UNCANNY X-MEN #259: Dream a Little Dream

Colossus and Dazzler meet some new old friends!

Originally Published March 1990

We begin in Manhattan's trendy Soho neighborhood where we meet up with some old friends -- Genoshan exiles Phillip Moreau and Jenny Ransome. Unfortunately, they are finding out that for Genosha, the "long arm of the law" is very long indeed.

The Magistrates invoke Jenny's "indoctrination subroutines" (a sort of post-hypnotic suggestion for slaves) and brutalize Phillip, mocking him for the way he threw away every advantage, as the son of a high-ranking state official, the de facto leader of Genosha in all but name, the Genegineer.

As they prepare to beam Jenny and Phil back to Genosha via modem (which would surely take hours on contemporary 64 kbps connection speeds) they realize someone else is hanging out in this loft.

And I mean hanging, yowza.

The handsome stranger provides something of a distraction, enabling Jenny and Phil to start a scuffle, and while the Magistrates are able to come this close to dropping their new foe out of a window, they come up short.

At the hospital, the naked man is patched up, hailed as a hero by the local police, and offered a spare room by Jenny and Phil, while the Magistrates, as always, are shown the door for violating any number of international treaties and wildly overstepping international boundaries in the pursuit of law enforcement.

Elsewhere, out in glamorous Hollywood, California, one Freddie Stanachek is boxing up various items for removal from the headquarters of the now-bankrupt Beale Productions, which was at one time poised to launch popstar Alison Blaire to new heights of superstardom with "Dazzler: The Movie." Unfortunately, for reasons we can't know because the graphic novel Dazzler: The Movie is not available on Marvel Unlimited, that deal went south, and Dazzler went into hiding, then joined the X-Men, then died.

Or did she? As we know, the X-Men survived "The Fall of the Mutants" and began operating in secret, headquartered in the Australian Outback, unable to be photographed or sensed by electronic sensors, travelling the world and fighting various menaces in secret, until their numbers diminished to the point where they elected to disband and travel through the Siege Perilous, a magical portal that gives people a new life and renewed existence, a veritable blank slate. Following that, her current whereabouts are unknown.

Or are they? As luck would have it, the Siege Perilous dropped Alison off at her a beach house owned by her own former bandleader Lila Cheney, and is discovered by Lila's bodyguard Guido.

Guido brings Ali back to the house, which has its very own AI (much like Tony Stark in the Iron Man movie.) The AI unfortunately is unable to see or sense Dazzler in any way, but nevertheless gives its best shot at restoring her to health.

Back in Soho, Jenny and Phillip's landlord weighs the pros and cons of their proposition -- they may be trouble, but if he tosses them out, he's got an empty unit (yes, because lower Manhattan is famously swamped with available real estate and nobody to rent it to.) He agrees to take on their friend, who identifies himself as Peter Nicholas, as a caretaker, with the proviso that he will toss the three of them onto the street at the first sign of trouble.

Peter reflects -- Phillip feels like they've met before, but the previous night was the first memory Peter has. The man has no identity and no past that he is aware of.

But more importantly... babe alert!

Peter's eye is caught by the striking billboard across the street, featuring the latest doe-eyed, hairsprayed advertising hottie. Pete believes she may be the most beautiful woman in the world, but Phil reasons that reality is seldom a match for fantasy.

Back in Hollywood, Fred shows his discovery to Ginjer Baron of Baron-Fox Studios, proposing that the mogul finance the completion, marketing and distribution of the film. Fred thinks it's a slam dunk -- that Flying Mammal Hero movie made a boatload, and that was fiction, unlike this, which is real life!

Baron is skeptical, however -- the mutant moment seems to have passed, and Dazzler's dead anyway. What would be more interesting would be a picture about disgraced former producer Eric Beale (classic Hollywood, always needing to latch onto a white, male face.)

For Ginjer, it's a pass.

But not too far away, the woman formerly known as Dazzler receives a tour of her former life courtesy of Lila's robot house, up to and including details about her involvement with the X-Men and death "some months ago" in Dallas. This woman, however, isn't entirely sure she wants to pick up where she left off, and does the only thing she knows how to do: paint herself up and hit the town.

Over on  Muir Island, the assembled pseudo-X-Men attempt to use Cerebro to locate their missing friends, and/or Callisto, who hasn't been heard from since Moira sent her back to New York (perhaps she couldn't get a quarter for a pay phone.)

