BHOC: UNCANNY X-MEN #122

Brevoort History of Comics

This particular issue had been spotlighted on the monthly Bullpen Bulletins page, so I was more excited to snap it up than usual. And in the end, it was simply all right–an issue dedicated more to character-building than heroic adventure. This was one of the elements that made this period of UNCANNY X-MEN stand out from the pack. But as a young reader, I always wanted a certain amount of action and excitement in my comics, and some of the interplay between the characters in this issue was aimed at a set of sensibilities that I hadn’t grown into quite yet. So it wasn’t bad, but neither was it my favorite issue of the series or anything. And my expectations had perhaps been overly heightened by that Bullpen Bulletins call-out.

This was one of two consecutive issues where John Byrne, who was being stretched in several directions during this period, went to looser breakdown pencils rather than his typical full rendering, leaving it to embellisher Terry Austin to provide the tight details and the finish. So much in synch were the two that I can’t recall noticing anything different about the artwork in this issue. It still looked just as accomplished as it always had. That pairing of Byrne and Austin was a potent one, and a favorite of mine in the day.

The issue opens with a pretty good bit of business that helps to further define Colossus and Wolverine. In recent issues, Colossus has been feeling a greater and greater sense of uncertainty about his place with the team, which has been causing him to be ineffective in battle. The issue opens with Cyclops running tests on Colossus’ strength in the Danger Room. The Russian begs for relief well below what the limits of his strength ought to be, a sign of his internal turmoil preventing him from focusing properly on the here and now. In an effort to help his friend, Wolverine shorts out the controls to the massive press that Colossus is holding open and them climbs in alongside him. Now responsible for Wolverine’s survival as well as his own, Colossus exerts himself and destroys the testing rig, his doubts about remaining away from home put to rest for the moment at least.

As this is a breather issue, we cut around, catching up with the disparate members of the cast, including Professor Xavier and Lilandra off in the Shi’ar Galaxy, and Jean Grey, who’s been hanging around with Moira MacTaggart at her research facility in Scotland. There, she’s encountered the mysterious and alluring Jason Wyngarde, who turns up at the dock to watch Jean’s ship head back to Muir Island. Byrne subtly gives a clue to Wyngarde’s true identity in the form of the shadow that he casts on a nearby wall, but as far as I can tell, most readers didn’t make this connection until it was pointed out to them in later issues. Cyclops, meanwhile, is spending the day with Colleen Wing, an Iron Fist supporting character whom Claremont had brought into the series recently. With Scott thinking that Jean is dead, there’s something developing between the two of them–though it’ll only go so far, as Claremont was no longer writing POWER MAN/IRON FIST, and Jo Duffy, who was, asked Chris to stop muddying the waters for characters that she was now responsible for.

Storm, meanwhile, has been dropped of by Wolverine in Harlem, where she lived as a very young child. She intends to return to the small apartment that she only vaguely remembers from her youth–and when she does, she finds that the dilapidated building has become a shooting gallery for the disenfranchised who have become hooked on heroin. Finisher Terry Austin created all of the graffiti on the walls in this sequence, typically using the names of assorted Marvel freelancers, and he kept it consistent all throughout this sequence, a masterful display of planning. Wolverine, meanwhile, has a near-miss in catching up with his new love interest Mariko Yashida, when he happens to catch an unexpected glimpse of her on a New York street and follows her back to where she’s staying, where he’s barred from entering.

BHOC: POWER MAN AND IRON FIST #57

Back in Harlem, Storm is accosted by the junkies and is forced to defend herself–which she does with a bit of last second help from Luke Cage and Misty Knight. Like Colleen, Claremont had been writing Luke and Misty up until recently, and so he still thought of them as “his” characters, thus they show up in these pages. This was the same week that the X-Men appeared in the latest issue of POWER MAN AND IRON FIST, so it can be seen as a kind of quid pro quo. But you could almost see this as an issue of POWER MAN AND IRON FIST, so prevalent are the characters from that series in these pages.

And in order to create some manner of cliffhanger to bring readers back for the next issue, the final two pages of this story are devoted to Black Tom Cassidy and Juggernaut, two old foes of the X-Men, hiring the assassin Arcade to wipe the team out. Most fans these days see Arcade as an X-Men character, but the truth is that he was created by Claremont and Byrne for a two-part MARVEL TEAM-UP story guest-starring Captain Britain in his first American comic book appearance a few months earlier. Still, from this point on, Claremont would return to Arcade a number of times, and almost always in the context of the X-Men. Anyway, the team is on the bullseye, and that’s where things are To Be Continued!

