UNCANNY X-MEN #232: Earthfall

The Brood are back on Earth and they aim to go viral!

Originally Published August 1988

We begin with a flashback to a simpler time not so long ago. Storm was fighting for her life against the Crimson Commando, the rest of the then-active X-Men were duking it out with the Juggernaut in Scotland, and future X-Man Havok was enjoying the domestic life with his chosen partner, Lorna Dane who is happily in command of her own facilities.

But we're not focussing on any of that for the time being. At that same moment, not far from where Alex and Lorna are living, we zero in on a quartet of young twenty-somethings roughing it in the New Mexico desert when they see something incredible:

At first they fear it's a meteor falling which will likely create a shockwave that will kill them all horribly, but the object, whatever it is, seems to touch down relatively harmlessly. Naturally, they go to investigate (a strange item falling from space? And landing in New Mexico? Who wouldn't?) and find something most unexpected...

That's right, to the group's astonishment, a giant shark has plummeted from the heavens and landed at their feet. Their reactions range between awe, terror, and curiosity...

And it's not long before we discover which is the correct response.

Yeah, but I still think the beaches need to be open for the Fourth of July weekend. 

Soon, the youngsters are accosted by some nasty-looking alien space-critters, which we longtime mutant-watchers might recognize as... the Brood!

After witnessing Sally and Norm's grisly deaths, Harry has to make a heroic decision whether to save his last friend Fran.

Sorry Fran

As we know, Harry gets away in the VW and even sideswipes Alex and Lorna en route to safety. It's all Harry can do to speed away from the horrors he has just witnessed -- and probably his shameful part in it.

Which brings us to today. Harry is back to work as an EMT in Denver, Colorado, and it seems like he's put all of this behind him.

Fran who?

He arrives at the scene of a strange fire, where a lawyer named Robert Delgado has manifested pyrokinetic mutant abilities that have unfortunately misfired on him and caused him to go into cardiac arrest. Luckily, Harry here seems to have just the cure.

The next best thing to Horse Dewormer

Back in Australia, we find Gateway, that saucy, sassy Aborigine who is as old and wise as the land and twice as mysterious, opening a portal for to bring Madelyne home from a mission of the utmost importance...

That being the weekly grocery run. Yeah, I mean, it's a little ostentatious but I guess if I had Gateway for a pal I wouldn't waste my time driving out to the Costco either, especially if I lived in the middle of nowhere. Being able to zip all over creation probably makes it easier to find the best prices.

Madelyne arrives home to an empty house as the X-Men are all away on a mission of their own (and not to Wal-Mart, I gather.) She sighs about how there's nobody here to appreciate how good she looks with her most recent new outfit and hairdo, not even Alex (her technically-still-husband's brother) of whom she seems to be growing ever more fond.

With some time to herself, she wonders if the X-Men need some kind of a symbol to leave behind at their missions, like Zorro's 'Z' or the Lone Ranger's silver bullet. Noticing that Dazzler and Longshot both carry star motifs, she wonders if some kind of starburst would fit the bill. Hm, maybe if there was something just a little more simple for these X-Men to use as their symbol, something a little more iconic that lets people know eXactly who has been there but I can't think of an eXample of, say ,a design, or perhaps a letter that they really eXemplifies their mission and can be ineXtricably linked to their eXploits.

Nope, I got nothin. eXcuse the tangent.

Mads is distracted from her branding project when the TV flips over to an interview featuring the last two people she ever wanted to see on her social media feed:

"People You May Know..."

All right gang, here is where I've just got to cut loose because it's been months of X-Factor being a very publicly visible faction, whose existence has had negative implications for the X-Men, and while they never really think about it, we know that the X-Men know they exist and they surely must have cottoned on to the fact that these are the five extremely recognizable original X-Men, including a woman who looks and sounds exactly like the supposedly-dead Jean Grey, but is not famous Jean Grey lookalike Madelyne Pryor. As long as it continues I will never stop tearing my hair out in frustration at the dumbness of the original concept of X-Factor. But whatever, at least Madelyne is starting to put two and two together.

Understandably, she feels some type of way about it.

