UNCANNY X-MEN #291-292: Underbelly / "...The Morlocks Take Manhattan!"

The X-Men venture into the tunnels to save the Morlocks from themselves!

Originally Published August-September 1992

We begin with a familiar...-ish... face.

As you may or may not recognize, this generically pretty but somewhat worse for wear young dish is Callisto: formerly the administrative and spiritual leader of the underground-dwelling mutant band known as the Morlocks, of late living the high life thanks to Masque's "curse" that upgraded the formerly-not-much-to-look-at warrior Callisto into the "average-to-hot" range. She became so attractive she could be in one of those Tiktok videos of women staring blankly at the camera that Facebook puts into my feed even though I didn't ask for them.

At least, that was before she showed up at the Xavier Mansion battered and bedraggled, in dire need of assistance. And she's not the only one who needs help...

Longtime Uncanny X-Cerpts readers will recognize that man as Dave Stevenson, but to the rest of the world he's simply "Healer," the fabulously conspicuous non-character plot device person who helps the Morlocks not die when they need to.

Callisto, of course, has sought Peter out because when he was living the life of a celebrated artist in Soho, they had something of an Andy Warhol-Edie Sedgwick thing going on, that is until Peter regained his memories between ages and drifted back into the X-Men and never did end up going back to Callie.

Elsewhere in the mansion, Mikhail Rasputin is haunted by the memory of those he accidentally killed, as well as his sworn enemy... hold on while I look up the correct spelling... Sha-Har-A-Zath, the Avatar of the Triumvirate. You would think I wouldn't have such a problem remembering that: I've got an auntie Sha-Har-A-Zath.

We don't see much of each other

While Callisto sprawls as sexily on the medical examining table as one can, she invites Charles into her mind to save her the trouble of explaining everything that happened out loud with words.

Someone please do something about her permanently-arched back!

As you know, Masque usurped the role of leadership of the Morlocks from Storm -- although, is it really usurping if the person in question is dead? I mean, she wasn't really dead, she had faked her death, and then had her death faked for her... meaning that she somehow double faked her death. But the point is, she was gone, and there was a power vaccuum, so Masque got himself sucked right up into it, and transformed all of the Morlocks into his own twisted creations because that's how he do.

But, as you may know if you happened to be reading X-Force, Masque is now dead, (we think) but all the Morlocks have been going buck wild without any kind of leadership.

Callisto, who is enjoying being hot and not living in a sewer, declined to retake her mantle of leadership.

And while it may look like she's kicking serious major league Morlock Ass in that flashback, eventually, we are told, she was overwhelmed and had to escape and seek refuge at the mansion.

The Professor decides the X-Men need to intervene to save the Morlocks from themselves, but Mikhail -- who has been telepathically conferenced in thanks to his own link with Colossus that nobody knew about -- is more sympathetic to Callisto as a fellow leader with no people.

Storm is game to go down and sort out what's what with the Morlocks, being that they are ostensibly her people that she has failed. Warren feels some type of way about this, highlighting that there is a huge gap between them, as the haves, and the Morlocks, as Have-Nots, which is rich coming from someone who is, well, rich.

Warren's basic thesis is that Storm's failure to lead and protect the Morlocks led to his wings being amputated, which is what made him the inhuman monster he has become. And it's like jeez Warren, get over it, sorry you've got cool metal wings that look awesome and only occasionally take on a mind of their own and try to kill people, sorry not sorry.

While the X-Men hash it out, Healer uses his magic touch to heal Callisto back to life and also back to her basic original ugfuglio format. 

It also appears the transformation has made her a little kooky.

The X-Men's response to this is basically "Right then, we'll be going... and you can stay here... help yourself to whatever's in the fridge but don't order anything on Prime Video."

In an interlude, we briefly see someone visiting a "Friend" in the hospital, who may be the supposed savior of "Humanity."

Down in the Morlock tunnels, the X-Men have arrived. Storm enters first, as is only fitting given her role as their de jure leader. She wonders, though, if Forge was right about her, and there's no room for anything in her life besides the X-Men, which explains why she abandoned the Morlocks.

Unfortunately, as she walks among them, the Morlocks are very riled up to be seeing the long lost leader, and begin to mob her, which triggers an attack of claustrophobia, which leaves us on a cliffhanger... but luckily you don't have to wait! Holy crow! It must be your birthday!

When we return to the action, the X-Men are mostly engaged in crowd control, duking it out with the hog-wild Morlocks in Times Square.

There are a few differences of opinion on how to handle it, of course, as Colossus reminds trigger-happy Bishop about the X-Men's no-killing policy. Bishop dismisses Colossus' words as empty threats, and Colossus invites Bish to ask Riptide how empty his threats are.

Colossus will murder you to keep you from violating the no-killing rule.

Back at the Mansion, things aren't so honky-dory either, as unprepossessing madwoman Callisto and ponytailed madman Mikhail have been left in the care of Mr. Sensitive Iceman. Mikhail demonstrates his super "Oh you didn't know I could do that?" powers on Iceman by reducing his entire body to a liquid state.

Anyone else want a Capri Sun right now?

I don't care who you are, that's gotta hurt. 

Down in the tunnels, Warren visits the site where his wings were impaled, still encrusted with his blood, for some more of his favorite pastime, feeling sorry for himself, while Professor X ventures out solo to try to find the source of the Morlocks' madness. Like most bad things it life, it is caused by an overly emotional teenager: a young Morlock with the power to affect the moods of those around him.

Elsewhere, Colossus fights MeMe, the sensational new character of 1992.

