Sunday 2 October 2011

UXM #103 "The Fall Of The Tower"


(Lepre-chaunoly)

Comments

Wait, what?  Nightcrawler himself didn't know he turned invisible in shadows?  Are not fucking shadows in fucking Germany?  I've been there twice, and on both occasions sunlight was stopped by opaque objects.  Or did the DDR install powerful street-lights everywhere to ensure total suffusion?  No wonder they never had any money...

It's kind of difficult to be positive about a comic so horribly suffused with stereotypically "Oirish" leprechauns.  It doesn't really matter how impressive the action is, or how sharp the dialogue; there's always going to be a prancing pointy-eared idiot in the next panel getting his Blarney over all and sundry.  You can't try to unnerve the reader with the possibility the X-Men will be horribly tortured whilst the Little People are all over the place. They're just incompatible.

Indeed, the whole issue is suffering from an identity crisis.  Cassidy Keep looked truly impressive last issue, a centuries-old bastion practically bleeding history.  This time, it's stuffed with hi-tech labs and energy cannons hidden in turrets (controlled by battle computers, apparently). Black Tom and the Juggernaut are hoodwinked by the fairie folk and a man with a Starktech Image Inducer, which allows them to save Banshee from a sonic gag - to stop him uing his powers - and Wolverine from a pair of metal boots - which do... something.  Presumably.

It's not all bad, though.  Storm's effortless freeing of Wolverine using her lock-picking skills works far better as a nod to her past than last issue's over-long flashback,.  Watching Colossus try to act tough to protect Storm from Wolverine's barbs is pretty funny ("[D]o not ever call her a 'broad' again... shorty!"), as is the idea that he's started using the "fastball special" as a way of ridding himself of Wolverine when the little man is being aggravating.

Lastly, Juggernaut's final act in the comic, throwing himself into the gale-wracked Atlantic to try and somehow save Black Tom (who should have known better than to try a duel on a narrow, crumbling walkway against a man who can fly) gives him more characterisation in one panel than the entirety of his appearances to this point.  Even at the time I doubt anyone though that was the last we'd see of him, but as Claremont points out, if this had been the end of Cain Marko, it wouldn't have been a bad end.

Clues

This issue takes place in approximately real time.

Date

Wednesday 6th January, 1982.

X-Date

 X+3Y+247.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year =  3.65 standard years.

(Storm is 35 years old)

"Gods of the earth and air be praised!
I am FREE!"
Contemporary Events

Fred tries to forget about Eunice, Wilf gives Mike the order, and Emily buys a trampoline.

This is Coronation Street, by the way; I'm running out of ideas...

Standout Line

"The Wolverine don't believe in leprechauns."
"Suit yerself.  Maybe leprechauns don't believe in talkin' wolverines, either."

Another clue to the original plan for Wolverine's origin, fact fans.

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