Uncanny X-Men #156 (Apr 82): Pursuit!Creative Team: A Claremont, Cockrum, Wiacek, Chiang, Warfield, Jones, Shooter Production
Starting Line Up: Storm, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus, Sprite
Guest Star: Tigra
Synopsis: Colossus is still alive, but barely, and there's not much they can do for him. The cops arrive to arrest everyone, so Tigra, an Avenger, a government sanctioned team, tries to stop them, but they won't listen. Then a huge spaceship flies overhead and beams up the X-Men and Corsair. It's the Starjammer. Corsair is reunited with his team who he thought had been captured. They rush Colossus to the medic, who starts healing him with advanced medicine. Meanwhile, Kitty is still playing with the outfit machine. The Shi'Ar admiral, Lord Samedar, shows them video of the X-Men battling Deathbird and her impaling Colossus. He refuses to tell them if Colossus is dead or alive. He then cuts transmition and makes contact with Deathbird. So he is the traitor to Lilandra. On Deathbird's ship, Xavier starts to wake up and thinks he sees a Brood alien, but it's really Lilandra. Xavier scans her to confirm it's her, but he senses something different about her. Despite that, the two lovers reunite until Deathbird interrups them. She reveals she plans on ruling the Shi'Ar empire and that she is Lilandra's sister, and being the first born, was ment to rule. Lilandra explains to Xavier she commited crimes that she was banished for. Aboard the Starjammer, Corsair explains his version of what happened when the Shi'Ar abducted him, enslaved him, and Emperor D'Ken killed his wife when tried to break her free. They are then alerted that they have caught up with Deathbird's ship. But then their ship is overtaken by a Brood ship, a huge space whale, that swallows them all. As they're about to be boarded, the X-Men (with a fully recovered Colossus) and the Starjammers bring the fight to the Brood. The Brood try to compensate by turning off the artificial gravity. They heroes still manage to fight. The Brood then enter the prison cell to kill Xavier and Lilandra before they can be rescued, but Cyclops and Corsair save them in the nick of time. Xavier, being a zero gravity environment, takes the opportunity to fight like the rest of the team. Cyclops chastises him for it! They meet up with the rest of the X-Men, escept Storm, who has gone after Deathbird. During the course of the battle, Storm notices the ship's interior wall is bleeding. She realises the space whale is a living being. Deathbird uses the distraction to blow Storm out an airlock. The Starjammer (with everyone aboard) blasts through the whale's side and transports her aboard and gets her to the ship medic. She soon recovers and tells them the ship is alive. Waldo, the Starjammer robot pilot, explains the Brood lobotomized the creature to use it as a ship. Waldo also tells them it will take 24 hours to repair the ship, but they only have 6 hours to get back to the Shi'Ar to prevent the destruction of Earth.
Yeah, but is it good? Wait... so Earth is going to be destroyed at the deadline? What if Lilandra is still alive? Now we know they can't live up to their threat since Marvel has like 30 titles a month at this point all taking place on Earth we know they won't cancel. I guess I'm not supposed to think about things like that. Good issue, but once again a bunch of fighting. The Brood get their asses kicked two issues in a row. Not a very impressive debut. They become more dangerous later. And the groundwork is laid here. The Starjammers are always fun, though. And Cyclops acting like Xavier's father when he tries to fight is priceless. Xavier as fighting member of the X-Men is a theme that will be explored at a later tme. This whole storyline, while supposed to be a big epic, is more like a long fight. Putting a story in space doesn't make it epic.
Significata: Colossus is alive. Lord Samdar is revealed as a traitor to the Shi'Ar. Xavier senses something wrong with Lilandra.
