UNCANNY X-MEN #257: Lady Mandarin

Patch investigates the criminal underworld in Hong Kong

Originally Published January 1990

Lady Mandarin, the artist formerly known as Psylocke now in a sexy Japanese ninja babe package, is hosting a little get-together for the lords of the Hong Kong underworld.

The Lords are... singularly unimpressed. After all, who cares about the Mandarin? That guy can't even beat Iron Man, and he's, like, the worst Avenger. He might as well be getting beaten by Hawkeye. 

And now there's a Lady version? Hard pass, right?

The Lords decide they've had enough bother and sic their goons on Lady M, who is all too delighted to show off her newfound Sexy Asian Ninja Warrior skills.

Soon, L. Mandarin has dispatched four squads of thugs with ease, which has the Hong Kong Lords tearing their hair out -- What??! How??! She's just a -- ah, but you see, she's wearing the Mandarin's power rings!

Okay, so like, if they're afraid of the rings, why are they openly talking about Mandarin as if he's yesterday's trash? Not too bright, these Lords of the Hong Kong Underworld.

Having made her position clear, Lady Mandy reiterates that her boss is uniting the Underworld -- get in or get out.

With her former rivals falling in line, the onetime Psylocke cheers privately about how finally she's good at something.

Be cool Lady, act like you've been there

Not far away, a mysterious junk (that is, a Chinese Boat) pulls into Hong Kong harbor. The local constables question its only visible crewmember -- our American-born Chinese friend Jubilee, now dressed in a conspicuous outfit of green shorts, red top and a yellow overcoat (where does one get a yellow overcoat?), but the truth is, the boat belongs to this man:

This is Patch, a big mover and shaker in the southeast Asian underworld, usually in the nearby island state of Madripoor. I think he's appeared in the Wolverine comics, although I'm not sure how he linked up with Jubilee. His credibility enables the ship to dock so they can go ashore.

Back in Cairo, Il, the mysterious child Ororo is on the run, being wanted for murder. However, she knows the truth -- the murder was committed by the "evil one" possessing FBI agent Jacob Reisz. 

Ororo is baffled about the situation -- Cairo has changed, none of the streets are as she remembers, and the weather is a far cry from the desert climate she is used to.

Also people keep pronouncing it "Kay-ro." And speaking English. And being white. And eating cheeseburgers. Seriously, it's like an entirely different country. The evil one's powers must be formidable.

Ororo eludes her pursuers but is left in a desperate situation, shivering on a rooftop.

Back in Hong Kong, Patch takes Jubilee to a contact named Rosie. They send Jubilee off on a shopping trip with Rosie's granddaughter Ruth -- the entire city is, after all, one big mall. This fact slightly defrays Jubilee's dejection at being left out of the scheme by her partner... by which I mean Patch.

Rosie tells Patch that the Mandarin is making big moves to consolidate the Hong Kong underground. Tensions are brewing, and Patch may get caught in the middle of it, but Patch is determined to get what he needs here, and get out.

Elsewhere, on the Hand's private island (which they acquired from crime lord and snack cake impresario Emil Vachon) Lady Mandarin engages in a training exercise. She acquits herself well against the lower mooks using her psychic knife -- which represents the focussed totality of her telepathic powers -- but falls prey to a sneak attack from her boss, Matsuo. 

Proving that some things simply never change no matter how much psychic conditioning you've undergone, the former Betsy Braddock decides to soothe herself after defeat with a sensual bath. Matsuo lays it out for his charge that the mysterious Patch has arrived in Hong Kong, possibly working for his boss, a Madripoorian crimelord named Tyger Tiger. Matsuo's assignment for Lady Mandarin: ensure this man does not burn so bright here in Hong Kong. 

Gratuitous, schmatuitous

On the streets of Hong Kong, Jubilee and Ruthie are cornered by some street toughs who accuse Jubilation of being a "Yankee Banana Girl." (maybe they were just talking about her coat?) 

Jubes refuses to back down, inviting the gang to try to "peel her and see," but Ruthie drags her away from conflict before it can erupt in, shall we say, fireworks.

As the gals try to decide what to have for lunch, unfortunately, some unseen forces get the drop on them.

Back on Muir Isle, Banshee and Forge prepare for their mission, with Banshee asking Forge to beef up the Muir Isle security even further by adding a secret back door only they will be able to access (but even they won't know about, which seems confusing to me but it seems to make sense to them.)