The results are... mixed.

Later, or a bright beautiful morning in Soho, caretaker Peter Nicholas is taking out the trash and thinking about sketching the street scenes when he runs into a familiar face...

Or rather, the familiar face runs into him.

Alas, the buxom babe flees into a nearby car, refusing to even give her name on the grounds that "What you don't know, can't hurt you."

What Peter doesn't know -- but you and I do -- is that this woman is actually former Morlock Leader Callisto, who has been hideously transformed into a hot babe by Masque as a cruel joke and a way of asserting his leadership over the Morlocks. We should all be so cursed.

And what Callisto doesn't know -- and Peter also doesn't know, but you and I may have figured out by now -- is that "Peter Nicholas" isn't just some average working class stud, but is in fact the X-Men's very own Colossus, amnesiac from having gone through the Siege Perilous and lacking access to his powers!

Later, Peter is at work fixing the broken window while Phillip offers some advice -- beautiful women tend to attract trouble, so maybe heed her advice and leave well enough alone. Peter, however, is nursing something of a crush, bordering on obsession, saying he wants to sketch her.

Phillip has a peek at Pete's sketchbooks and sees an image of Jenny Ransome -- as she was before the genetic modification.

Back on Genosha, the Genegineer is not too pleased with this latest flap in trying to apprehend his son and the escaped mutant 9817 (Jenny to her friends.) As it turns out, the Magistrates didn't break enough international laws in pursuit of the figutives. It's time to get serious and send in the whole damn Press Gang.

In Venice, California, the woman formerly known as Dazzler hits the latest hot spot, where she runs into an un-familiar face from her past.

Fred and Skippy adjourn to a jazz club where Fred toots his own horn a little bit.

And of course, because there's a famous singer in their midst they invite "Skippy" Blaire up on stage, and of course, it's the greatest thing anyone's ever heard. In fact, in defiance of the laws of physics, being an amnesiac actually makes Alison an even better singer.

If you liked Dazzler, you're gonna love Jazzler.

 So of course, in one of those classic "right place wrong time" scenarios that always befalls our heroes, some goons rush in to try to stick up the place -- the fucking jazz club -- and the erstwhile Dazzler is able to play hero almost instinctively with her light-zapping powers.

This manages to make the news, which catches the attention of disgraced former producer Eric Beale, who is very eager to get back in the (*sniff*) Dazzler business.

Further Thoughts:

There's a lot going on in this issue, which is propelled by catching us up with Dazzler, and with Colossus -- now Peter Nicholas -- following their trip through the Siege Perilous. Somehow, with all the scene-changing and plot work, this 22-page comic felt like it was a 48-page monster.

That said, as befits this era and direction, those overstuffed 22 pages is conspicuously light on "X-Men Action," outside of a meaningless encounter with the Magistrates and an even lighter-weight holdup at the end. For those who are drawn to big dynamic superheroics sprawling across the page, this is undoubtedly a letdown.

Now, you know me. I am among the first out here to trumpet the "X-Men fans want to read X-Men comics about the X-Men" line. Separating the X-Men not only from each other but from their very identities seems direly un-marketable and something the fickle masses are not going to sit still for. But with the benefit of hindsight -- after ingesting 15 years or Chris Claremont-written X-Men comics that were largely that albeit with a heaping dose of experimentalism and knowing the X-Men will eventually regroup and have many more exceedingly conventional adventures, somewhat ad nauseum -- I'm actually quite intrigued by this direction for your monthly X-Men comic. Sure! Bring it on! It's weird, it's different.

But if you're asking me in 1990, then no, I don't know what the fuck is going on, and it's not just because I'm not yet 3 years old. The big new villain is a coke-addicted movie producer for crying out loud.

The results of the Siege Perilous' mysterious wisdom harken back to any number of stories examining the X-Men's secret inner desires, as Colossus -- as caretaker Peter Nicholas -- is both a humble working man and a romantic artist, while Dazzler is dropped back more or less into the life she was leading before joining the X-Men... perhaps the Siege's way of saying "You're perfect honey, I have no notes."

This issue is all about building and developing this new status quo, so if it isn't as exciting or thrilling as other things on the racks (or even the previous issues), Claremont is banking that he has enough of his audience's attention to get leeway to go where he wants. This level and tone of storytelling is a little unusual for a superhero comic book and not everyone is going to be on board with the results, but I applaud the risk involved.