BHOC: UNCANNY X-MEN #120

Brevoort History of Comics

It’s pretty plain to see in retrospect that UNCANNY X-MEN was the best ongoing comic book series being produced during this time. It was in the middle of a run that’s become legendary over time, the collaboration between Chris Claremont and John Byrne (with editor Roger Stern an important third leg of that triumvirate, and inker Terry Austin as the secret sauce that kept the book looking slick and consistent.) At the time, I might not have said this–there were a bunch of comics that I really enjoyed and my critical faculties hadn’t yet become fully honed. But looking back, it’s very much the case. The character work and narrative style of the series, plus the sharp look of the artwork and the accomplished storytelling are clear evidence. UNCANNY X-MEN hadn’t broken through the clutter to become a phenomenon yet (though back issues were already trending up cost-wise) but that would come.

Part of what made UNCANNY X-MEN so fascinating in this period was the fact that the characters were still pretty brand new, which meant that there was always some fresh bit of backstory being dropped about who they were. Case in point, this issue takes the team to Canada, the latest leg on their long journey home after they were almost killed seven issues earlier in Magneto’s volcano base. This was an opportunity to learn just a little bit more about Wolverine’s past–an occupation that would take some readers a lifetime, given all of the revisions and revelations to come.

Up to this point, we’d actually learned very little about Wolverine. Even his own teammates had only discovered his real name, Logan, an issue or so ago. But we knew that he’d come from Canada, where he’d been trained as an agent of the government, code-named Weapon X, and that having quit his gig there to join Professor X’s band, he’d been pursued by an attacker in a Canadian flag costume called Weapon Alpha. Weapon Alpha had been pretty cool, so it was exciting to see the storyline circle back around to him here. In the opening, he consults with the Prime Minister of Canada, who wants Wolverine recovered. The Canadian government had invested too much money into his development to simply let him walk off. Interestingly, the insinuation here is that it was Weapon Alpha who gave Logan the code-name Wolverine, a fact that would later be revised. In order to confront the X-Men who are now headed into Canadian airspace, Weapon Alpha activates the rest of his team, Alpha Flight.

Claremont and Byrne take a very interesting approach to Alpha Flight in this debut issue. While we meet all five of the other members in their civilian identities in this story and we’re given their code-names, we never get a good look at any of them in what follows. This served to make them fascinatingly mysterious–I suspect one of the reasons why Alpha Flight grew so popular so quickly was the fact that they were a bit of a blank slate onto which any reader could project just about anything that they wanted to. As they became more defined, they also became more pedestrian. Anyway, the X-Men find their flight caught in a sudden blizzard, one that even Storm’s powers cannot tame. They’re forced to land, and on the tarmac waiting for them is Weapon Alpha, who calls out Wolverine.

But the X-Men succeed in eluding Alpha Flight. Storm takes control over the blizzard that was summoned by Shaman, using it to conceal the team’s flight into the city. From there, after getting a rundown on what they’re facing from Wolverine, Cyclops makes the decision to split the group up and have them make their way out of the area in smaller groups and in civilian garb. In this manner, he hopes to be able to elude “Major Maple Leaf” and his cronies and avoid a needless fight. Nightcrawler, who is the least able to disguise his mutant appearance, goes off on his own, leaning on his teleportation powers to carry him from the scene. But he only gets a few miles away before he’s set upon by a pair of Alpha Flight heroes who dazzle him into unconsciousness, and who refer to one another as brother and sister. There’s a feeling that there’s an elaborate backstory in place already, and we’re simply learning pieces of it–whereas the truth was that the Alpha Flight characters were pretty sketchy at this point, so Claremont and Byrne were just making up a lot of this stuff on the fly as they went. Either way, the presentation is a pretty good card trick.

Storm, Banshee and guest Colleen Wing have headed off to the Toronto Dominion Mall in an effort to get Ororo some clothes in which she’ll blend in a bit better, a relatively futile endeavor. Banshee’s sonic scream is still cooked after having used it to block Moses Magnum’s super-weapon last issue, so when Weapon Alpha locates the trio and attempts to apprehend them, Banshee instinctively moves to use his powers, and collapses in pain as a result. Weapon Alpha turns on a dime, moving from being ready to fight Banshee to coming to his assistance. Unfortunately for him, Storm didn’t see what went down, and she unleashes all of her fury on Alpha, driving him off with a mini-hurricane.

As the remaining X-Men rendezvous and realize that not all of their number have made it, we cut to Wolverine, who is making his way along familiar streets. He’s grabbed suddenly by a monstrous figure called Sasquatch, who proceeds to pummel Logan into unconsciousness in short order. Back at the group, having realized that their missing comrades must have been captured, Cyclops decides that the time for avoidance has ended. And as the issue closes out, he suggests that the remaining X-Men take the fight directly to Alpha Flight. To Be Continued. This is a really good example of making a bunch of new characters seem interesting even while not really revealing all that much about them. I certainly wanted to see more of Alpha Flight next month.

Not only did this issue’s edition of the X-Mail letters page contain a letter from fan cartoonist Don Martinec, but it also ran this year’s Statement of Ownership, which gives us a snapshot as to how well the series had been doing across the previous year–the first year when it had gone monthly. According to the data, UNCANNY X-MEN was selling 105,140 copies on a print run of 264,965, giving it an efficiency percentage of just under 40%. Not an overwhelming improvement, but progress nonetheless. And as I said at the start, that number would only continue to grow over the following months.

