ONCE UPON A MUTANT – UNCANNY X-MEN #190-191
Chris Pine and The Irredeemable Shag find their joy discussing classic UNCANNY X-MEN comics and favorite eras! Then we follow our favorite Mutants into NYC turned barbarian battleground with Uncanny X-Men #190-191 written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by John Romita Jr & Dan Green!
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Life is short. Focus on the positive. Find Your Joy.
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Once again, you are speaking my language w/ this X-Men two-parter. If you felt dropped into the middle of a story in issue #190, just imagine how I felt. For some reason, I missed that issue and picked up #191. Everyone’s a barbarian? Spider-Man? The Avengers? The New Mutants are bad guys? Who the heck is Kulan Gath? Still, I loved it. And there was no way that I was not going to pick up #191 w/ that awesome JR Jr. cover featuring Colossus and The Vision. Plus, I am a sucker for team ups between teams.
I agree w/ you about Romita’s later art. This era of Uncanny X-Men is his high point IMO. I was a little excited when he came to DC to do Superman recently, but it just so angular that it didn’t work for me.
Regarding Claremont’s story, yes, this absolutely would be a year-long event nowadays. He always packed an amazing amount of plot and character development into each issue.
These issues were published around the same time as the X-Men/Alpha Flight two-parter, which you should absolutely cover some day as well as the New Mutants and X-Men on their subsequent trip to Asgard in NM Special and X-Men Annual and X-Men Annual #9.
Finally, I distinctly remember that episode of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends featuring Thunderbird. When he “called upon the power of the great grizzly”, I said out loud “He can’t do that!”. That may have been the first time I was indignant over a media adaptation of a comics character.
Great show, Shag and Chris, especially for a snowy morning. Thanks for helping me recall some comic book joy.
See, this is what comes of not reading enough Conan, Red Sonja and Marvel Team-Up. I knew full well who Kulan-Gath was when this story ran, and was overjoyed to see him turn up again. I do resent the fact that Mary Jane (channeling her past life as Red Sonja) didn’t get another chance to kick his ass, though. Boo. Shameful. Turning the whole X-Men story into one of DC’s imaginary stories with a time rewrite really weakens what was otherwise a solid effort.
Well, I suppose a wiping of the story was inevitable once all the killings started.
Secret wars was the first big crossover and last time The x-men were not A HUGE deal. Spider-man BEat the whole team and their main bad guy was a good guy a few years later it takes 4 issuses for Spider-man to kinda fight Wolverine
Obligatory pedantic pronunciation debate after less than 5 minutes: How can Genosha have a hard G when the name is based on “genetics”?
It is? Was this stated anywhere? I mean, I see the ‘Gen’ but it never crossed my mind!
It’s an X-Men comic, I mean, come on! How can we even trust the Kulan Gath pronunciation under these circumstances?!
Just think kool-aid Kahn.
Great episode! I bought these issues off the rack, but I don’t remember being confused by them. More than anything, I liked when the X-Men got to interact with the larger Marvel Universe.
I would have loved for this to have been a 12 issue maxi-series that really dove into the world Claremont and JRJR create.
As a reminder, Kurt Busiek and George Perez would do a version of this story with the Avengers during their legendary run.
Great to hear Chris on the show. This was a surprise pick, but an interesting one… I remember going into these issues and not liking the set-up at all… everyone and everything on Manhattan Island Hyboreanised? It was just too much… but, I was excited to have a reason to reread the issues for the first time.
Well, I made it about halfway through the second issue. My eyes were glazing over at this turgid tale. So many words! And I was raised on Chris Claremont. I appreciate that he always introduces people, telling us who they are and what they can do – that recap page in #191 was handy – but trying to get through Kulan Gath’s dialogue, attempting to swim through Warlock’s wordily self-conscious whining… That page with Kulan Gath infodumping on Dr Strange is the worst. Dr Strange – and later Selene’s – sealed mouths freak me out . Also, ‘valiantly’ is misspelled. And, thine? Why is an ancient barbarian wizard talking like a bad Shakespearean? I could feel the life sapping away as if the mummified magus was working his woowoo hoodoo on me too.
Also, there were far many characters. This should’ve been done as a multi-issue crossover between X-Men and Avengers, or at least a pair of annuals.