Published

43 thoughts on “BHOC: UNCANNY X-MEN #122”

  1. This is about where Claremont, Byrne and Austin really began to hit their stride.

    Page 19 would not have been possible without the loosening of Comics Code rules regarding drug use. For fun, look for the familiar names scrawled on the background walls in that last, half-page panel. (Claremont and Byrne were always putting subtle touches like this in their stories. George Perez and Jim Shooter had cameos as fighter pilots in #112.)

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  2. I like Arcade[ Liked him since Marvel Team-Up#65-66 ( January-February 1978 ) ], in fact when I saw the trailer for this movie ( Escape Room: Tournament of Champions 2021 sequel to 2019’s Escape Room — neither of which I have ever seen. I only knew about the trailer from Teen Wolf’s Holland Roden’s Instagram ) I thought of Arcade. Hated that this was the only John Byrne drawn Black Tom & Juggernaut and not even in action ( Mostly disappointed abut the Juggernaut ). Like I said before elsewhere I was on of those who missed the hint it was Mastermind, based on I never got to see his powers in action in The Champions#17 ( January 1978 ) and I only had The Defenders#16 ( October 1974 ) — still don’t know if I would have got had I known more about his powers. As for Terry Austin, I guess we are all lucky he had artistic talent enough for us to not notice the difference.

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    1. Hated that this was the only John Byrne drawn Black Tom & Juggernaut and not even in action

      Tom and Juggie did kind of fall by the wayside, didn’t they? I guess Claremont/Byrne had plenty of other irons in the fire, and considered these two low priority for whatever reason. They wandered back into the X-titles eventually, but it took a while.

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      1. Would’ve been good to see Byrne’s Juggernaut. He did draw him eventually in UXM, no? Strange that one of the definitive X-Men artists didn’t draw of of their most dangerous & enduring foes. A character long associated with the team, well past Byrne’s involvement.

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      2. How concurrent was Claremont’s Spider-Woman run? Juggernaut appeared there with Black Tom so I’m prone to believe Byrne was the one who didn’t want him featured. He could have had plans for eventually but his departure is said to have been an abrupt decision over thinking Claremont was holding him back. To my way of thinking, output by both without the other shows Claremont the superior plotter and should have had less say.

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  3. It’s worth pointing out that even though John Byrne had been penciling this series for almost a dozen issues at this point, previous regular artist Dave Cockrum was still penciling the majority of the covers. I was actually at a store signing one time in the 1990s where Cockrum almost gleefully recounted that he hung around as X-Men cover artist for such a long time after he departed from drawing the interiors primarily to frustrate Byrne, who was apparently chomping at the bit to also draw the covers. There apparently wasn’t any love lost between those two.

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  4. Richard Reynolds, in his excellent and concise book on _Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology_, does justice to this issue, exploring the “x-factor” that Claremont and Byrne added to the X-Men — it’s worth reading next to this issue, which is such a cool fun issue anyway.

    BTW: is it me, or did Byrne draw Arcade with a larger, wider face than his other characters? I feel like he was doing some riff on some actor here, but I cannot put my finger on it. This last splash page helps you see JB’s widening of Arcade’s face.

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    1. Since Byrne normally has a very narrow range of facial types, deviation like with Arcade (which I never noticed before you mentioned it) had to have happened for some reason. Your theory as to why that happened is as good as any.

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    2. I recall reading in some interview that John Byrne was modeling Arcade based on Robin Williams. I guess I can sort of see it. It would’ve likely been solely based on his Mork and Mindy appearances since he wasn’t a big movie star yet in 1979 (unless you count Popeye).

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  5. Byrne & Austin at least (to my eyes) made Colleen Wing look slightly Asian. Most artists would depict her as fully Caucasian, despite her parentage, until relatively recently.

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  6. “This was one of two consecutive issues where John Byrne, who was being stretched in several directions during this period, went to looser breakdown pencils rather than his typical full rendering, leaving it to embellisher Terry Austin to provide the tight details and the finish.”