Published

25 thoughts on “BHOC: UNCANNY X-MEN #120”

  1. Did Byrne draw Chris Claremont in the middle of page 16 with perhaps a female friend of Chris’? The drawing style switches to a more realistic, less-cartoony style — it’s like Byrne wanted to drop him in there in the foreground to be noticed. ??

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      2. Info on Bonnie WIlford is sparse. She was a Marvel colorist in the early 70s but more than that I haven’t discovered.

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      4. Bonnie Wilford was Claremont’s first wife and a colorist at Marvel, so I’d bet that was him and not Dave Cockrum smiling at her!

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  2. I know Wolverine was the first Canadian super-hero Marvel created, but John Byrne was still Canadian when he created first Weapon Alpha and then the members of Alpha Flight which was really cool. Then wait for the next issue seemed to take forever, like the second season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer was.

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    1. Page 11 says Sasquatch lifted the 250 ton aircraft ( DC 10 ) a few feet off the ground, Google ( People Also Ask ) says the aircraft had an empty weight of 240,171 pounds ( divided by 2,000 = 120.0855 tons ) and maximum takeoff weight of 430,000 pounds ( divided by 2,000 =215 tons ) and in Incredible Hulk Annual#8 ( 1979 ) page 14 Sasquatch lifted the H.M.S. Diefenbacher ( a Canadian destroyer –FYI, if the ship was suppose to be named after Prime Minister John Diefenbaker then it was spelt wrong ) out of the water at its bow ( after pulling it ashore by its anchor )– so another Marvel hero robbed of his full strength by the original Official Handbook ( Plus in Weapon Alpha’s first appearance X-Men#109 ( February 1978 ) he said his Battle Suit is the ultimate product of Canadian Technology — its powers combined with my training make me the EQUAL of any AVENGER! — not at a 3.5 ton strength level the original Handbook gave him he wasn’t an equal to Iron Man, Thor, Wonder Man or the Vision. He out classed Captain America & Hawkeye. Scarlet Witch’s hex is as much a threat to him as Iron Man & Ultron. He only has a 1.5 tons strength advantage ( plus flight, energy blasts & force field ) over the Beast — so same outcome as with Wolverine )– Weapon Alpha/Vindicator/Guardian needed to be Iron Man’s equal in strength to live up to that boast.

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  3. “it also ran this year’s Statement of Ownership, which gives us a snapshot as to how well the series had been doing across the previous year–the first year when it had gone monthly.”

    The issues covered by that Statement of Ownership were all but certainly #106-111. These were all bimonthly issues.

    The Statement of Ownership is dated September 25, 1978. It generally took six months after publication to get final sales numbers for an issue. The most recent issue for which Marvel would have sales numbers would have been the one published in March 1978, i. e. #111.

    The newsstand market is not the direct market, where the sales are known prior to publication. The newsstand market accounted for well over 90% of Marvel’s sales at this time.

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  4. I get a very nostalgic feeling reading this entry, both for when I read it the first time and for the fact I read it before Byrne’s horrible online persona became impossible for me to forget as I read comics by him.

    And I agree Alpha Flight Volume One was very pedestrian and sabotaged by the non-team format it presented its cast in, it will always be fondly remembered for Northstar. Up til then, gay characters in most media either were charicatures, doomed to die by the end, or made paragons of unlimited virtue out of what I presumed was an intent to make up for horrible portrayals previously. Northstar got to be a hero but also an asshole and unlikable. In other words, I think he was the first gay character to be a well rounded character and not a statement.

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  5. It has always amazed me that X-MEN struggled to sell well even with the team of Claremont / Byrne / Austin (& Stern)!

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    1. Remember that there was no online community and while there were cons, that wasn’t a guarantee of word getting out without the internet. X-Men’s rise was down to isolated fans and how quickly that grew is amazing and a testament to Claremont and his cohorts.

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      1. Yes, but even without social media, DAREDEVIL, for example, rocketed in sales as soon as Frank Miller became writer as well as artist.

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      2. It took about a year with Miller as both writer and artist before sales on Daredevil really began taking off. I suspect it was because back-issue prices jumped before then, which were then publicized by things like the Mile High Comics centerspread ads. At the time, that was how word filtered out from the comics stores to newsstand readers, who were over 80% of the market.

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      3. Also, that Statement of Ownership reflects a sales period that included only three Byrne issues. Our host appears to be applying direct-market sales-report schedules to a document that used a newsstand sales-report model.

        Byrne’s presence on X-Men doubled the title’s sales over his three-year tenure. When he left, the book was either the field’s top-selling color comic or about to become it.

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  6. Byrne’s run on ALPHA FLIGHT didn’t make the heroes very interesting as characters, but he certainly knew how to make them visually compelling. I reread all the Byrne run and the subsequent Mantlo run, and the latter made Alpha into one of the most atrocious conglomerations of team-members I’ve ever seen. I’m working on the Hudnall run now but I’m not seeing much improvement except for bringing back Talisman, who at least boasted a good costume.

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    1. Hudnall assembled a better team and wove a more complex story. I forget the artist’s name but his was a match that I like. The best choice matching artist to story or writer is a Lightle or Perez whose style is mutable and can take on any story. One I like as much is when the story is fantastical and the artist’s style best suits the mundane. Like Don Perlin on the Defenders. They technically don’t suit the genre of comic but what they do is make the most outlandish of setting or story seem more grounded by their inherent realism.

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    2. When I read the first issue and discovered they were fighting an ancient deity with the very modern name of Tundra … But something about the book worked enough to keep reading. Mantlo, alas, put a stop to that.

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  7. A few months ago, our pup had a huge vet bill. No way we could afford it, so I sold my Byrne era X-Men. Those books were my favorites, and they more than paid for the bill ^_^

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