The Uncanny X-Men #132 (April 1980)

The Uncanny X-Men #132

“And Hellfire is their Name!” (April 1980)

Back when my co-host, Paul, and I started our X-Men podcast, X-Nation in the late 2000s, we used to have a feature called Days of X-Men Past, where we would take a break from reviewing new content (back then it would have been Messiah CompleX and its aftermath) to dip into a classic tale from the rich history of team of favourite bunch of homosuperiors.

Here on Dawn of X as well as looking at current content, I’ll also take a trip down memory lane and specifically jump back to specific points in time - namely 40, 30, 20 and ten years back in time for the current date and look at the X-Books which came out in the same month but decade(s) prior.

So, to kick things off, here I am in April 1980 - in reality, I’d not been born yet, but in the blossoming of spring 1980 our second band of mutant heroes had already been setting the industry a blaze for five years following the release of the now classic Giant-Size X-Men #1 in April 1975. With Uncanny X-Men #132, I’m, serendipitously, kicking things off with an iconic issue and I am now a couple of issues into the iconic Dark Phoenix Saga - perhaps one of the most influential arcs in superhero comic books.

As such, it’s probably likely you’ve read this one, but as for a very quick recap:

Jean’s overt display of her sexuality, both here and in two other places in this issue, foreshadow her development from Phoenix, to Dark Phoenix.

We’ll get into what that says about female sexuality, a bit later.

Following a few run-ins with Emma Frost in the last couple of issues (here still very much a villain), Professor X, Cyclops, Phoenix, Storm, Colossus, Wolverine and Nightcrawler have fled the safety of the X-Mansion in Westchester, fearing it compromised and instead decided to bunk-up with Scott and Jean’s former teammate, Angel, who is re-introduced to the team here for the first real time since the aforementioned Giant-Size X-Men from five-years prior.

After talking with Warren, and new girlfriend, Candy, who becomes a recurring character here, we learn that Emma Frost is part of a group named the Hellfire Club and they’re behind the team’s current predicament and using Warren’s wealth and connections, the team are able to sneak into the Hellfire Club’s New York City headquarters in an attempt to take the fight to them.

As you’ll probably remember, this doesn’t go to plan and we get introduced to more iconic X-Men villains, Sebastian Shaw, Donald Pierce and Harry Leland, who take out Ororo, Kurt and Piotr. At the same time, Jean’s physic seduction by Mastermind is complete and she becomes the club’s new Black Queen taking out Scott as the ultimate betrayal. Only Logan is able to escape his battle with Harry Leland leading to one of artist John Byrne’s most memorable panels from the arc of Wolverine in the sewers almost breaking the fourth-wall by looking through the final panel promising readers that they’ll see revenge if they pick up the next issue.

Truly iconic work by Mr. Byrne and, in a similar way to Jean’s evolution into something greater than she already is, these issues also sees Wolverine become the gruff, fully-realised character we know today.

With the recap done, we’ll get down to my thoughts on the issue:

I was really surprised that, by luck (or otherwise) of me being here in April 2020, that the forty-years back title happened to be one as iconic as this one. Chris Claremont and John Byrne (credited as co-plotters here) hit a lot of moments that have gone down in history as being some of superhero comics very best.

Byrne’s work here, again, like the Logan panel above, is incredible, with Warren looking both sexy and angelic at once. You can see why Jean “forgets” herself a few moments later.

This moment has become iconic, repeated in the animated series, and even, shudder, X-Men: The Last Stand.

The Uncanny X-Men has always been a fantastic action comic book, but one of Claremont’s great successes was his skill in, pretty much straight off the bat, framing the book also as an ongoing soap opera with the daily lives and loves of our heroes very much front and centre.

Claremont’s work from this era is sometimes re-framed as verbose, and whilst I can see where that viewpoint comes from, there are moments from this issue where the cast are chiseled into more fully-rounded characters, like in the example below, with only a few words and thoughts, but ones which, looking back from 2020, feel honest to who the character is now.

Not a key player in this issue at all, really, but in three carefully used thought balloons, Claremont continues the development of soulful Piotr, even if the main focus of the issue is with the drama between Jean and Scott.

That being said, there are some written moments which Claremont (and perhaps Byrne, in his role as co-plotter), need to take a bit of criticism for.

Firstly, there seems like a whole missing section of this issue where Jean reveals to Scott quite how fragile her mental state is, and in particular, the strange time-skips, she’s been experiencing where she jumps backwards through time (a bit like we’re doing in Days of X-Men Past) and experiences what she feels is a past life. Readers of The Uncanny X-Men will have seen this ‘time traveling’ happen in previous issues (and will see it again during the course of this one) but it does a bit like a key deleted scene where we would have heard Jean’s own explanation of this to the man she loves.

It speeds along the action, but Scott’s remembrance of Jean’s confessional does feel like a bit of a cheat and almost like we missed one of the best parts of the story:

Cyclops explains it all!

On the whole, I thought this was a fantastic issue, but there was a moment or two that gave me pause and perhaps haven’t aged as well for me.

There’s a moment towards the end where there’s some physical violence against Storm which literally took my breath away as I didn’t remember it being so brutal. Whilst I recognise the artwork hasn’t changed in these versions which I’m reading via Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited these early issues are recoloured which could have led to panel appearing to ‘pop’ more than usual, but still - the image of a strong white man appearing to punch a young black woman brutally in the face shocked me.

Personally, the preceding panel of Ororo crawling to get away, as well as the final one of her being dragged helpless by Shaw, add to the horror of the scene.

There’s even a throwaway remark made about Jean had assumed Cyclops would enjoy the different way she’d dress for the mission. Her dress is revealed in other panels to have a severe cleavage window, which runs from almost from neckline to navel.

There is an odd lingering feeling of misogyny, at least, for me, in this issue which undercuts all of the other excellent elements. As I’ve already mentioned, Jean’s fall from Phoenix to Dark Phoenix is documented with flamboyant displays of her sexuality from kissing Angel fairly passionately (whilst his girlfriend and Scott both watch on) to, what I’m sure is the beginnings of a sex scene on the butte in New Mexico, to the design of her. admittedly iconic, Black Queen outfit. It could lead to a reading that to be in touch with your sexual desires, as a woman, is undesirable in a male viewpoint. Throw in the Hellfire Club female servants dressed as French Maids (and Storm, by contrast, dressed sophisticatedly and much more demurely, although still grandly) and you can understand the slightly questionable sexual politics on display in the issue.

Whilst it’s a criticism which I felt I needed to make, there’s a reason why the issue become known as one of the great issues of modern superhero comic books. The character work is, mainly, fantastic, with the classic Claremont trick of sowing seeds for future B-plots, and beautiful artwork by Byrne which excelled in character and background alike. For example, in the three panels above, I love how we physically witness the ‘time skip’ almost in step-by-step detail: from modern era, to Jason’s sudden appearance pulling Jean back in time, to the room then betwixt present and past in the final panel.

Again, even though the main drama of the issue is very much based around Scott and Jean (with Logan taking centre stage towards the end of the issue with a fantastic battle with newcomer Harry Leland), the other team members all do get impactful panel time, with Angel’s return to the title actually really welcomed.

Overall, I was left with a familiar feeling after (re-)reading the issue. It felt like X-Men, even if they’ve since abandoned the mansion and set up their own nation in today’s current storylines. I’m looking forward to continuing to explore this iconic run in months to follow.

I’ll continue to look back at Jean’s journey to the darkside in coming months.