art's contribution to it, by including images where the art and storytelling are most effective and thus largely speak for themselves.
After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, and I spend enough time prattling on and on.
Aa for this yarn: in this kooky blend of serialized and episodic storytelling we call comics, an issue need not make a major contribution to the ongoing story, as long as it's a chance to visit with your favorites and watch them use their fabulous powers on each other. I just hope your favorite isn't Wolverine or Nightcrawler, the latter of whom is present but only in a farewell scene with Judith Rassendyll as she goes off to live her Princess Diaries life, concerned about her protector's devil-may-care attitude toward death and danger, and in the thoughts of Amanda as she worries about her brother boyfriend's recent erratic behavior.
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