UNCANNY X-MEN #245: MEN!

The X-Men hit the bar -- and the bar hits back! (Wait a...)

Originally Published June 1989

We begin with this handsome devil:

This fella is the leader of The Conquest, a vast consortium of various alien races intent on conquering Earth. And when I say vast, I mean vast -- everyone has shown up to Fearless Leader's big meeting, copyright infringement be damned: there's Chewbacca, Alf, Yoda, Xenomorph, Boba Fett, E.T, Hawkman... I think I even saw Crazy Carl in there!

 

Behold, the power of Fair Use!

 However, as the Leader prattles on and on, one of his top archivists, toiling away in obscurity down in the bowels of the ship, makes a shocking discovery!

See -- Earth has a past!

That's right, read 'em and weep: Earth has repelled the Skrulls, the Badoon, even Galactus. They also created and perfected the moonwalk and the Roger Rabbit, so they're prepared for both kinds of battle, space and dance. The archivist considers whether to bring this to the attention of his superiors.

Meanwhile, down below -- the X-Men:

Talk about doomscrolling

Havok has taken it upon himself to man the scanners, which has Wolverine in something of a tiz. In Havok's view, they need one of their own monitoring the screens to keep them from being abused the way Madelyne did, for hero own evil ends. But Wolverine's a real crunchy type, doesn't f--k with all this technology, you know? He trusts his senses, and he kind of feels like what Havok's doing is an invasion of privacy. Plus, you just know he's going to get Catfished one of these days.

Storm interjects. She's something of a granola gal herself, and sides with Wolverine: best not to use the ominous omnipresent security system designed by robot bad guys until we're sure it's on the up and up.

Storm is sensing there's a bit of a morale issue amongst the testosterone-having part of the X-Men. With Wolverine taking mysterious leaves of absence to have cool sexy solo adventures in his newly-launched spinoff book, the seeds of discontent are growing stronger than ever. The answer? Well perhaps what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Pictured: A gander, I think?

Back up on the Conquest's ship, the leader unveils his deadly weapon, sure to drive every man on the planet mad from frustration, confusion, and an unmistakable urge to marry:

Is she dead? Alive? A cosmic entity? A demonic queen? The girl next door? Gah! The pain!

But soon our Archivist friend arrives to apprise the leadership team of their folly in attacking Earth.

You know, they say you've really got to learn how to "manage up" these days.

And so down on Earth, the boys -- Logan, Longshot, Alex and Colossus, who has been made up with flesh tone concealer to hide his metal complexion courtesy of Dazzler -- hit the town.

Oh and don't think Pete's forgotten about the last time he went out for a drink with Wolverine.

With a blink of Gateway's mystical and subservient eye -- and I hope they at least offered to let him come along -- the X-Men-Men are in Sydney at Munden'z bar, ready to drown their sorrows.

While Longshot macks on the honeys and Alex laments how every woman he loves turns evil, the gang soon hears rumblings overhead. The invasion-- er, conquest is on!

The Conquest's first target is, naturally, Australia. But you know, those Down-underers, they've just about seen it all, nothing can faze 'em mate.

How'zabout a vegemite sandwich?

In fact, when the Conquest reaches the Mayor of Sydney demanding an unconditional surrender, the Mayor gladly resigns:

Conquest even destroys the iconic Sydney Opera House, sensing its importance. The Mayor doesn't necessarily object, but it is on all the postcards and brochures, so they'll need it put back, kthx.

Soon, the battle comes to Munden'z, and Colossus is in a fighting mood.

Which is great because there's like a hundred more of these guys.

Damn Logan, you gotta stop doing that

Longshot also joins the battle, with an unsurprising choice of opponent:

That's right, Longshot is targeted by the Cosmic Cutie Commandos, a squadron of man-hating space harpies, looking to destroy anything with a penis. But of course, Longshot is able to make them see the error of their ways with his pure heart, naivite and boyish good looks.

Half a world away, the news of the invasion Conquest makes its way to a big Metropolitan TV News Station, where the idea of Australia being invaded from outer space is dismissed as not altogether important.

Somewhere John Byrne is going "Damnit, even when I switch companies he writes my characters!"*

*Kidding, I know Byrne was off Superman by this point

Wolverine faces off against one of the Conquest's leaders in a winner-takes-all game of Poker. And when I say "winner takes all," I mean it.

But outside, the leader of the Hades Horde -- one of the many legally-questionable subgroups that make up the Conquest -- learns that the leader is planning to drop the Jean Bomb with his own people on the planet's surface. Incensed, he has his Horde fire their blasters at the traitorous leader. But Havok, who has done a little bit of blasting himself in his time, knows the difference between a blaster and not a blaster.

See, they're in Australia, so they have to say it.

And so, with the baddies thwarted in record time, the X-Fellas head home, where responsible adult Storm wants to know what the hey they got up to.

Wolverine, of course, has the perfect answer.

And so, as the men walk off planning their next road trip, all Storm can do is laugh it off.

In an epilogue, Tessa, she of the high ranking personal assistant to the Hellfire Club, arrives at the Kentucky Cabin that had been serving as a prison for one Donald Pierce (the former White King.) Seems someone has made it their business to liberate the cybernetic racist. But since they're on Shaw property, and Shaw is no longer with the Hellfire Club, Tessa does not see fit to let the current Lords Cardinal -- whom, I wouldn't even know who's in the Hellfire Club these days -- know.

Guess we'll just have to let it play out and see where it goes!

Further Thoughts:

You know, they're not making it easy for me. As you might know, a lot of the time I like to be the one making the jokey-jokes on this here blog. It's a lot easier when the comics take themselves relatively seriously and I can poke fun at that. When they decide to go and do something deliberately zany, I have little choice but to cover it in a straightforward way and suck all the fun out of it. 

What may not be entirely obvious here in the year 2022 is that this adventure is based on the then-recent DC Comics crossover "Invasion!" which features villains who look very much like the ones found in this comic, and involves a "Gene Bomb" -- geddit? -- to manipulate the genetics of everyone on Earth. There's a lot of fun to be had here, with the references, and the daffy Aussies not blinking twice at the Alien invaders, and all that.

This issue also features guest pencils from Rob Liefeld, who will not be a regular artist on Uncanny X-Men, but will definitely be making his mark on the franchise, and ultimately the comics biz, in years to come.

If I'm being perfectly honest, I would have liked there to be more to the story about male bonding and/or potentially toxic male attitudes based on the premise we started out with, and help resolve some of the issue with Havok and Wolverine, but merging that with the spoof aspect they clearly wanted to do would have been just a bit too much to ask for. 

But with that context, we got another enjoyable -- if slightly more stretched for material -- breather issue for our heroes before they go diving into the next major crossover epic.