Uncanny X-Men #161 (Sep 82): Gold Rush!Creative Team: Chris Claremont, writer; Dave Cockrum, penciler; Bob Wiacek, inker; Tom Orzechowski, letterer; Glynis Wein, colorist; Louis Jones, editor; Jim Shooter, editor-in-chief
Starting Line Up: Storm, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Wolvrine, Colossus, Sprite
Synopsis: The X-Men, Starjammers, and friends are all around Xavier on the island, worrying about his condition. He continues to battle within his own mind. The Starjammers medic concludes if Xavier does not win soon, he will die. Cyclops is taking this especially hard. Storm tries to talk to him, but he gets upset with her for the bad press the X-Men got during their battle in the Pentagon. He basically says he wants his job as leader back. Storm gets upset he didn't just ask, but he appologizes. He's afraid of losing someone close to him yet again. Lilandra tries to give the catanotic Xavier words of encouragement to fight. We go in to Xavier's mind, where it's 20 years earlier and he's gone to Haifa, Israel to work in his friend, Dr. Shomron's hospital for Holocaust survivors. He meets a volunteer named Magnus who is also a survivor. Dr. Shomron shows Xavier a patient named Gabrielle Haller who has been catatonic since leaving the concentration camp. Xavier enters her mind. He's met by resistance in the form of monsters, but defeats them and enters her memories. He sees her nightmarish times in the camps, but it's all warped. The nazi guards as demons, the gas chambers as the gates to Hell, and the camp commandant is a sorcerer who turns her into solid gold. This snaps Gabrielle out of her state and she's brough back to consciousness. An orderly sees this and goes off to tell his leader, while 'sieg heil'ing. Time passes and Xavier continues to help Gabrielle recover while he and Magnus become friends. They have many conversations and debates on the idea of mutants and how they will fit into human society. Gabrielle starts to fall in love with Charles, and he doesn't resist the idea like he should. One night, some heavily armed soldiers storm the hospital to kidnap Gabrielle. In the course of the battle, Magnus causes one of their planes to rip apart at the seams, revealing his power to Xavier. The hospital staff was able to take one of the soliders hostage, but he only speaks German. Luckily, so does Xavier. He probes his mind and finds out where Gabrielle was taken - Kenya. In Kenya, the guards take Gabrielle to their leader, Baron Strucker of HYDRA, a neo-nazi terrorist organization. They are using Gabrielle to find the location of cache of gold from Hitler's private fortune that was hidden during the fall of the third reich. It's location was imprinted into her mind to avoid leaving evidence anyone else could find. HYDRA plans on using the gold to begin a fourth reich. Xavier and Magnus steal some guard uniforms and come in to rescue Gabrielle. Strucker spots them and sends the guards after them. Magnus stops their bullets while Xavier causes the guards to start fighting each other. The shock of the fight sends Gabrielle back into her coma state. He doesn't want to use his mental powers to snap her out again because she will become dependant on it. Strucker attacks them, but Magnus uses his power to fight him off. He blasts a way out of the cave, and sends Xavier, Gabrielle, and the gold, then causes the cave to collapse in on itself, killing or trapping the HYDRA agents. Xavier and Magnus come to realise they see the world, and humanity, in different lights. He leaves with the gold. Gabrielle snaps out of her state, she found the strength to fight in Xavier's words. Xavier then snaps out of his own catatonic state, finding the strength in Lilandra and the X-Men's words. Lilandra has to return to the Shi'Ar Empire, so they have a farewell party aboard her ship with everyone escept Xavier (still too weak), Illyana (still adjustin to life on Earth again), and Moira (taking care of them). The Starjammers don't wish to go either since they have no love for the Shi'Ar, so Corsair says his goodbyes to Cyclops. The party is then crashed by Deathbird and The Brood, who are taking the X-Men captive to be hosts for their spawn.
Yeah, but is it good? Y'all got Magnus is Magneto, right? Good. After two terrible issues, we're back on track. What's so interesting is when reading the original X-Men stories, it's clear it was never Stan Lee's intention that Xavier and Magneto were friends before. Yet this does not contradict anything. Their old meetings show neither familiarity nor unfamiliarity. It's a great new dimension to both characters, since they are so similar, but so different. And it really does draw attention to the fact that the human hate of mutants is no different than the hate the Nazis had for the Jews. And when you consider the human/mutant conflict as an alagory for racism and intollerance in our world today, it can make the point that any racism is as bad as the Nazis. Oh, HYDRA is a group from the Nick Fury comics. They are the main opposition to his SHIELD. It's kind of cool to see some inter-title continuity used. The issue of leadership finally explodes between Cyclops and Storm. Ever since he returned to the team, it's been obvious he reclaimed the role but not the title, which Storm still had. Now it's obvious he wants the title, while she just wants the respect of being asked. But it isn't resolved here. We get a nice little cliffhanger as we resume our Brood storyline. This is going to lead to a huge development that not only changes the X-Men, but Marvel comics that is still seen today.
Significata: Xavier snaps out of his coma. We find out about his friendship with Magneto many years ago, are introduced to Gabrielle Haller (she becomes important later on), and see Magneto kill humans, Baron Strucker specifically, in order to save his fellow mutant. The Brood kidnap the X-Men. Cyclops and Storm have a fight over leadership.