Now, in case there's some ambiguity in the picture up there, MeMe is a Morlock whose power is to absorb other people's bodies into his by touching them, and as a result has all these torsos, heads, faces and extra limbs all over his body. It's like Rogue-meets-horrifying-body-modification. Except one major difference between Rogue and MeMe is that while Rogue dares not use her power except in the most extreme of circumstances, MeMe absolutely seems to love using his powers. MeMe, I would say, has an unparalleled zest for life. He loves being alive and absorbing people into his body.

He's great and I hopw nothing bad ever happens to him

While the two big men duke it out, Bishop has his hands full, but successfully snookers a Morlock into zapping him with his energy powers so that he can charge up. However, he also has to deal with the fact that he is currently wanted for several many murders. 

He uses his gun to explode their car, but Storm whisks them away to safety, tut-tutting as she does so, having already warned Bishop once that he was going to have to give up murder and mayhem.

While Mikhail continues to battle a reconstituted Iceman, Callisto rifles through Storm's thing for the Power Vest of Morlock Leadership.

Say 'yes' to the vest

Professor X crawls into the alcove where the frightened psychic mutant Brain Cell is having his freak out, gashing his leg nastily on the jagged concrete and metal as he does so.

Back at the scene of the fight, Colossus has MeMe pinned down but can't make him give up his struggle. Jean, however, has sensed that he's just stalling because in only a moment, all of his victims will be permanently absorbed as part of his body  dooming them to a permanent life as part of the MeMe scene. So she does what needs to be done and...

Woah, wait a second! Hold your horses! Wait! I know he was a dangerous dude and all, but was that really the answer? The only course of action? She just... did it? Killed the guy like that? And after all that talk about the X-Men not killing??! Somewhere Bishop is going "Aw man, why does she get to kill and I don't?" What kind of example is that to set? And of all people to let get away with murder, Jean? Jean? The one who got so high on her powers she ate a planet??! I...

...

...

All right, I've taken a walk around the block and calmed down. I'm cool, it's cool, I'm fine. I can move on from this, I suppose.

RIP MeMe though.

Down in the tunnels, Professor Xavier is able to reach Brain Cell and stop him from broadcasting his anxiety into the Morlocks and causing them to go nuts.

It's a little simple, but I'll take anything to get this story over with.

With that, the Morlocks stop their rioting and head back into the tunnels. The X-Men, not fully sure what's going on but feeling like they have unfinished business, pursue them despite it being clear to the reader that they are no longer a threat.

It's starting to feel like these people are the danger

And back at the mansion, Callisto and Mikhail stand over Iceman's  defeated body and consolidate their new status as a power couple and set their sights on the Morlocks.

To be more continued!

Further Thoughts:

I've always been partial to the Morlocks, "bad guys" more by circumstance than by motivation, twisted into sometimes-cruel figures by society's reaction to their external appearances. I understand why they so often find themselves clashing with the X-Men and why we are expected to root against them, but their position as not-totally-good-or-bad was always refreshing to me and one of the best things about the X-Men comics.

This story really does them dirty by transforming them into literal mindless rampaging monsters. It's a disservice to the legitimacy of their cause and the dignity of their existence, even moreso than the original "Masque's Monster Morlock" story, which already wasn't great. At least there's an explanation, an anxious and innocent kid at the center of it whose powers are causing them to behave this way, which gives the overall message that the way to stop the cycle of violence is by caring about people, which is nice... but it feels like nobody is all that surprised that the Morlocks appear be literal boogeymen in this issue. I'm not saying they need to be kind and gentle, but I'd prefer to see them grounded.

Getting it worst, of course, is Callisto, who appears to go totally nuts after Healer reverts her to her non-hot form. As much as the comic fumbles the Morlocks, it really misses the subtlety of the Callisto-as-model storyline, which was already a little clunky in the first place. When it first happened, "Callie" had a complicated relationship with her new appearance. She didn't covet the kind of status and attention her new appearance was bringing, but was tempted by it nonetheless and feared losing her essence and becoming defined by her outer shell. It appears those fears were not unfounded as, where Callisto is in this story sees her basically having gotten everything she wants (that is, everything a quote-unquote "normal person" would want) thanks to her looks and rues the notion of ever going back to the way things were. It's not that that's not at all valid of a story direction, it just isn't how I would like it to go down with Callisto. 

In retrospect, Callisto's fears from the original story -- of losing her substance and giving in to superficiality -- seem to foretell what happens to the X-Men franchise after Lee and Portacio move in. Eerie.

I would have loved to see more interaction between Callisto and Peter playing off their earlier fling during that time, and consider Callisto is now shacking up with Mikhail, there's a whole host of implications there. Maybe we'll see more of it in the next issue... or maybe not! You never know these days.

Besides, Callisto descending into a sort of madness is far too close to the madness we saw from Mystique in just the previous issue. Between those and the death (or "death") of Emma Frost, it's been a bad year for relatively complicated female villain figures created by Chris Claremont. I would definitely say that losing that attention to the essence of female characters is one of the biggest misses of the transition between creative epochs.

Speaking of transitions, as noted in last week's posts, the Portacio era is officially over, as he, Jim Lee, and five other big name artists would leave Marvel to form Image Comics on the basis of seizing creative control and compensation from the bonds of the major publishing houses. Portacio would have less of a lasting impact that Jim Lee and most of the others, but that's largely due to outside circumstances. Nevertheless, the issues we see here are drawn in a frantic and exaggerated style by Tom Raney and Rurik Tyler (the latter of whom is more well known for MAD and Cracked Magazines) which actually somewhat suits the messy and anxious mood of the story.