Reprints Uncanny X-Men #151-159, X-Men Annual #5, Avengers Annual #10
Written by Chris Claremont.
Penciled by Dave Cockrum, Michael Golden, Brent Anderson, Bob McLeod, Jim Sherman and Bill Sienkiewicz.
Inked by Josef Rubinstein, Bob McLeod, Armando Gil and Bob Wiacek.
Carol Danvers, the Avenger known as Ms. Marvel is attacked and left for dead in San Francisco Bay. She's rescued by Spider-Woman and taken to the X-Men's mansion. Their leader Professor X hopes to rehabilitate Carol.
We later learn that Ms. Marvel was defeated by Rogue, an evil mutant who has the power to temporarily absorb superpowers by merely touching superheroes. She has stolen Ms. Marvel's powers and memories. Rogue touched Danvers for too long and has permanently absorbed the powers.
Rogue is the newest member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, a team of super-powered criminals that previously battled the X-Men. She and team leader Mystique team up to break their teammates out of prison. Thankfully the Avengers learn of the Brotherhood's plans and battle the villains. However, the odds are stacked against them, since Rogue has already taken out Captain America and Thor. Can the Avengers overcome the Brotherhood?!
Subsequently, three members of the Fantastic Four are captured by the alien race known as the Badoon. The lone FF-er left is Sue Storm, the Invisible Girl. She goes to the X-Men for help rescuing her teammates. The X-Men and Sue are assisted in the fight with the Badoon by their friend Arkon!
When the X-Men return to Earth, they receive some shocking news: their youngest member, Kitty Pryde, is being removed from Xavier's school and transferred to Massachusetts Academy! It's a plot concocted by the X-Men's foe Emma Frost, AKA the White Queen, who serves as the Academy's headmaster. She's used her mental powers to coerce Kitty's parents into sending her to the Academy.
When Storm takes Kitty to the new school, Emma zaps Ororo with a gun that causes them to swap minds and powers. In Storm's body, the White Queen leads an attack on the X-Mansion with the help of her Hellfire Club teammates and several mutant-hunting Sentinels!
Later, the X-men are relaxing at the mansion, but Colossus' sister Ilyanna is having trouble getting to sleep. Kitty Pryde tells Ilyanna a fantastical fairy tale where the X-Men are pirates and wizards!
After that, Storm and Cyclops are having a quiet dinner at the mansion when a spaceship crashes outside. Inside the ship they find Corsair of the Starjammers, who also happens to be Scott's father. Corsair is being chased by Sidrian hunters from space. The heroes escape and defeat the hunters, but the X-Mansion is destroyed in the process.
Cyclops, Storm and Corsair are beamed aboard a Shi'ar spaceship. Their friend Lilandra, empress of the Shi'ar, has been kidnapped and taken to Earth. Acting Shi'ar leaders Araki and Samedor tell the X-Men that if Liliandra is not rescued, Earth will be destroyed. When they return to Earth, the X-Men learn that Lilandra's sister Deathbird is behind the kidnapping. The heroes battle Deathbird and her allies, the Brood. Colossus is severely injured in the fight and is near death.
It turns out that the Deathbird is receiving help from within the inner circle of the Shi'ar Empire itself! While most of the X-Men are battling the Brood, it's up to Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler to save the day and discover who has betrayed Lilandra. Things get even more complicated when it appears that Dark Phoenix has returned from the dead!
Back on Earth, the X-Men learn that anti-mutant sentiment is on the rise. They fear that any information the government has on the team will be used against them. Wolverine, Storm, and Carol Danvers sneak into the Pentagon to erase the X-Men's file from the DOD computers. However, things don't go as planned when Rogue and Mystique also show up at the Pentagon. Can Storm and Wolverine keep their foes tied up long enough for Carol to erase the files?
Finally, the X-Men visit their friend Misty Knight's apartment in New York City. Misty is away, but her new housemate, fashion designer Harmony Young, welcomes the heroes. When Storm goes out for a walk in Manhattan and doesn't return right away, the rest of the team, especially Kitty, grows worried. They are shocked when they learn that Ororo has fallen under the power of Dracula, lord of vampires! Can even the combined might of the X-Men defeat Dracula?
