UNCANNY X-MEN #235: A Green and Pleasant Land

The X-Men get two tickets to "paradise"!

Originally Published October 1988

We begin in a Green and Pleasant Land...

This is Genosha, a place we've never been before but are soon to learn about. An unnamed man cradles a baby boy, pursued by military helicopters. The man helpfully explains to this infant, as he infiltrates an airfield and places him aboard a QANTAS jet bound for Australia, that he'll soon be captured by someone called the Magistrates. The baby, however, will soon be somewhere "our kind" live free and happy.

Sure enough, just after the kiddo is placed, our man is hounded down by these Magistrates. He puts up a fight, using his mutant strength throw their truck around, but it's to no avail.

Two days later, three Genoshan Agents named Hawkshaw, Pipeline and Punchout -- collectively, the Press Gang -- are reading in the Times of Australia about a stowaway baby. But they haven't come to Australia just to find some dumb baby, they're looking for one Jenny Ransome.

Through discussion of Ransome and the baby, we learn that the Genoshans have a particular treatment for mutants. For starters, mutants aren't allowed to breed, but the treatment is the same whether some mutant manages to secretly bear a child, or if a government minister has a mutant child. Also, mutants have "responsibilities," which this Ransome has shirked by hiding her test results and running of to 'Stralia.

As it happens, Ransome is on her way to their location now. See, Jenny is a nurse, and the Press Gang have contracted her services under false pretenses. She's being flown to their location by a local pilot for hire by the name of... Madelyne Pryor!

Wait, is Pryor short for "Pilot for Hire"? Inquiring minds want to know.

Immediately, the Press Gang overpowers Jenny and Maddie, and beams them -- over broadband no less! -- back to Genosha. I really hope the model doesn't conk out and they only get half the file. When Jenny protests that she's an Australian citizen, the Genoshans counter that their government only recognizes its own -- Genoshan by birth, Genoshan forever.

In the aftermath of the fight, the X-Men arrive on scene to investigate. They determine, thanks largely to Wolverine's senses, that Madelyne and Jenny were kidnapped. Back at the base, Havok sees on radar a plane on course for Sydney, the only one around, and determine that must be them, but when they get to the scene -- a hospital -- and check the plane, they find that it's as though Jenny and Maddie disappeared as soon as they boarded, from how fresh or stale the scenes on board are.

Inside, it isn't long before they run into Punchout.

Wolverine and Rogue interrupt the Press Gang in the process of stealing the baby. The Press Gang are momentarily flummoxed by the X-Men's invisibility to sensors (which they had also noted in Maddie) but are able to beam in some reinforcements, knocking Wolvie and Rogue out a window to take them out of the fight.

 

The rest of thgese X-Men mix it up with the Magistrates, unclear what exactly the point of the fight is but successfully able to identify the villains...

The X-Men are able to hold their own against the Magistrates, but elsewhere, the Press Gang manages to abscond with Wolverine and Rogue.

 

When all the smoke is cleared, the X-Men have at least managed to defeat the Magistrates and leave them tied up in some steel girders bent into shape by Colossus. The X-Men leave their famous telltale calling card...

Which could probably use a redesign, if you ask me. Some streamlining.

Further Thoughts:

Here's a somewhat chaotic issue. Part of that is by design -- the X-Men don't really know what's going on or who they're up against, as they have seemingly never heard of Genosha, much like the rest of us, nor are they aware of the particular mistreatment of mutants that exists there. I'm not entirely sure how a sovereign nation builds itself on the backs of an oppressed mutant class without at least landing on the X-Men's radar sooner, but naturally there's not a lot of advocacy out there for mutants to begin with, and that's the story, so let's go.

Part of the chaos also steps from the action, and part from the execution. The plot of this issue seems have been jumbled in execution, although I don't know whether that's just a disconnect between Claremont and guest artist Leonardi (normally a formidable team) or one of the two not quite hitting it right, or if it's just my reading of it. (It's probably just me, as is often the case whenever I have complicated feelings about an issue.) It wasn't my favourite issue to write up, but it had some great scenes and the concept, the X-Men against Super-Apartheid, is a very promising one, so I like the issue for setting that up.