Another big arc, another plane crash! This is also the first time we really get a good look at Princess Lilandra.
And this is the X-Men’s first outer-space epic story–the first in a grand tradition.
There’s a lot of action in these issues, including the first appearance of the man who we would soon be able to figure out is Scott Summers’ father, Corsair, the space pirate leader of the Starjammers.
In fact, we meet the whole team in these issues…
Scott Summers is starting to realize how powerful Jean Grey is, now that she has the phoenix force.
In fact, she goes toe to toe with Firelord, a former Galactus herald. As does the rest of the team.
To end it all, The X-Men and Starjammers must stop a mystical crystal from swallowing the universe. The Avengers and FF–and POTUS Jimmy Carter–know about it, but can’t join in the fight.
Issue #108 is John Byrne’s first, and he pays homage to Dave Cockrum.
To save it, Phoenix needs souls…
…It works and the team returns to Earth, where the Canada adventure can start, next issue, with the introduction of Alpha Flight.
But my favorite scene is, of course, this one….
“Oh no, not again!” Yes, another plane crash (and another I haven’t shown here, because, at some point, enough is enough). That makes just about one per issue since Chris Claremont started writing the book. I wonder if anyone was keeping tabs–because I didn’t see anything in the letter columns about it. But there was something interesting in the letters: Issue #106 is a fill-in by Mantlo and Bob Brown, with a Claremont/Cockrum framing sequence, and a very kind obituary for Brown.
Not meaning to pick nits, but for the newbies out there, the Starjammers aren’t in that gorgeous group shot. That’s the Imperial Guard, the instantly recognizable homage / ripoff of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
I’m an idiot.
I love John Byrne. My all-time Number Two favorite artist on ‘X-Men’, following the incomparable Nefarious Neal Adams. His “Pity poor me, the new guy, let’s just see if we can all get through this thing together” message on the letters page reeked of false modesty. Byrne is a God-level talent, he KNOWS it, he has ALWAYS known it, and he always WILL know it. So-please, John-spare us all the disingenuity. I know that in the late Seventies, space-opera was all the rage thanks to ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Battlestar Galactica’, but I don’t believe it’s the proper venue for the X-Men, now, today, tomorrow, or in the late Seventies. The X-Men’s mission is to 1) Educate the world to the fact that not all mutants are would-be, world conquering assholes like Magneto, and 2) To protect the world against said assholes. That mission strikes me as a bit difficult to accomplish if they are always out in fucking outer space somewhere. As someone ahead of me by about forty-three years put it, what the X-Men need is a whole lot more of ‘Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters’/’Professor Xavier’s School for the Gifted’/’The Jean Grey Institute for the Gifted’- whatever you want to call it- and a whole HELL of a lot less ‘Star Wars’!! I totally agree. Outer Space is just simply not the X-Men’s element, or where they should even be. As Aqualad once put it to Robin, four years later, in the pages of ‘The New Teen Titans’#23, “I believe I’ll just stick to the oceans, and leave Outer Space for Luke Skywalker.” A lesson for the X-Men, as well.
I love John too!