J.A. Morris says:
I first read these stories when they were brand new back in 1981-82 and have always had mixed feelings about them.
Story:
Marvel Masterworks: Uncanny X-Men Vol. 7 opens with a reprint of Avengers Annual #10, which was written by Chris Claremont. This story introduced future-X-Man Rogue and it's an absolute classic. The Brotherhood takes out half of the Avengers before the main battle even begins. Rogue is depicted as being extremely dangerous and powerful. She defeats Ms. Marvel, Captain America, and Thor in her first appearance! The X-Men's role is limited in the story, but it sets up the subplot of Carol Danvers living in the X-Mansion to get help from Professor X with regaining her memories.
This story is also famous for righting wrongs that were done to Ms. Marvel in Avengers #200 (I'll go into more details about that in a forthcoming review).
Next up is a reprint from another annual that features the X-Men teaming up with the Fantastic Four and Arkon to fight the Badoon. I've never been a big fan of the Badoon who are rather generic green aliens (I've always seen them as skrulls without the ability to shape-change) or Arkon, who is basically an outer-space version of Conan the Barbarian. Not a great story and the presence of the Fantastic Four doesn't add much of interest.
The Hellfire/Sentinels story is okay, but not particularly memorable. It's a typical mind-swapping story.
Kitty Pryde's fairy tale is another high point and has long been a fan favorite. It's basically a simplified version of the Dark Phoenix saga told in a pirates/wizards setting. It might not be an "essential" X-Men tale, but it's charming and fun.
The bulk of Uncanny X-Men Vol. 7 is taken up by a four-part story involving Lilandra, Deathbird and the Starjammers. It goes on for too long and the stakes are so huge (Earth being destroyed) that we never believe the X-Men will fail. Colossus' critical injury doesn't add much to the story either. I don't know how most X-Fans feel about the Shi'ar, but I never found them very interesting. I feel the same way about Deathbird.
This story is important for one reason: the introduction of the Brood. These alien "sleazoids" first seem to be nothing but hired thugs working for Deathbird, but they would become a major adversary of the X-Men shortly after this.
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| Kitty plays around with a Shi'ar costume-making machine! |
The Rogue and Dracula stories that end the book are both pretty good. A nice way to finish a book of inconsistent stories.
Art:
The art is generally better than the stories contained in this Masterworks book.
Michael Golden penciled (with inks by Armando Gil) the Avengers/Brotherhood adventure and it looks gorgeous. Here's a nice example of Golden's work:
Armando Gil provides nice embellishment to Golden.
Brent Anderson provided art for the Badooon story and Hellfire Club tale, respectively. They both bring some nice Marvel house style art to this book.
Dave Cockrum drew most of Uncanny X-Men Vol. 7 and fans of his work will be pleased. He obviously loved drawing pirates and pirate-influenced costumes. This is readily evident in the costumes worn by the X-Men in Kitty's fairy tale and the Starjammers, who are "space pirates."
Cockrum's most interesting design is the Acanti, a race of alien space whales who the Brood use as living spaceships.
Bill Sienkiewicz drew the Dracula story and it looks great. At this point in his career, Sienkiewicz was transitioning from his "Neal Adams"-influenced style to the more abstract pencils. So we get a great combination of his early and later art.
How Does It Look?:
Here's a two-page spread of the Acanti as it appeared in Uncanny X-Men #156:
It looks like this in Marvel Masterworks: Uncanny X-Men Vol. 7:
Extras:
This book contains four pages of original art plus a Crazy Magazine cover that features the X-Men.
Rating:
Marvel Masterworks: Uncanny X-Men Vol. 7 contains some stories I've loved for years. I'm happy to see the Avengers annual, the fairy tale, and the Dracula story get reprinted in the Masterworks format. But this book gets otherwise bogged down in mediocrities like the Deathbird story and the Hellfire two-parter. Hardcore Dave Cockrum fans might enjoy the book a bit more than others.
J.A. Morris' rating:
2.5 Sals.
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