    I would guess John switched to breakdowns for those issues to catch up on the schedule, and this may have been an issue they co-plotted over the phone for the same reasons, which makes me wonder —

    The issue’s cover duplicates the scene on the splash page, which is usually a bad idea. And what’s more, the cover is far more impactful than the splash page — Colossus is apparently straining much harder on the cover than on the comparatively mild splash. Back when I first read this, I remember thinking the splash was very wimpy, but that was due to the direct comparison with the cover?

    Was it done this way because the opening scene was all that existed when Cockrum drew the cover, so that’s all he had to go with, and he decided to make Byrne look bad by outdoing him on the cover?

    Was it done this way because the opening scene was all that was plotted, and Cockrum had no idea how Byrne was going to draw the splash, so the comparison was coincidental?

    Either way, I assume Cockrum had very little to go on. Had they had a full plot, the natural cover scene would be “Storm vs. inner-city toughs, backed by Wolverine and Power Man!” [And yeah, Wolverine’s not there for the fight, but he’s nearby.]

    This issue had more of what was getting me madder and madder about the book, though. Misty Knight’s been hanging with the X-Men off and on the past few issues, and yet she never says, “Hey, Colleen, why are you macking on Cyclops? His girlfriend — my roommate — is in Scotland, but she’ll be coming back!” None of the X-Men mention that Jean and Hank are “dead,” Colleen doesn’t ever offer Misty condolences on the death of her roommate…it’s just terrible character plotting to artificially extend the “the X-Men think Jean’s dead, Jean and the Professor, mighty telepaths, think the X-Men are dead” storyline. It’s just so dumb, and it offended me that my favorite book was being this dumb.

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    1. This odd subplot only got resolved when the Beast showed up at the mansion a few issues later and filled them in. As weird as it is that they wouldn’t mention Jean being dead to her roommate (or her family)… it’s likewise weird that they wouldn’t inform the Avengers that one of their members is believed dead. Since the Beast went back to the Avengers we have to conclude that the X-men never read the papers or watch the news….or if they do there’s no mention of the Avengers doing anything including the Beast. There wouldn’t be any stories about the Beast missing because he’s not dead… and that should also have struck the X-men as odd.

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      1. And neither the X-Men nor Jean/Hank decide they’re going to seek vengeance, or hold a funeral, or inform anyone’s parents — not a lot of parents among them, but there are some — or anything that makes it feel like it should if they actually thought the others were dead.

        Xavier goes off to space, but that seems to be more about making sure the X-Men don’t find out Jean’s in Scotland as soon as they get home than anything else.

        It’s just bad plotting — the front-of-stage adventures were still thrilling and effective, but the stuff happening beneath that surface level didn’t hold together at all.

        I have had enough experience with monthly deadlines since that I’m more understanding of how things can get missed…but that doesn’t mean they weren’t missed.

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    2. Plus you would have thought that whoever Professor X asked to keep an eye on the mansion would have been alerted to the X-Men’s return to the mansion. I know in the past both Magneto [ The X-Men#17 ( February 1966 ) ambushed them ] and the Juggernaut [ The X-Men#12-13 ( July-September 1965 )] have showed up at the mansion.

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    3. It didn’t bother me back when I read it but revisiting the storyline recently … yeah that was sloppy. It’s a trick I’ve seen often enough, perhaps because it feels like nobody reading or watching will notice. But we do.

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      1. If you’re reading a book month to month, generally what matters is that this month’s issue holds together, and you may not think much about whether it meshes completely with last month’s or the month before’s. When you collect ’em all in a book edition, the glitches stand out more.

        For me, since I was very dedicated to this book, they stood out for me even in the first reading. There’s also a bit where we see Mastermind in one issue and are told that the name Jason Wyngarde is “as false as the man himself.” and then a few issues later are told that it’s “his real name, ironically enough.”

        As I said, I’ve gotten a lot more forgiving of deadline-induced rush work, but at the time it drove me bananas.

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      2. Ouch, yes, that’s bad.

        Another thing about reading for the first time is that I assume whatever’s going on will make sense. When I reread something where I know they don’t stick the landing, I’m a lot less forgiving.

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    4. I thought of this last night after I went offline, you would have thought that Professor X would have used Cerebro to enhance his abilities to make sure the X-Men were dead. Assuming that the Savage Land didn’t have anything in it to block his abilities or Cerebro he should detect them ( After all the Savage Land isn’t in another dimension like Skartaris ).

