UNCANNY X-MEN #208: Retribution

The X-Men must battle the Hellfire Club!

Originally Published August 1986

Previously, on Uncanny X-Cerpts:

Wolverine has brutally stabbed Phoenix in  order to prevent her from murdering the ageless vampire mutant Selene in her bed.

Now, Wolverine must defend his actions to his teammates, debating whether two wrongs do, in fact, make a right.

It isn't just about Selene though - Rachel has been heading for the deep end for quite some time, not that long ago being so fixated on stopping the threat of the Beyonder she absorbed the life-essences of the entire team (which involved questionable consent) and nearly used it to end all life in the universe just out of spite. The last thing you want is to have a loose cannon on a cosmic scale. 

Like it or not, Wolverine does have a point and it's only sorta about heroes-don't-kill-their-villains. Of late, there has been a considerable theme of self-policing amongst mutants. This kind of preventative justice, while probably not called for in very many scenarios, might help prevent humans from getting involved in mutant affairs.

It won't, but it might. 

Storm brings the X-Men and Morlocks together to find Rachel in the event she is somehow alive. 

Elsewhere, in the Central Park Ramble, Selene reminds us she is in fact a millennia-old vampiric soulsucker by stopping a mugging and absorbing the life-essence of the mugger...

And the would-be victim. Selene's not a nice lady, is the point here.

Thus refreshed, Selene pops down to the Hellfire Club to let her fellow Lords Cardinal know that, from recent experience, the X-Men may be out to kill them. They spend a minute debating whether it's the X-Men who want to kill them, or a rogue Phoenix, who Shaw thinks could be turned into an asset (seems unlikely but Shaw didn't get where he is by thinking two-dimensionally.) They resolve to locate the girl, in case she survived.

And thirdly of all, yet another personage is interested in locating our Phoenix, namely...

That's right, Nimrod is taking the night off from his tutoring gig to resume his hunt for the deadly menaces known as mutants. As he takes flight, he reflects on how his mentor relationship with young Tomàs is not compatible with his programming, and yet it brings him strange joy - which is also something he is not programmed to feel.

Down in Central Park, we find Rachel clinging to life. Yes, Wolverine clawed straight through her heart, but the joke's on him because she at least has a telekinetic gumption to keep her heart from failing -- for now -- and is in survival mode. Let me tell you, if I were the recipient of near-unlimited telekinetic power, I too would learn, almost immediately, how to keep my major organs functioning after they had been stabbed through. It's just good sense.

Rachel happens upon the remains of Selene's recent victims. Irked to see the deadly outcome of this real-life trolley car experiment, Rachel musters up the strength to send a long-distance telepathic whammy to Wolverine to express her displeasure.

Kitty is able to phase Wolverine to safety, taking care of him despite being overall miffed about the unilateral-attempted-murder-of-teammate thing earlier, and the X-Men are led by mutant-tracker Caliban to Strawberry Fields in Central Park. As they prepare to rescue their teammate, they reflect on how poorly they reacted to her obvious cries for help.

I'm glad we all had time to learn something, because Caliban warns that there are others nearby also hunting Phoenix -- namely the Hellfire Club, who use von Roehm - transformed into a wolflike wretch by Selene's "Okay, so we're doing this now" powers - as a tracker.

And what none of them know, of course, is that Nimrod is also present, using his Go-Go-Gadget Hands to identifax all of the mutants present: the Morlocks, the Lords of Hellfire, and all twelve X-Men.

Twelve? I'm not sure I agree 100% with your police work there, 'Rod.

Roehm closes in on Rachel, but Rogue arrives in the nick of time. Unfortunately, Friedrich's claws make skin-to-skin contact with the identity-absorbing Rogue, which means there's about a 50-50 chance of this happening:

The two factions collide and Rachel slips away in the chaos. Rogue manages to shake off von Rpehm's influence but the Lords Carinal have the upper-hand. Selene uses her matter-master powers to sink Colossus into the ground. Rogue flies after him, but her skin-on-steel-skin contact causes her to absorb his powers, leaving him in his frail human form and all the more vulnerable. 

As the X-Men try to regroup and work out their next move, this guy shows up:

Yikes!

Further Thoughts:

As this is an ongoing story I am going to save my musings until the conclusion for once, although I truly do love the no-easy-answers scenario we are getting where the X-Men are fighting amongst themselves, learning hard lessons about compassion, and forced into a corner where they may have to team up with some of their greatest enemies. That said, I have exactly one thought in my mind right now:

At least Selene brought the neck-gaiter

Who the hell okayed these thrift store super-suits for the Hellfire Club? Does this really look like something a bunch of millionaires who tend to go about in dandy stockings and fetish gear would actually wear to a super-fight? Get outta here.