X-Men Annual #3 (1979): A Fire in the Sky!Creative Team: Chris Claremont, writer; George Perez, penciler; Terry Austin, inker; Tom Orz, letterer; G. Wein, colorist; R. Stern, editor; J. Shooter; editor-in-chief
Starting Line Up: Cyclops, Pheonix (DNA), Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Banshee, Storm, Colossus
Guest Star: Jarvis
NOTE This story takes place between issues #124 and 125.
Synopsis: A bolt of lightning strikes a street in Manhattan and Arkon the Magnificent appears. He's come to Earth looking for a former foe, Thor. He checks the Avengers' mansion, and their butler, Jarvis, tells him Thor is no longer an Avenger and has no way of tracking him down. Arkon is contacted by the Grand Vizier and is told there is someone else on Earth who can help them, and he sent an image of Storm.
The X-Men are training in the danger room. When Storm gets caught is a trap where she's enclosed, she freaks and sends shrapnel flying everywhere. The main computer is fried and the room cannot be shut off. The only way to shut it off is manually inside the room. As each of the X-Men try to get to the switch, the room turns against them. Wolverine is enjoying himself in the chaos. Cyclops finally uses as light, tight optic beam to hit the button on the panel to shut the room off. Storm walks away in shame. Cyclops tries to talk to her. She starts questioning her purpose as an X-Men. When she goes back to her attic, Arkon tries to kidnap her. She fights back and crashes down through to the living room where Cyclops and Banshee are. Cyclops blasts him outside into the pool where Colossus joins the battle. Soon all the X-Men battle against Arkon. He uses a gold lightning bolt from his quiver and throws is at Storm. She disappears. Colossus goes nuts and uses all of his power, but only stuns Arkon. Wolverine uses his claws to hold him down and anwers questions, but he refuses. Cyclops deduces from a little knowlegde he has of Arkon that his gold bolts are used to teleport people. He teleports all the X-Men except Banshee to where ever Storm is.
The X-Men arrive in a great hall full of Arkon's people, the Imperions. They are a warrior race and immediately launch into battle against the X-Men. The Grand Vizier escapes the battle, but is followed by Nightcrawler. Cyclops, sensing the battle is futile, causes the roof to cave in, and the three X-Men escape. Outside the great hall, all they find are a hord more of Imperions. Nightcrawler follows the Grand Vizier to a fortress where he talks to his disciples about Storm accepting her fate and how she must die. Storm then says she wilfully chooses to give her life for them. Nightcrawler, not understand any of it, puts a cape over Storm's head, which causes her to have a claustrophobia attack and freak out. The rest of the X-Men see the lightning blast and fight their way through the vast Imperion army to the source. Colossus hijacks a flying dragon and they fly their way over. They find Storm getting ready to sacrafice herself. Cyclops tries to talk her out of it. Arkon arrives and explains the purpose. His planet used to exist in perpetual daylight, lit by energy rings surrounding the plant. The rings faded and the world was plunged into darkness. Iron Man had built them a machine that would re-create the rings, but the machine broke. It was since fixed, but they needed a spark of energy to have the rings created again. This is why he abducted Storm. Cyclops orders Nightcrawler and Wolverine to reset the machine to work on energy blasts instead of lightning. He then orders Storm to gather as much power as possible, with Coloussus holding her up to act as a ground so none of her power is wasted. He then orders her to blast him with the lightning. Cyclops gets the strength for his optic blasts from the sun, and there is no sun on this planet to recharge him, so he figures lightning will work as well. Cyclops' blast is rechanged and he unleashes it on the machine. The rings are restored. The temple they were all in was destroyed, but everyone survived. Arkon sends the X-Men home.
Yeah, but is it good? Up until the ending, this was a great big fight issue. Annuals are ment to be something different for the characters, so this year they're sent off to fight an Avengers enemy. In my b&w reprints, the art is hard to follow (albeit interesting to look at) since it's so busy. I'm sure with color the fight scenes look great. The ending is ridiculous. I can understand a machine that needs lightning as a spark to work it. I don't understand how a) it can be reset to accept power blasts b) Nightcrawler and Wolverine know how to set the machine to do so c) Cyclops assumed his body would absord lightning well enough to create a power blast stronger enough rather than Storm using pure lightning d) why him getting blasted with lightning is any safer than Storm using her power to its fullest e) the machine, like any other machine, wouldn't be destroyed when struck by a power blast. Also, Storm's doubt about being an X-Man came out of nowhere. Sure it was mentioned early in the story to set up her willingness to give her life to save a world, but it wasn't something displayed in the regular series. The self-doubt bit had been Colossus' up to this point. Still, a fun story if you can look past the goofiness and just want some major fights.
Significata: First annual since the series relaunce. "King-Sized" aka double sized issue. Sold for 75 cents. Set a few issues before where the regular series was taking place at the time.
