UNCANNY X-MEN #384: Crimson Pirates

The X-Men see red when pirates attack!

Originally Published September 2000

We begin -- after one of those newfangled cold previews of what's to come -- with fut.

Some would say an excess of fut.

What we are seeing is the Russian Minister of Defense having his defenses breached by, yo ho ho, some kind of interdimensional crew of pirates.

Back at Col. Vazhin's office, the X-Men have captured apparent interdimensional slaver Tullamore Voge. They're not quite sure what the deal is with this guy, other than that he's a Big Blue Boy, and has an interest in buying (and possibly reselling) human slaves.

Jean dives into his consciousness to try to pull out some of his secrets, but winds up crossing paths with a friend -- Wolverine, back in Westchester, is using Cerebro to try to contact the other X-Men due to the recent attack by the Goth.

Tullamore, however, has a lot of pull on the psychic realm and turns Wolverine into a Hound -- you know, one of those freaky-deaky mind-controlled savage salves pioneered by the Shadow King but also inexplicably used by others, here and in the future.

Jean shoves him back into the physical realm, and back into Adjectiveless X-Men, before he can reach total Houndification.

Jean, however, is still knocked out. Cable intends to follow her into the psychic world, but is waylaid by a hallucinatory vision. I hate when that happens.

The Pirates arrive looking to liberate Voge. They use the Minister to gain access, and also their gunman Broadside to shoot through the protective steel doors.

As the available X-Men scramble, Cable is distracted by the fact that he's suddenly... perfectly normal looking?

While Beast protects Jean, Gambit and Storm contend with the Sea Dogs.

Which goes well, until it doesn't.

You're not going to believe this could happen in a Chris Claremont comic but... Cable's been mind-controlled!

He also took Storm out. Col Vazhin, too, falls to the forces of piracy.

Facing overwhelming odds, Beast, along with Major Levin and Jean, makes a hasty escape.

Looking down over the Moskva River, the Pirates figure this trio for dead, but I guess they've never read a comic before.

This would look so badass if they didn't all have little snorkels.

The Claremometer:

1.5 x Mind-control

1 x Crazy Hallucination

1 x Weird Interdimensional Britishy Guy, Wot-Wot.

Further Thoughts:

This issue is fine in a vaccuum, but in context it really suffers from a lack of distinction. It's pretty clear at this point that the New Claremont Run has exactly one move, and it's to dig yet another squad of chuckleheads out of the bag to throw at the heroes. Didn't like the Shockwave Riders, the Lost Souls, the Goth or the Sole Patrol? Well, don't worry about that because here's there Crimson Pirates. And YES, they CAN mind-control!

Where did they come from? What do they want? Are they Neo? What is there association with Voge? What is Voge? Those are questions for another time, or better yet, not at all. The important thing is, the X-Men are on the ropes -- again -- but I'm sure they'll rally.

Why am I supposed to care? A hero fighting villains is the bare minimum of what a comic book should provide. The difference between a good and bad comic is when there's context for the reader that creates interest in that conflict: knowing that the bad guys are after, what they can do, what ideology they represent, what the stakes are if the X-Men lose. None of this has been established, beyond a general "Maybe they'll get sold into slavery or become hounds or something." There has to be a reason for these people to fight other than they have arrived in this comic and have powers. Something has to be on the line. I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know but I would be remiss if I did not use this space to push this very controversial perspective.

Ever since the return of Claremont -- and for a good while before that if we're being honest -- it has just been thing after relentless thing for the X-Men, with them constantly against the wall or on the run. I'm not saying they need to stop and play baseball, but I really think we need to get re-acquainted with the X-Men as characters, as people, and not just power-wielding figures on a page. The bits of this run that I have praised already were at least somewhat in touch with that. That depth, that familiarity, was what set the X-Men apart in their glory days and it's utterly missing. And the crazy thing is that Chris Claremont was largely the one responsible for it! I'm tearing my hair out here watching him generate generic bad guy fights twice a month.

To wit. The month I was born saw the publication of Uncanny X-Men #220, an issue that landed deep in "average issue" territory of my fan-voted ranking of Claremont issues. In that issue, Storm seeks out Forge to help restore her powers after three years without them. Eight issues later, while the X-Men fight the same kinds of battles they've been doing in 2000 but also contending with various subplots and personal doubts, Storm has returned to help the X-Men defeat him in "Fall of the Mutants," leading to their deaths and a new status quo. By comparison, the first eight issues of this run has seen our heroes duke it out with a large number of interchangeable badguy squads with no material change in circumstance.

Is that an unfair comparison? Uncanny #220 had twelve years of Claremont runway prior, to build toward it. But this run has decades more time with the character and could have easily hit the ground running. These last eight issues -- which are admittedly functionally separate series -- could have been spent building something even while providing rote superhero action, establishing the dynamics of the heroes and the villains instead of fussing with whose mind-control powers are taking precedence this time. Two or three issues back we heard about a possible usurper in the Neo but then never saw him again.

Anyone can write "The X-Men get shot at." What is the extra dimension that is supposed to keep me reading this series, since I've not been made curious about the True Nature of all these random villains that keep popping up out of nowhere. It's all just sound and fury.