Back in Denver, ole Harry Palmer is getting home from his shift. He thinks its pretty weird how drained he seems to be these days after work. Also strange: He keeps somehow encountering mutants, as if he's drawn to them. But if he thinks that's bad, how's he going to feel when he gets home and finds... this:

Yes, it seems Harry has wound up on the X-Men's radar, and Psylocke and Colossus just want to have a little talk with him.

Harry's not in the mood.

Harry is mildly surprised to find himself capable of hurling a two-tonne mass of organic steel overhead and through the wall of his apartment but he's too caught up in the moment to really overthink it. 

Hare' is alarmed to find the entire X-Men team -- whom he, like everyone in the world, had thought to have perished in Dallas -- are after him. What's more, he is surprised to find himself overcome with a kind of instinctual dislike of them, as if he has some kind of in-born hatred and/or fear of them and this time I'm not talking about systemic racism.

Harry gets away, leaving the X-Men to touch base on next steps. Psylocke explains that she's survived the impact and the fall okay thanks to her new armored costume, which protects her valuable torso.

As Michelle Visage would say: Stop relying on that bodysuit

Wolverine confirms that Harry is more Brood than man now, although he seems unaware of it. Logan intends to get back on the hunt and terminate their new enemy with prejudice, but Storm demands a more cautious approach -- if Harry has been running around Denver for months implanting Brood eggs in people there's no telling what the extent might be. Essentially they're dealing with a plague -- a Brood pandemic, if you will.

Normally I read comics to get away from reality, just saying.

The X-Men track Harry down to a bus (in fact, Rogue manages to board it before he finds it, which is... impressive.) Unfortunately, our southern X-Lady finds herself overwhelmed by Harry's Brood-infused strength. As he wields his ovipositor ready to inject her with his Brood-goo, Wolverine manages to come to the rescue.

They chase Harry down to an alley, but before they can finish the fight, some cops arrive. Wolverine has a reasoned response to this:

ACAB: All Cops are Brood

But soon the X-Men realize, Wolverine hasn't gone mindlessly berserk -- his enhanced senses informed him that the cops were Brood, too!

And uh, don't look now, but...

Harry Palmer doesn't do it alone after all!

Further Thoughts:

This issue marks the first Co-Editing credit for Bob Harras, who is making the transition from Assistant, a move that ended up having a huge effect not only on X-Men comics, but the entire industry as he became a huge mover and shaker throughout the 90s and into the 2000s at first Marvel, then later DC Comics -- for good or ill. Here at Uncanny X-Cerpts, we're not able to provide a ton of context for the full magnitude of Harras' role over the decades, only to note that this is pretty much where it begins. Ultimately -- and I leave you to research this for yourself for the time being -- that would be nearly as much of a human toll as a business one, and we'll leave it at that.

It's been over five years in reading-time since we've seen the Brood, which makes them more than ripe for a comeback. As lengthy as the original Brood saga was (six parts with an over-sized climax, after being introduced in a previous four-parter!) there still feels like plenty to explore with this set.

One things I really appreciated with this issue was the structure. It begins by revisiting something we had already glimpsed -- the Brood's initial landing in New Mexico. After all, that was the incident that prompted Havok to reach back out to the X-Men quite some time ago, and it unfortunately had to fall by the wayside as the heroes got hung up on some more pressing matters. That means there's been plenty of time for Harry to run amok Broodifying half of Denver. Although the book spills the beans relatively quickly that Harry is Brood, it still tries to keep its cake while eating it by keeping his true nature hidden from himself. By keeping the focus tight, this is a somewhat unusual issue, and I appreciate that.

What makes the Brood such fearsome enemies is their body-theft. They're like zombies, or vampires, or the Borg or whatever, in that they want to make you one of them and basically suppress your 'self'. They're not just out to kill, but to add to their numbers. When Storm likens it to a plague, she's not wrong, especially since they are well beyond patient zero at this point. There's not really much danger of the X-Men being infected, but it provides a serious "How are we gonna get out of this one?" dilemma. After all, the last time they beat the Brood, it was with the aid of an Acanti prophet-singer soul purifying the entire Brood Homeworld, and I don't think we've got one of those lying around.