This Issue! Things Get Worse! #144 (Season Finale)

The Uncanny X-Men #144
“Even In Death…”
Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson

Synopsis
Lee Forester, Scott Summers’ current boss and pseudo love interest, gets a call from her dad. But all is not as I seems.

Rolling Commentary
Huh. It’s Man-Thing (read: NOT SWAMP THING). I always kind of liked Man-Thing. Even with his bad name. Whatever happened to him, anyway?

Page 3. Whoa. That was pretty hardcore to put in a comic, especially pre-Watchmen. And then there’s D’Spayre. Talk about your random comic book characters popping up in an X-book.

Page 5. So, that was, like, the shortest fist fight in history.

Page 7. Man, when Xavier is having money problems, you know the shit is bad. And wow. Wolverine and Nightcrawler are really being jerks here, aren’t they?

Page 9. Scott, I’m pretty sure that’s cheating.

Page 11. God damn it, Claremont. What the crap is going on now?

Page 12. Cyclops Origin Go!

Page 13. I like that Iceman’s body is melting here.

Page 16. I enjoy Mr. Anderson's designed of a Dark Phoenix wedding dress here.

Page 17. Wow. Those last two panels… Wow. This just gets more traumatic every page, doesn’t it?

Page 19. Yes, change into costume right now. It’s not like your not-girlfriend’s life is on the line or anything…

Page 21. Luckily, Cyclops’ courage has given Man-Thing strength. Or something.

Post Mortem
Sigh. Season Two ends well enough, I suppose, if a little bit anti-climatically. At least Scott is starting to deal with the loss of Jean better. That’s good, clearly. And Man-Thing is always interesting, if a little weird stuff.

And it’s a good and creepy issue, it has several high points, with zombie-resurrections and Cyclops origin, and, probably the best part, a redo of the events in Arizona where Jean takes off Cyclops visor, only with much more traumatic results.

That being said, why did D’Spayre kill Lee’s dad? And what kind of insane level of coincidence is it that Cyclops would show up to save the day? Seriously?

Well, that’s all for this book. Next time, we’ll take a look at Kitty’s training, and we’ll learn some uncomfortable things about some old friends… and enemies.