X-Men

”Cry for the Children!”


The X-Men are once again back at the X-Mansion after their long sojourn. As the story opens, Colossus is in the middle of a Danger Room test and fairing poorly. His goal is to prevent a pair of crushing walls from pulverizing him, but he pleads that he cannot do it. In the monitor room overlooking the testing floor, Cyclops expresses concern that the Russian mutant’s lack of self-confidence is preventing him from exerting his full strength.

Wolverine has been observing the test and sneakily sabotages the controls in the monitor room, before entering the Danger Room. He climbs into the crushing unit and refuses to leave, thus putting his own life at risk as well as Colossus’s. Over the intercom, Cyclops relates that the safety parameters have been disabled and that Colossus must either defeat the test or he and Wolverine will be crushed. Colossus then rises to the challenge and saves them both. He thanks Wolverine for his “encouragement”, but Cyclops tasks Wolverine with repairing the controls he damaged.

Leaving the room, Cyclops runs into Colleen Wing who asks him out on a date. Glad to have a day off after their battle with the Living Monolith, he agrees to go. But first, he checks in with Sean and Kurt who have been in the hanger working to get the Blackbird back in operational order. Sean is puzzled as to why the Blackbird has been “mothballed” (taken out of commission and put into long-term storage), as much of the rest of the school has been. Scott wonders where Professor Xavier could have gone to while the X-Men were missing in action.

At that moment in deep space, Charles Xavier, consort to the galactic Empress Lilandra is being introduced to life on the Shi’ar throne world. Celebrations of Lilandra’s ascension to the throne are met with much fanfare and Xavier is overwhelmed by the alien culture.

Meanwhile in Scotland, Jean has been out shopping and is carrying quite a load of packages on her way to meet with Moira, Alex, Lorna and Jamie Madrox. She quite literally runs into a man and spills her bundle. The man helps her pick up the packages and introduces himself as Jason Wyngarde before seeing her on her way.

When Jean meets up with Moira and the others at the dock, they pay no attention to a pair of local sailors who are looking for boat-renter Angus MacWhirter, who has gone missing since Christmas. As Moira’s boat carries her small group to Muir Isle, Jean does notice Wyngarde observing her from the shore. As he watches her, Wyngarde confidently muses to himself that he will make Jean fall in love with him. Standing under a street lamp, his shadow appears to be quite different than his body.

In New York, Cyclops and Colleen go on their date and Scott talk about their developing relationship. Elsewhere, Wolverine drops Storm off in the Harlem neighborhood where she was born. Driving back through the city, Logan sees Mariko Yashida entering the Japanese embassy and stops to gain admittance to see her but is refused at the door.

Ororo meanwhile is walking through her old neighborhood and is dismayed to see it has become a slum. Several local people she passes notice how very different she appears to most residents, including her white hair and tonier clothing.

Entering an old apartment building where her parents used to live, Storm is surprised to find that it is now an abandoned tenement and a junkie shooting gallery. When the junkies squatting there assault her, she uses her weather powers to fight back. One of them sneaks behind her and is ready to stab her but is subdued by Luke Cage, who is accompanied by Misty Knight. The pair explain they heard talk on the street about a woman who fit her description in the area and then saw lightning bolts emitted from the tenement window so they came to investigate. Ororo wants to help the junkies but the jaded Cage says the youths have made their choices and won’t take their help. He remarks “We’re superheroes, not gods...” Disillusioned, Storm departs with Cage and Knight.

Colleen takes the train back to the city, and Scott sees her off. As she leaves, Colleen gives Scott a farewell gift: the key to her apartment and an invitation to come by anytime.

Meanwhile aboard a private aircraft, Juggernaut and Black Tom Cassidy are seeking to hire an assassin to take care of the X-Men for them. They meet the lunatic hitman known as Arcade. Loving the possible challenge, Arcade tells the two men that he will take the job and that the X-Men are as good as dead.

Jun 1979

Marvel Comics Group

071486024613

122

1

March

1979

Classic X-Men #28 reprint

Newsstand

1st

United States

$0.40

Bronze Age

English

Magazine

2018-07-02 22:23:50

Colossus (Full name revealed), Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Banshee

Banshee’s injuries in this issue cause him to lose his mutant sonic scream and eventually lead to him leaving the team. He would eventually regain his sonic scream AND rejoin the team in the future, but not for over a decade in real time.

Banshee mulls over calling Moira in Scotland. Evidently, Moira left her housekeeping position at Xavier’s school sometime before Mesmero brainwashed the team before Vol 1 111. He fails to follow up on this thought, making it yet one more instance where the X-Men could have revealed to a loved one that they survived the encounter with Magneto back in Vol 1 113, yet inexplicably doesn’t.

The last time Jean was depicted encountering Havok and Polaris, they were the mind-controlled pawns of the villain Erik the Red and opponents of the X-Men. While it’s possible that there was some sort of reconciliation that took place between Havok, Polaris and the X-Men (including Jean) in between issues, it seems odd that such a big plotline would be simply ignored without comment.

Angus MacWhirter becomes the first host to Proteus, following up on a dangling plot thread from #104.

~$19.99

2025-11-15

2018-07-02 22:23:50