Your conversation reminded me, I’ve never actually read the original Secret Wars – when it came out it was so obviously created to be sell toys… the instant costume changes were intriguing though. Is it actually a decent story?
Shag, you kept saying that X-Men readers would have no idea who Kulan Gath was, but Marvel Team-Up #79 was one of the most exciting comics of the Bronze Age, an unforgettable issue of a popular series by Claremont and John Byrne, the most popular X-Men creative team ever. And surely some readers would have known the wizard from Conan in the first place?
Caliban doesn’t look any worse than usual on that cover. How I hated the Morlocks, that business with Storm getting stabby to lead the underground mob was the stupidest thing for the character since she became a space whale. And then she ignored them! Callisto is another example of Claremont’s weird sense of ‘honour’ among killers – see also Magneto and Wolverine
Look at #190, bottom of page 4, the long balloon at the top looks like a patch, someone from Production trying to match Tom Orz’s style – I wonder what it originally said.
Why are Spidey’s thought balloons in translated brackets, surely he’s still thinking in English? I get that maybe Spidey was impervious to KG’s spell because they’d met previously but why did the Vision not change?
Best line of the story came from Spidey: ‘Hey, I’d know those ears anywhere – that’s Cannonball!’
I was very much not keen on the implied rape of Selene by KG’s guards. At times it seemed like the whole story was set up so Claremont could indulge a fondness for BDSM.
Does the excellent Network All-Star Cindy Franklin know she’s a High Priestess of the Library? The random librarian, Ari-Lynn Williams, must have been a real-life pal of. Claremont.
I’m not convinced JRJR has ever been a brilliant artist, he’s had great inkers. He lucked out having Bob Layton embellish his work on his first big gig. And yes, his recent work on Superman was especially ugly, with everyone looking like they were carved out of rock – the noses! I don’t know why he’s so often paired with the great Klaus Janson, they look awful together. He always seems a lovely fella, though, and you can’t deny his hard work and professionalism – I don’t begrudge him a minute of his success.
A query for Chris, what was so radical about Spider-Man‘s web being called ‘frak’ in the cartoon? – is it a rude word?
That’s me not knowing to slow down and enunciate on a podcast.
They guy in the cartoon called the webbing “crap”. Which, when I was a kid, was something I’d have gotten in trouble saying.
Thanks Chris! Could be my tin ears.
I have a vague memory of the X-Men appearing on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends but it made no impact on me. I consider my first introduction to be, ironically, Fantastic Four #250 where the FF fight the “X-Men” only to be revealed at the end that they are Skrulls with fancy technology to mimic their powers. A few months later I was collecting X-Men regularly.
Ok, similar history either The X-Men. I was introduced to them through Secret Wars, but, I wasn’t intrigued enough by the characters to look for the book. Issue 191 was my first issue of The X-Men. I only picked it up because Spider-Man was mentioned on the cover. Spidey was my favorite superhero at the time, and I started reading numerous books because he guested in them. I figured, maybe this will lead me to reading X-Men. I opened to the first page and was horrified!!!! Vould they do that to Spider-Man!?! Could they do that to anyone! I don’t think I’d seen that level of blood and gore in a comic book before, let alone done to a hero!
Fortunately I was brought up to speed by a nice recap, and dug into reading. I just knew the heroes would unleash some vengeance and rescue Spider-Man! Oh my! Things are going well at all! Oh dear!!! Ok. Cap has got this… DAMN! WAIT! Did they just kill Spider-Man!!!!!
