UNCANNY X-MEN #231: Dressed For Dinner!

Colossus crashes a Limbo party!

Originally Published July 1988

We begin with... uh...

Well, let's come back to that later, and begin instead with Colossus!

Piotr is working through some things, taking out his frustrations on the (no doubt sacred to Gateway) rockfaces that surround the X-Men's new home. Rogue flies by to not only offer some sympathy, which is politely declined, but also to tell him how hot he is -- not just because his newly-increased mass and strength makes him look like a total snack, but because he's been out in the Australian sun all day literally turning himself into a human barbeque or something.

As Rogue flies off, Colossus laments that this is yet another drawback of his being stuck semi-permanently in steel bohunk form, unable to revert to flesh and blood without a great deal of intense physical exertion and pain. On top of all that, the X-Men have to pretend to be dead, so he's had to leave his loved ones, specifically his little sister Illyana, behind to mourn.

Alas, his high temperature means that when he goes to pick up a treasured sketch he made of his little snowflake, it ignites on contact.

As Gateway watches silently on -- unknowable and mysterious fellow that he is -- Storm arrives to bring Colossus in for supper. As they soar on Ororo's winds, Piotr confesses he has been having visions of his sister, which he worries means the girl (who is, remember, a powerful sorceress and ruler of Limbo, in addition to being a member of the New Mutants) may be in trouble. Storm is sympathetic, but with their cover of being dead and all, there's not much that can be done. Colossus agrees reluctantly, citing Lenin and/or Spock that the needs of the many must take precedence. Both are basically still in agreement that pretending to be dead is a good, wise, helpful plan that is not cruel and will not have any negative repercussions at all.

Back at the X-Hostel, Colossus is excused from dish duty due to the fact that he keeps cracking all the plates, while his teammates murmur amongst themselves about how glum the big guy has been lately. 

In the midst of all this, Gateway arrives and -- mysteriously and unknowably -- beckons Colossus to follow him. They go up on the rock, and Gateway opens a mystery portal and ushers Colossus through it, sending him...

To Limbo~! And I don't know about you, but I think Colossus is looking a little stiff so I don't know about his Limbo skills these days.

Seems Illyana -- in her capacity as sorceress-queen of Limbo -- is facing an uprising led by her erstwhile-assistant demon S'ym, backed by some techno-organic goons that found their way into Limbo in the pages of New Mutants. As far as Illyana is concerned, she has just cast a Necromancy spell to summon a revenant version of her brother to obey her whims. Unbeknownst to her, of course, Colossus is not even a little dead, and she's summoned the real thing, and he's just playing along.

Colossus leaps into action, impervious to S'ym's enchantments because of his Roma protection power. He ka-pows S'ym into oblivion like so much dinnerware, but Illyana is livid. Since she "conjured" him, he is supposed to only do what she says, and she definitely did not say "Sorceress Says attack S'ym."

Oops, I slipped!

As it turns out, Illyana has summoned her brother's death-shadow for another reason: to save the New Mutants.

It all started a few nights ago, when Illyana was studying her Russian Literature, specifically The Master and Margarita when all of a sudden, the iconic characters from that classic appear in her room to torment her!

This exact thing happened to me when studying Pride & Prejudice.

The characters bring Illyana down to the kitchen where Russian Folklore monster Baba Yaga (an evil granny who eats children, not an adorable miniature alien on a Disney+ show) is preparing the New Mutants for dinner. 

Illyana is able to use her teleportation powers to get away but can't save her friends, and so, knowing that iron is the weakness of sorcery (as always) she decided to defy the laws of magical ethics and cast the forbidden spell to summon her brother for help. Luckily, it seems, Gateway (whose mysteriousness is only matched by his unknowableness) picked up on her call and sent the real deal.

Colossus rushes in to the demonic representation of Xavier's Mansion where the New Mutants are currently being held.

He has some great success fighting off Yaga's ogres, but the witch herself gets away. Colossus pursues, but it turns out the door to the kitchen is too small for Colossus to get through in his armored form. 

So with a great deal of intense physical exertion and pain...

Which is great, but as regular-degular Piotr Rasputin, he's no match for the evil nan.

But, you know, now that he's in, there's nothing stopping him from reverting back.

Ain't no rule against it.

With Baba Yaga summarily defeated and the New Mutants restored to their pre-kidnapped state (having been fattened up for eating -- because you know, you can't have fat heroes) Illyana prepares to say goodbye to her brother.

She carries some grief. As much as she risked herself to save her friends, she didn't really do it for them as much as she did it for herself -- nobody beats her. She declares that she is not a good person, that the demon sorceress monster is what she really is and the only reason she's good is because she chooses it.

Which makes Piotr laugh, because what is goodness besides consciously working to overcome our baser natures?

Piotr reminds Illyana that he still loves her no matter who or what she is. Illyana points out that that's all well and good, but he's dead, so what does it matter what he has to say? He counters that he lives on in her memory, so nyah. He leaves with some more pretty words about it being what's inside that counts -- which incidentally puts the lie to the idea that Piotr is not good with words -- and heads back through the portal.

Already missing her brother, Magik declares that if she wants to, she can cast the necromancy spell again and bring him back -- but won't, because that's the work of a dark sorceress, and she will not give in and simply be that. She resolves that she will fight against the darkness.

As she heads back to Earth, S'ym's lieutenant Smiley Face declares he is now the face of the revolution, but is quickly quashed by a returning S'ym. Since the big demon is now part techno-organic, as long as so much as a microchip of him exists, he can restore himself. 

S'ym informs us that Magik's reckless sorcery is having a deleterious effect on the walls between the magical world and the mundane one, with creatures slipping through, such as this "Baba Yaga," whom he helpfully explains was not the real Baba Yaga, but a demon who took that form from Illyana's memories. (This no doubt accounts for how she could appear both here and in Marvel Russian Folklore Monthly.)

Seems this whole deal was a gambit on S'ym's part to either kill Illyana, or force her to go full Darkchilde with her Necromantic spell, neither of which happened, owing to the fact that Colossus was -- hilariously -- not really dead. Oh well, the fight for Limbo will continue!

Further Thoughts:

As I've said before, when it very rarely comes up, Colossus is a character who usually gets lost in the shuffle of Chris Claremont's X-Men. He's a great ensemble player but when it comes time to spotlight one member or another, his name is rarely called. This was honestly a great outing for him. Overcranking his powers to where he has Cyclops-like difficulties in managing them gives him a strong pathos, and being that he's one of the few X-Men with strong family ties, he makes a great prism through which to view the heroes' fake death ruse.

Although I'm not actively following the adventures of the New Mutants along with this blog, it was great to cross over and check on Illyana, who is pointedly not taking her brother's death well. I really liked the necromancy plot and how it had implications for Illyana's soul and destiny and how she escaped committing a magical no-no on a technicality (that the person she was summoning wasn't dead.) With magic, as always, being vulnerable to iron, it made for a great confluence of story elements, as well as the gimmick with Colossus having to fight his way through the door in normie mode. This doesn't mean it's suddenly easy for him to shift back and forth again, only that when it rally counts, he can do it. Tacked on as the drama seems, I was there for it.

We also get a little update on what's going on in Limbo, politically, as S'ym has banded with these techno-alien-demon guys to overthrow Illyana (only in X-Men comics, folks, do we get a robot demon war.)  This will become of some concern to us in the not-so-distant future so bear it in mind.