Nearby, Lorna sulks -- everywhere she goes lately, chaos and confusion seems to follow, and she can't help but feel somehow responsible. But before she can mope too long, she runs into Legion, who wants something from her.

Wellp, it sure was a fun week of not being mind-controlled, but it's time to get back to it.

Back on the junk, Patch is waiting for Jubilee, but her disappearance is obviously a bad sign. Even worse, the Hand Ninjas are climbing up the boat reading to strike, but when they get there they find the place empty. 

Before they can get their bearings, they hear the most dreaded sound in the world...

Wait a minute, I know that soind effect from somewhere...

You're telling me Patch was Wolverine this entire time? Damn, what a twist!!

Despite his faltering healing factor, Patch Wolverine is still a veritable one-mutant army, and makes short work of the goon squad. 

Unfortunately, ourcherp is distracted when a new player appears, much like a WWE wrestler when a rival comes to the ringside area during a match.

Jubilee is of course being controlled by the psychic powers of Lady Mandarin.

Lady M goes into combat with Wolverine, boasting that her telepathy gives her the edge, the ability to read her opponent's moves before they are made. That's all well and good, but Wolverine is no common chump -- for him, when fighting, thought and action are one, there is no "mind" to read.

And she would know that if she had ever, say, met Wolverine before.

Wolverine, for his part, is trying to place where he knows Lady Mandarin from. She seems so familiar, and yet the face doesn't match the profile he's getting.

And yet, when she removes her helmet, he does recognize her...

L. M. is able to put Wolverine down for the count, crowing about her impending victory over one of the Hand's deadliest foes.

To be continued!

Further Thoughts:

This issue relies somewhat significantly on plot threads and iconography from Wolverine's solo series, where, in his Patch guise, he regularly visits and engages with the underworld in the fictional South East Asian island of Madripoor. This shift, if one were not reading the Wolverine comic, seems abrupt, but isn't so jarring and mystifying that we can't accept that it is merely a new shade to the richly-drawn world of X-Men comics, which are nore and more an integrated franchise comprised of several overlapping narratives, of which Uncanny X-Men just happens to be the thread we are following. 

And although the depictions of Hong Kong and its peoples are quite stereotypical, otherwise I enjoy the hardboiled HK Noir thriller aspect. I wonder whether Chris Claremont had recently discovered the films of John Woo.

This is all a lot more exciting than recent issues of Uncanny had been, oriented around not only action, but action surrounding one of our favourite characters. Wolverine's stated purpose for being in Hong Kong is searching for the X-Men; although he's kind of on a wild goose chase, through blind luck he actually manages to bumble into one, so good for him. Wolverine is still dealing with a personal crisis with his healing factor breaking down, and he's seeing visions of his old compatriots Carol Danvers and Nick Fury.

This means there's actually three distinct Carols running around the Marvel U -- this ghost of Wolverine's memory, her psyche that lives in Rogue's body, and her body that has largely been stripped of her mind, flying around in space with the Starjammers as Binary. I take this veritable cornucopia of Carols as Chris Claremont's revenge against the now-long-departed forces that would have had this character disposed of and written out with an unwanted pregnancy and a forced retirement in "bliss" with her assaulter.

Although they're separated for much of the issue, the Jubilee-Wolverine dynamic is a winner, with Jubes being willful and hotheaded but ultimately lacking the confidence to do anything but what her partner says. Her insecurity when Wolverine brushes her aside to conduct business rings true, even if it's wholly appropriate for him to do so since, as useful and capable as she is, she's still very green to superheroing and needs a little protection for her own good. This, along with her fish out of water starus as a Chinese American (heavy on the American) in Hong Kong make her parts of the story very compelling.

All of this is made a complete package by Jim Lee's art. This is not the first time Lee has drawn the X-Men (in fact, he drew the previous issue, and the one in which Storm died) but this is perhaps the first time he is truly able to make his mark, with big bold action, dynamic close-ups on expressions, frenetic pacing, gorgeous scenery, and of course muscly dudes and hot babes.

Whatever you think of the comics later produced by the future Image Founders like Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri, which tended to lack substance but sold based on an appetite for style, when paired with a writer like Chris Claremont they were capable of producing peerless work. Lee in particular is an artist I have always held in high esteem, whose work screams COMICS in the best possible way. I think Silvestri's work on this book stands the test of time better for being more classicist and yet also innovative, but Lee was undoubtedly the generation's superstar.