UNCANNY X-MEN #242: Burn!

The Goblin Queen is ready to burn it all down

Originally Published March 1989

We begin with what we are told is a moment that speaks for itself...

But to be fair, I personally require more context to grasp the enormity of the happenings, and Chris Claremont obliges by providing over 100 words splayed across a two-page spread.

What you are witnessing is the reunion or first official meeting between the current-day X-Men (of late believed dead in Dallas) and the original X-Factor (who are also the original X-Men.) The two parties have converged on this demonified version of Central Park in pursuit of Madelyne Pryor, who has been in something of a heated -- ahem, I say heated -- custody battle with her estranged husband Cyclops as they battle for possession of their son Nathan Christopher Charles Summers.

And speaking of people who were believed dead, this is the X-Men's first encounter with the recently-resurrected Jean Grey, hence the tongue-wrestling match with Wolverine, who always carried something of a torch for the red-headed Grey.

Jean, naturally, asserts her right to say "no," albeit with a little side of fluster-ation over Wolvie's kiss.

Tempers flare, as the X-Men are here to aid Madelyne as one of their own, whereas they perceive X-Factor as villains, frauds and race-traitors who hunt down mutants at the behest of paying (human) customers. What they don't know -- but you and I do -- is that X-Factor was never really hunting mutants, but using that premise as a cover to rescue and foster young mutants. But you know what they say, a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can get its specially-designed ruby quartz visor on.

All of which is to say -- they fight.

Warren and Logan resume their old rivalry, only Warren is a little different in temperament than he was when last Wolverine saw him, throwing his paralytic poison blades -- as bestowed by Apocalypse during his brief stint as the Horseman Death -- at him. Rogue tries to give Angel the old "shut up" kiss but is unable to fully absorb his powers an' mem'ries due to the lingering influence of Big 'Lypse.

Meanwhile, Longshot and Dazzler decide they've got better things to do than fight.

N'astirh arrives, showing off his new Techno-Organic upgrade, boasting that he has become a living magical computer. He whisks Madelyne away on a demonic carriage, and Cyclops makes the decision to save Jean from her demonized parents instead, which is all well and good because you get the feeling that Maddy isn't really hoping to be "saved."

Havok, however, cares a lot about Madelyne, so he grabs onto the carriage and lets it drag him all the way to the Empire State Building (now a towering magic spire of evil -- which makes you wonder why they didn't just use Trump Tower, wokka wokka.)

Outside the tower, Alex is confronted by the truth of Madelyne's recent ascension to the position of Goblin Queen, and finds himself accepting a place by her side as the Goblin Prince, complete with matching ensemble.

Now, far be it from me to get snarky about Havok's attire here. I'm glad to see that the dress code is the same for the men as the women over at the Goblin Queen's palace: tattered crotch fabric and underboob is the signature style of Haus of Pryor, and Alex quite rocks it with his meaty thighs and calfs.

There they meet Colossus, who has walked away from the fight, sensing there is a more pressing battle to be fought. However, they turn their back and shut him out and N'astirh sends a mocking message about how Illyana failed to curb the rising demon tide in Limbo, and now it's his turn. Undeterred, the steel-skinned Russian begins to climb the tower.

As the squabble continues, Storm soars high above it. Various impulses fight within her, and she is deeply unsettled when she sees, at the Empire State Building of Evil, an image of the butte where she and Forge case the spell that brought them back to Earth from the paradise realm where they had briefly lived.

Are we sure that isn't a mesa?

At Madelyne's demon penthouse, she startles N'astirh by showing her strength, summoning the exact sacrificial altar they need out of thin air, something he himself would have needed a lot more time to do.

But when baby Nathan telepathically reaches out to Jean Grey for help, the Goblin Queen really loses her cool, offended that her own baby would seem to prefer that "resurrected, retread cow" over her.

You sacrifice so much for your kids, and all you ask in return is to let you literally sacrifice them to a demon, and instead they go crying to your mortal enemy. That's parenthood.

Storm whisks Jean above the flight on her winds and the two have a moment.

Which is then interrupted by N'astirh, carrying out Madelyne's orders for Jean Grey's soul on a platter.

As the best friends do their best and come up short, Warren charges in to settle the score with N'astirh -- as he may or may not be aware, this demon had a deal with Warren's ex-best-friend and betrayer Cameron Hodge to support Hodge's human supremacy group and its efforts to take Warren and X-Factor down. Warren, thus enraged, sends N'astirh his deadliest chupa-chups--

Only for his paralyzing blades to sail right through the malleable techno-demon and into his friends. Whoopsies!

As they plummet, however, N'astirh notes that he won't let them die: he wants to infect them with the Transmode virus and make them his personal slaves, which is quite a stretch goal for him. However, Rogue swoops in and saves Storm and Jean, palming them off on Warren and Beast so that she can take a turn with N'astirh. 

See, she has a little trick up her sleeve, since she tangled with Magus a while back...