Let’s just say… it was a heck of a read. However, it still didn’t really turn me into the X-Men. As Chris pointed out, this story doesn’t really give you a good idea of what the book was about. A few months later I tried again. I had to see if Wolverine was really going to skewer little Katie Power!!! What’s wrong with these X-Men!?! I would fill in the gaps I had between those issues and even find a copy of 190 to complete the story. Over the years I’ve read different runs of the book, I jumped onto X-Factor when that title launched and followed it for two years, picking up the X-Men during crossovers and then subscribed to The X-Men after Fall of the Mutants. I don’t think I’ve followed any of the books for more than a two year period. They’re actually great characters and they’ve starred in great stories. Unfortunately, when the books were bad, they were really, really, bad. Often convoluted, way too many multiple part crossovers, and often my favorite characters were spread out between too many titles. Over the years I’ve sold off most of my X-men collection, but I still have issues 189-201
That was a fun listen! I told on Facebook how I got into X-men so I won’t repeat it, but I do a re-read of the Claremont run every few years. I start with Classic X-Men 1 which of course was reprinting Giant-Sized X-Men 1, and read Classic X-Men up until right before Days of Future Past, which is where the back issues kick in, through the Mutant Massacre and UXM 212 where my dad and I first started collecting in real time, up to adjectiveless X-Men 3 where Claremont leaves the book. OK, so sometimes I fall off after Fall of the Mutants bc some of the post-Outback era stuff is not my cup of tea. I definitely notice Claremont’s writing quirks and verbosity, but it rarely bothers me in the way the wordy Roy Thomas comics do. I think Claremont’s stuff just has so much great characterization and heart to it, it’s hard to describe. He definitely made the X-men more three dimensional people than most comic writers did or do. These folks weren’t just Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, etc they were Ororo, Kurt, Peter, etc.
I remember seeing these particular comics at other kids houses before we started collecting X-men and they looked so weird and freaky! The Prof X/Caliban hybrid is the stuff of nightmares! I disagree with all the people on here saying this should have been a longer storyline or a long miniseries—I like it the way it is. Succinct, dip in, get out, it doesn’t overstay its welcome and is more impactful by how out of left field it is. I think there’s something to be said for the lost art of doing a lot with a little—a LOT of comics back then packed a ton into each issue and gave us our money’s worth.
Something you guys didn’t mention but is worth pointing out is Logan and Kittys absence from the story—pretty sure they were in Japan for the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine limited series. 6 issue series and they were absent from X-men for the same amount of time, six months! They wrote out their most popular character for six months for the sake of continuity! We never see that kind of thoughtfulness again.
ps the Marvel universe (main!) Clearly has a way things are SUPPOSED to be That’s why Strange’s spell works
My pedantic joke aside, the episode does go on to redeem itself. I loved this story as a kid even if I didn’t know there were Conan connections. Though it wasn’t a “going back to find back issues” situation, I seem to have the same books Chris does. After picking up Kitty’s Fairy Tale in a 2-comic bag in a department store, I decided I needed to collect this series. My first issue was 175 and I kept at it until just before the new X-Men #1 by Jim Lee, so I agree with Chris there too that Gambit etc. just weren’t “my” X-Men.
I wouldn’t read any more X-Men comics until Morrison’s run.
Impressive podcast most impressive. Ah I love this comic. I ended up buying the first issue on Amazon after hearing this podcast. What ya didn’t like excalibur? O loved it. But I was a big Captain Britain fan. Since the marvel team up book. Even got his action figure. Team Emma for me from when the alt Right not the normal right cakes us trans folks mutants. Anderson to that I thought then call me Emma, hell to the Queen.
Yeah the talk from Logan and Kurt about being hated for just being yourself. Can relate to that now …. TERFs are annoying . Well folks may have known this wizard. Connan was big in the 70s and 80s. So could have been known. The Sonya and Spidey was awsome. I liked the new Mutant comic once Bret Blevins took over on art.
Was one of the reasons I picked up Sleep Walker. Though in the New Mutant comics Mirage was my favorite. Yeah in the 80s Storm was a fan favorite. Logan was becoming the edge lord favorite, Mostly at the time till he become the average fans favorite. This was a cool two issue story.
Sadly lately Clermont isn’t as good as he was here now days, but these were great. Yeah Warlock and Storm in a team up was cool. And the contrast was great. Ah Selena was great in this. Yeah Chris definitely had his kinks. He got a bit weird. But the great writing over took that. Yeah the dress tearing was a trope of his. Logan tore Jeans dress at the start of the Phoenix Saga. Though I liked Rachel better as the Phoenix.
She was my second favorite character in Excalibur. Though Kurt was no. 3. This reminds me more of 1602. Er I’ll create that more to Adam Kubert than the writer…. Well just skip talking about him…. Though it may have inspired Age of apocalypse. This issue. The villain did fight theAvengers . Under the Perez and Busiek run. Then a similar story with Morganna Lafey. This wizard wasn’t in it. But, Lafey did the same thing here to the Avangers. Still under Perez and Busiek.
Can’t wait for the next podcast.