UNCANNY X-MEN #268: Madripoor Knights

Ninjas, babes, and ninja babes are all in this issue. Also, Captain America.

Originally Published September 1990

The scene: Madripoor, 1941.

A relatively young Steve Rogers has come to southeast Asia in search of a Russian agent, to be immediately greeted by a welcoming party of Hand Ninjas.

To say nothing of his neck, and... other parts.

Just when it appears the Star-Spangled Man With a Plan is out of his depth, a mysterious stranger blunders onto the scene.

The two icons make short work of the Genin (assassins), who have a pesky way of disappearing after they're defeated like so much fodder in a beat-em-up arcade game. Despite sartorial differences, Logan and Cap like each other's style and moves enough to form a special team-up.

Back in the present day of 1941, Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow, is cornered by none other than the modern-day Hand, only for history to repeat itself when a few allies appear to even the odds.

They chase the ninjas off, but Natasha appears to have been injected with some kind of knockout toxin and collapses into Wolverine's arms.

1941-Logan adjourns with Captain America and his Russian pal Ivan to a Lowtown bar called Seraph's, where Wolverine has a run-in with a familiar face: Baron von Strucker.

Everybody comes to Seraph's.

Knowing that Cap and Ivan are going after the Baron, Wolverine has tagged his scent so he'll be able to follow him anywhere on the island. When Cap notes that that sounds like something an animal would do, Logan informs him that you and me baby ain't nothing but mammals.

As it happens, Logan is looking to bust up the Hand, so if the ninjas are in league with the Nazis, they all have the same target. Ivan reveals that the reason they've all descended on Madripoor is because Strucker has abducted a young girl left in Ivan's charge:

They're able to rescue the girl after a splashy action sequence...

But at a cost: Logan had to shield Natasha's body from gunfire with his own, taking several direct hits and, one would assume, dying.

Instead of going back to Seraph's, where Cap figures their enemies will know exactly where to find them, they adjourn to the U.S. Consulate, where they are greeted by one Geoffrey Sydenham... who expresses his condolences about Cap's impending death in action.

As it turns out, Sydenham is a hardcore Nazi Sympathizer, looking to join up with Adolph to carve up the world for control as well as to cleanse the world of the scourge of Bolshevism. Their plan to do this? Induce young Natasha into the Hand as their master assassin.

It could hardly be more straightforward.

Back in the present, Black Widow has joined up with her "little Uncle" with common goals: Wolverine wants to keep flushing the Hand out of Madripoor, and Black Widow is tracking the Strucker Twins (Andreas and Andrea, the freaky Aryan mutant cuddlebugs) who are set to join up with Matsuo Tsurayaba and his Hand Faction. 

Jubilee expresses mild disbelief that this dish Natasha is over 50 years old, and that her pal Logan doesn't seem to know anybody who is less than a 9.9.

Our heroes saunter onto the yacht where Matsuo's meeting with the Struckers is set to take place, with Psylocke and Natasha deep undercover as a pair of hot women, and Jubilee once again playing the role of delivery boy.

While everyone is distracted by the cheesecake Betsy and Nat are serving, Jubilee is able to sneak below deck to disable the yacht's engines and power supply with her fireworks, with the other three members of the gang able to make short work of the Stooges topside.

1941-Wolverine arrives at the Sacred Sword Ceremony -- distinctly not dead -- in time to save Natasha's bacon.

He and Seraph escort Cap, Ivan and young Nat to their plane, where the future Wolverine and the future Cap-Wolf part as friends. Perhaps someday their paths will cross again.

Unfortunately things aren't quite so hunky dory for our 1990 squad: as it turns out this whole yacht caper was a set-up: "Matsuo" and the "Struckers" are being played by lookalikes while the real meeting happens elsewhere.

And far away -- but not too-too-far -- the unholy trio toasts to their victory.

Further Thoughts:

This was a highly successful issue, in that it was clearly designed to tell a story from Wolverine's distant past, playing on his role as a Humphrey Bogart-like mover and shaker in Madripoor, which could be linked to a story in the present, provide the basis for a team-up with Captain America, nudge some of our ongoing stories forward, and of course, perhaps most importantly, feature sexy action in exotic locales, preferably with some buxom babes.

It's a perfect product for what it's supposed to be, and even as I have my eye on the shallowing of the X-Men comics into a shiny but not particularly deep aesthetically-driven product for the 90's, you have to admit they did exactly what they wanted to do with it. A lot of it, of course, was a shaggy dog story: the bad guys slip away without a fuss, and even in the past I'm not entirely sure what the Hand's plans for Natasha are or why they're of such paramount importance (with the flimsy excuse for Natasha's role being that they like the irony of the Russians being undone by a child who bears the name of the former Imperial family -- a side-effect of foreign characters often getting conspicuously famous surnames like Romanoff, or now that you mention it, Rasputin.)

The story isn't bad, but while it may not be the best thing Claremont ever wrote, it serves its purpose because if people were getting fatigued by the lack of the X-Men's actual presence in X-Men comics, then they needed a reason to come flocking back to Marvel's top title, and that reason was going to be Jim Lee. I hate to keep harping on it, but it can't be denied. As much as, from 2022, we've seen superstar artists come and go, and we are all very accustomed to Lee's work and the style he ushered in, reading these books in semi-realtime highlights just what a break from the past it was and how must-see his pencils are. There was a reason why artists like Lee, Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlane were able to break away from the big publishing houses and command so much attention: what they were doing looked and felt like a big deal. They were stylish, they were different, and they were now. In a sense, it almost doesn't matter what's in the story as long as Lee gets room to flex his strength and please the crowd.

And that, of course, would spell trouble for the X-Men, Marvel comics, and the entire industry before too much longer, but for now, it was a rising tide swallowing everything in its path.