Vaccinations save lives! Get immunized today!

As the Goblin Queen and her Prince watch N'astirh fail hard in the distance, Colossus finally reaches the top of his climb, only to have his "give peace a chance" pitch brutally rebuffed.

Iceman manages to build one hell of a luge track to use Colossus' momentum in his favor.

Having felt the agonizing pain of Colossus' cold hard purity, N'astirh bugs out for now. This leaves the X-Men and the X-Factor to realize it's time to stop their slapfight and unite against the common enemy, N'astirh. However, the X-Factor haven't got any relevant experience fighting a techno-organic being. For that, they need Psylocke to telepathically link Rogue's and Colossus' memories to Jean.

At first, Jean is a little bashful about letting someone tickle her psyche, but Psylocke whispers a few sweet nothings to warm her up and suddenly Jean is crying out for more.

Subtext, what is that?

Once they get the download on Magus and the whole Techno-organic deal, Beast gets a crafty idea that manages to combine all of the assembled mutants' powers. All of em.

Iceman -- whose powers have been supercharged to where he has to wear that power-dampening belt -- freezes the entire structure of the demonic Empire State Building.

Unfortunately, this drop in temperature only manages to accelerate N'astirh's processing power as as living demon computer. 

See, that's why whenever your computer runs slow, you need to drop it in a bucket of ice water.

Think of the Excel Functions he'll be able to run! He'll be unstoppable!

Anyway, this is all actually phase one of the plan, as Storm increases the local temperature to a balmy 80 degrees and then all of the heroes using their powers on the tower at once.

Does it work? Well, it involves all of the mutants hitting him with their powers at once, so you tell me.

And, so--

With N'astirh obliterated, X-Factor is looking forward to some orange slices and maybe even Pizza Hut, but strangely, Manhattan has not reverted to its pre-Inferno state. Yes, it's still cast in an otherworldly darkness instead of the regular earthly darkness that usually powered the city in the 80s.

Cyclops is eager to get things back to normal, but Storm is like "Well, maybe this is the new normal."

Cyclops points out that they're not supposed to just kill all their problems away, while Storm mounts a defense of "Ya-huh, that's what we do now," and as this argument begins to take off, they are quickly interrupted...

Oh yeah, her!

To be continued!

Further Thoughts:

Marvel has been pitting its heroes against one another since forever, usually on the basis of some flimsy misunderstanding between the parties while a villain lurks in the background. There's no misunderstanding here, however -- the X-Men and X-Factor are on two different missions: X-Factor to rescue baby Nathan (not Christopher no matter how badly Scott wishes it were) from Madelyne, and the X-Men to rescue Madelyne. Helping spark the conflict is the fact that Inferno's evil spell has clearly been shown to infect the X-Men, which brings out their dark side in delightfully subtle ways. Instead of becoming outright mustache-twirling pawns of darkness, their negative attributes are merely enhanced: they become aggressive, callow, mean and frankly rude.

It's that same influence that causes Alex's feelings of protectiveness toward Madelyne to go into overdrive and let himself become her bare-chested, loincloth-wearing thrall. 

The two factions put their squabble aside to fight N'astirh however, who makes a convenient focal point and seemingly big bad. N'astirh is an interesting figure. He's using Madelyne, but he can't really control her. He has big plans and certainly formidable powers but everything seems to be spinning out his control. He's kind of like a middle manager who got promoted out of his depth. He's the Michael Scott of the demon world.

As for Madelyne, she does follow N'astirh's lead, buying into his con that he is all for her, but her erratic behavior lets her assert herself over him. She's more than a pawn of N'astirh or of Sinister, and their attempts to use her as such has caused an insurmountable darkness to be unleashed. If this all sounds familiar, it definitely echoes the Dark Phoenix Saga, where Mastermind's manipulation of Jean (er...... "Jean") awakened the dark impulses in her that caused her to rebel and finally cast aside her entire team in the name of embracing her dark powers. 

Er-- sorry, forget I made the comparison!

What saves this story from being a retread is that there are some really complex dynamics at play with X-Factor being "good" but maybe a bit rigid, Madelyne being "bad" but definitely a wronged party who is letting her frustrations out in a perhaps unhealthy way, and the X-Men as in-betweeners who have goals and intentions that are maybe a bit clouded by their closeness to the matter, and by the in-story wonkiness of the Inferno's demonic influence (it's not a perfect metaphor for real-world conflict, but it is definitely a shade more nuanced than your typical GvsE battle.)

With so much going on, Inferno occupies a unique spot in X-Men history for its juggling of so many schemes, motivations and dynamics -- Sinister isn't even in this one! -- so if it's a little hectic and overstuffed, I can easily forgive it. It's not that hard to suss out exactly where everyone stands at a given time, as the X-Men revert back to their demonic-influenced tones once the battle with N'astirh is through, signifying that even though they feel like they beat the bad guy, the fight is just getting warmed up.