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    5. Yeah, the whole “The X-Men and Hank/Jean each think the other one is dead” subplot really stopped making any kind of sense once the X-Men reached civilization again. If they’re stuck in the Savage Land or on the Japanese ship for six weeks with no communication with the outside world, fine — Neither side knows what’s going on with the other. But once the X-Men started having public battles in Japan and Canada, you’d think that’d be covered by the news somehow, and word would reach the Avengers or the other X-Men somehow. Claremont & Byrne continued that plotline far past the point of plausibility for the sake of not a whole lot of drama. Maybe Claremont didn’t script things out in the same way they’d originally plotted it? That was a frequent complaint of Byrne’s.

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  7. This was my 2nd childhood issue of X-Men and the way they were drawn (nicely) back then I thought Moira and Colleen were the same person. Take p11 posted above as example. What can I say I was barely old enough to read 🙂

    Also this was the first book that introduced me to Power Man. The interconnected universe was a wonder of exploration for me in early grade school.

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  8. I was delighted to see Arcade return. Not only does Murderworld allow for outrageous traps but he’s “just” a guy who loves killing people without carrying the issues and moral questions Magneto (for example) does. That makes for a nice break.

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  9. After a couple watches of The Man with the Golden Gun over the years, I’ve come to think of Arcade as a take on Hervé Villechaize’s Nick Nack, just not as diminutive and with more of the lead villain energy of Francisco Scaramanga. I’ve searched for confirmation in online interviews with Claremont, but nothing.

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  10. By this time I was following the series regularly. I don’t remember noticing the mismatched shadow, but even if I had it wouldn’t have meant anything to me: I was relatively new to comics and had no idea who Mastermind was, or anything about his history or powers. And there’s precious little in this run to inform anybody. In these relatively early years Claremont was *very* bad about putting himself in the shoes of someone who hadn’t read all the stories he had.

    (Even his own stories! The Proteus / Hellfire Club / Dark Phoenix arcs had tons of references to the first Phoenix arc culminating in #108, but nothing that would actually inform the reader of what happened in those stories. I found this terribly frustrating.)

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    1. I suspect Mastermind being in this story at all was Byrne’s idea, and the shadow may have been something Byrne added in the co-plotting.

      If I remember correctly, Chris wasn’t a fan of the original X-run (other than the Adams issues), and I’m not sure Dave was either. John was, though, and was probably instrumental in bringing back characters from that run, beyond Magneto, Juggernaut and the Sentinels. Mastermind, Mesmero, the Blob, Candy Southern…

      Someone liked the Steranko issues, though, because they borrowed Erik the Red from them. I’d hazard a guess that was Dave.

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      1. Chris Claremont might not have been a fan of the early X-Men issues ( other than Neal Adams drawn ones ) but he did like using at least 2 of their early foes in other series he did: Grotesk [ Ms. Marvel#6 ( June 1977 ) & 8 ( August 1977 ) — considering that Grotesk was suppose to have died in X-Men#42 ( March 1968 ) ] and The Living Pharaoh/Living Monolith [ Marvel Team-Up#69-70 ( May-June 1978 ) Spider-Man, Havok & Thor ].

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  25. I Think Timothée Chalamet, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Harris Dickinson, Glen Powell, Austin Butler, Jeremy Allen White, Tom Blyth, Jack Quaid, Charlie Plummer, Taylor John Smith, Andrew Burnap, Jacob Elordi, Nicholas Galitzine, Jack Champion, Levi Miller, Paul Mescal, Sam Nivola would all be great choice as Cyclops/Scott Summers In MCU

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  26. I Think Katherine Langford, Phoebe Dynevor, Meg Bellamy, Rhea Norwood, Freya Allan, Eve Hewson, Sarah Catherine Hook, Grace Van Dien, Millie Gibson, Hannah Dodd, Lucy Boynton, Florence Hunt, Imogen Waterhouse, Kristine Froseth would all be great choice as Jean Grey/Phoenix Force In MCU

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  27. I Think KiKi Layne, Jayme Lawson, Sophie Wilde, Masali Baduza, Denée Benton would all be great choice as Storm/Ororo Munroe In MCU

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