This Issue! Things Get Worse! Conan the Episcopalian Edition

King-Size Annual! X-Men #3
“A Fire In The Sky!”
Chris Claremont and George Pérez

Synopsis
The X-Men come face to face with Arkon the Magnificent- but what does he want with Storm?

Rolling Commentary
Page 2. … Why do I have the distinctive feeling I am not going to enjoy this issue?

Page 3. Okay, I enjoy Arkon’s dialogue well enough, but I have yet to be convinced that he should fight the X-Men.

Pages 5 and 6. I think its only fair that, since I was complaining about Arcade’s outrageous weapons and such last issue, I point out that the Xavier Institute seems to waste a lot of money on practice robots for the danger room.

Page 8. I’m starting to think that the Danger Room needs more safety protocols.

Page 11’s bottom panel is a prime example why I think Colossus and Nightcrawler should always be on the same team.

Page 19. Colossus certainly knows how to hit things, doesn’t he? That being said, I bet Xavier’s groundskeeper gets really pissed about these ruckuses destroying the lawn so thoroughly. And I know I’m hardly the first person to say this, but George Pérez really does make everything prettier.

Page 21. Shit! We’ve teleported to Conan’s Universe!

Pages 22 and 23. I love that Wolverine just backhands Arkon here.

Page 28. Although Colossus riding a dragon is pretty cool imagery, I still think this adventure is better suited for… umm… maybe the Avengers? Mostly just Conan, though.

Page 31. Thank god Wolverine is here to fix Tony Stark’s insanely complicated electronic equipment.

Page 33. I have no idea how Wolverine managed to convert that thing from lightning powered to concussion-force powered, but hey, they saved a planet, right?

Post Mortem
Arkon the Magnificent. Wow. Just… wow. Okay, I’ll be honest; this issue is not bad at all. In fact, it was actually pretty fun. I really enjoyed it, and I felt guilty about it the entire time.

Because this is sooooo not an X-Men thing. Space barbarians with magical lightning bolt things? No. Even if I’m willing to suspend my disbelief about a race of planet hopping space barbarians dressed like Kull the Conqueror rejects (civilizations as violent as this one claims to be never get advanced enough to pull off half of this shit), it’s still not an X-Men story. And how the hell is a planet supposed to maintain its atmosphere without a sun? What is it orbiting? How does gravity work here without a star’s gravitational pull? It just doesn’t make sense!

Now, I know what you’re saying. “Justin! You’re thinking about this too much, it’s just a comic book!” Well, I say thee nay. When a writer (and in this case I only blame Claremont for bringing us back to this place, whoever wrote Avengers 74 and 75 is really to blame here) fundamentally destroys the basic laws of physics without even attempting a half-assed explanation (let alone not understanding social dynamics and socio-political impact on technological advancement), I think I am within reason to get annoyed.

The only way to make this story pseudo-plausible is to say that Arkon and his world exist in a parallel universe with completely different laws of physics, and that Arkon’s lightning bolts open a small dimensional rift that allows transport from one reality to another.

You see what just did there? In one sentence- just one! - I filled a glaring plot hole. Okay, admittingly it’s a long sentence, but still, was that hard? No. Just throw that explanation into a bit of dialogue where the team is all “Where the fuck are we?” and things make more sense. *Sigh*

But this is still not really X-Men territory. Anyway! I really did like this issue, it was fun. Stupid fun though. Don’t think about it too hard, or else you might start trying to fix the narrative like I just did.