This Issue! Things Get Worse! #136

The Uncanny X-Men #136
“Child Of Light And Darkness!”
Chris Claremont and John Byrne

Synopsis
The Phoenix is returning to Earth. Will the X-Men be able to stop her from destroying it?

Rolling Commentary
Hey, on that cover, is the “X-Men” sign still cracked from the last cover? And that’s a great splash page, by the way.

Page 3. Hey look kids, it’s Jimmy Carter! That being said, Carter’s accent was never that strong. Seriously.

Page 5. Hey, why was Storm in the lab, anyway?

Page 6. Okay, for some reason I really like what Jean says here. It’s equal mix funny/creepy.

Page 7. Wait, so Jean’s older sister still lives with her parents? With two kids of her own? Oy.

Page 8. Jeanie’s father is kind of short tempered, isn’t he?

Page 11. Once again Wolverine proves he’s really the only X-Men who’s willing to do what it takes- until the last minute, of course.

Page 12. I really love how horribly evil Phoenix has become.

Page 14. Look! Professor Xavier attacked Jean while Scott was talking her out of destroying the universe. Now she’s all crazy powerful again. See? Professor Xavier is a dick.

Page 15. This is a great battle page, really.

Page 17. I’m glad I’m not Angel. He has to always carry jerks like Professor Xavier from Arizona to New York and crap like that. That has to suck.

Post Mortem
Jean seems to be one of the few X-Men whose family history we know right now, and I’m rather glad that through all the hoopla of Jean going all cosmic that Claremont thought to bring her family in. A lot of similarly latently empowered characters (*cough* Rick Jones! *cough*) never have people in their non-superhero lives get involved with these little things.

Seriously, did Angel and Charlie take a jet to Jean’s house or something? I don’t care how strong he is, that’s a hell of a trip to be both flying there and carrying someone. But I digress. Hey, we’ve almost got an original X-Men reunion thing going here, don’t we? Where’s Bobby, so that he can get in on this action too?

Good issue. Actually, both of the last two issues have been excellent, I don’t think I said that last time. Claremont is at his best when his characters are in really horrible situations, their emotions are high, and they’re really honestly afraid that they could all die here and now. What with Proteus right before and now Dark Phoenix, it’s not really surprising to hear people raving about the Claremont and Byrne era. It actually makes their more recent works seem all the more… sad, I suppose, when you compare to how it began for these two. But I digress.