The Uncanny X-Men #138-142

The Uncanny X-Men #138-142

Originally released in 1980

Written by Chris Claremont

Art by John Byrne

I had read the Dark Phoenix Saga for the first time recently, and these issues deal with its immediate aftermath.  At a funeral following those tragic events, Cyclops reflects on what he had been through with Jean, with this issue serving as a recap of the X-Men comics since the first issue by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.  It's a breather issue, but as the cover indicates, Cyclops leaves the team, a decision that's entirely justified from the previous issue alone.

However, there are new beginnings to go along with these endings - Storm becomes the field leader of the X-Men, while Kitty Pryde, a young mutant who was caught up in the events of the Dark Phoenix Saga, joins the team properly.  Kitty's much younger than the rest of the team, but she's a precocious teenager, and I know she develops into an authority figure in her own right as the series progresses.  Her debut cover includes a line that, from what I've seen, gets used or referenced regularly:

I'm not sure if this is the peak of the X-Men's popularity, or at least where they start to get popular, but it feels like it - plenty of storylines and moments have been referenced and retold in so many other media, like movies and cartoons.  The next two issues primarily focus on Wolverine and Nightcrawler as they hunt down an old foe of Wolverine's, the Wendigo.  This also serves to bring Alpha Flight into the story, a group that seemed to be something of a pet project of artist and co-plotter John Byrne, who wanted to establish a Canadian super-team. (and who was also responsible for Wolverine being Canadian)

We get some good development for Wolverine and Nightcrawler, where Wolverine explains when he considers it appropriate to use lethal force, and Nightcrawler demonstrates his values and courage.  Nightcrawler also learns Wolverine's given name, though this isn't the first time that the audience has heard it; the audience originally learned that Wolverine's name was Logan when a leprechaun called him that towards the start of Claremont's run. (yes, seriously)

The next two issues are ones that I expected to happen much further down the line, and a story that any X-Men fan (or even any Marvel fan) should have a passing familiarity with - Days Of Future Past.  The premise should be a familiar one - in a future where Sentinels have taken over North America and killed most of the heroes and villains (the far-flung future of 2013... wait a minute...), a band of survivors makes a desperate attempt to change history, psychically sending the consciousness of one of their members back in time to change the events that led to this apocalypse, even if it means that their existence will be erased in the process.  Kitty Pryde is chosen to have her consciousness sent back in time, with the reasoning being that she hadn't learned how to defend herself from psychic attacks back then.  The covers of both issues are iconic and immediately recognizable, with the first one being what would likely first come to mind when thinking of this storyline:

I was surprised to learn that this story was only covered in two issues.  The future scenes do an excellent job at establishing how different things are without going into a ton of detail about what led to these changes - Magneto is now wheelchair-bound and the leader of what remains of the X-Men, while Franklin Richards (the sole survivor of the Fantastic Four) is a member of the team, along with Rachel, a red-haired psychic who's in a relationship with Franklin.  I'm not sure if Claremont was planning for Jean to be revived (since Rachel seems to be the daughter of Jean and Cyclops), or if events diverged earlier than what was established and Jean survived the events of the Dark Phoenix Saga in this timeline.

The cause of this bleak future is the death of Senator Robert Kelly, Charles Xavier, and Moira MacTaggart during a senate hearing on mutants.  The newly-reformed Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, now led by Mystique, sought to kill Kelly, and armed with the foreknowledge of the future Kitty (who goes by Kate Pryde), it's up to the X-Men to stop them.

The story jumps between the present and the future, where the X-Men of Kate's timeline are trying to reach the Baxter Building in order to shut down the Sentinels and prevent a nuclear war that will be triggered if the Sentinels leave North America.  This doesn't go as well as they hoped, as the famous image of a Sentinel blasting Wolverine down to his skeleton indicates.  The outcome of the timeline is left ambiguous - if this future timeline is overwritten and no longer exists, or if it still exists somewhere in the multiverse and, as far as the few survivors know, Kate's mission was a failure because their own timeline wasn't changed.  It's harrowing to think about.

The Brotherhood of Mutants seems to consist of mostly new characters, with the only holdover from the original group being the Blob.  Mystique was originally introduced in Chris Claremont's run on Ms. Marvel a few years earlier as Carol Danvers's arch-nemesis, though she was carried over to the X-Men when that title ended and she's been more of a threat to them ever since.  Joining her are Destiny (Mystique's "very close friend" and a blind clairvoyant - Claremont intended for her and Mystique to be lovers, but there were restrictions at the time that made it so he couldn't mention it directly), Avalanche, and Pyro.

The story ends on an ambiguous note - the assassination is prevented, but it inspired Robert Kelly to work with Sebastian Shaw (who, unbeknownst to Kelly, is a mutant supervillain - Kelly just sees him as a friend and a powerful industrialist) and Henry Peter Gyrich (a bigoted bureaucrat who hates superheroes, especially aliens and mutants) to rebuild the Sentinel program, raising the question of if Kate's future could still come to pass in a slightly different way.  While Days Of Future Past is only two issues long, it (and the Dark Phoenix Saga a few issues earlier) felt like it raised the bar when it came to X-Men story-telling, and I can see why this era is considered to be a defining one for the team.