Uncanny X-Men #169 (May 83): Catacombs

Creative Team: Chris Claremont, writer; Paul Smith, penciller; Bob Wiacek, inker; Bob Sharen, colorist; Tom Orzechowski, letterer; Louise Jones, editor; Jim Shooter, editor-in-chief

Starting Line Up: Storm, Cyclops (DNA), Nightcrawler, Wolverine (DNA), Colossus, Sprite

Guest Star: Angel

In New Mutants #3: Psyche wonders whether the monster that attacked her is the Demon Bear that killed her parents; Illyana remembers how she killed some of the X-Men; Psyche's monster strikes again, this time attacking all the New Mutants.

Synopsis: Candy Southern, Angel's girlfriend, returns home but doesn't find Angel anywhere. She realises there was a struggle and calls Xavier for help. He attacked by a large man named Sunder. Nightcrawler is at Amanda Sefton's apartment and the two are having a bath together. being the closest to Angel's place, Xavier summons him to help Candy. He catches her as she is thrown from her window and returns her to Amanda's. Keep in mind he was naked the whole time. At the Hellfire Club, a recovered Sebastian Shaw is alerted theWhite Queen had come to see him in urgency, but was mentally struck down and is now (you guessed it) catatonic. Back at Amanda's apartment, the team has gathered (with Wolverine off in Japan and Cyclops in Alaska). Nightcrawlers says he saw Sunder enter the sewers, so the four X-Men go into the sewers to search. Xavier refuses to let any New Mutants aid the short handed team. The X-Men use a mini-Cerebro to track down Angel. On their way, they are attacked by a large band of sewer dwellers. Storm sends Kitty to scout ahead. She finds Sunder with a few other strange looking people. One of them, Plague, reaches for Kitty, but barely touches her before she phases and runs. The leader of the group says if one one molecule of her body made contact with Plague, she's as good as dead anyway. The three other X-Men win their battle and all the sewer dwellers flee. They continue on to find Angel without the missing Kitty, which causes them all some distress. Elsewhere, Kitty is feeling extremely weak and collapses, but it saved by Caliban, the weird looking mutant from issue #148. He wants to help Kitty so she will recover and fall in love with him so he'll never be lonely. The three X-Men enter a large tunnel are confronted with a large group of dwellers. Their leader introduces herself as Callisto, her people as the Morlocks (giving direct credit to the source, an HG Wells novel), a band of disfigured mutants who cannot blend into regular society, and her plans to marry Angel, the most beautiful man on Earth. She clips his pinfeathers so he's unable to fly again. The X-Men attack. The Morlocks retaliate. Nightcrawler is immediately overcome by their numbers, Storm is knocked unconscious by Callisto, and even Colossus cannot take them all alone. Elsewhere, Kitty awakens in a strange room. She tries to stand, but immediately collapses. Caliban worries she is dying, but will do whtever it takes to make sure she lives and that she will remain with him forever.

Yeah, but is it good? I've never been much of a fan of the Morlocks. There are just too many of them, their powers range from absurdly unbelievable to just looking funny. And most of them lack any character or personality. They do, however, become fairly important later on. Angel's pinfeathers being clipped and being unable to fly was a plot point soon dropped. He would join the Defenders soon after this and I'm pretty sure he was flying there. He was damn sure flying by the time of X-Factor in a couple of years. So either this was quietly forgotten, or there was some story explaining (retracting) it that I'm not aware of it. This issue does suffer quite a bit by not featuring two very important characters. Storyline wise, Xavier doesn't wany any New Mutants going with the X-Men since their purpose is not to be a fighting team like the X-Men (despite fighting villains in their own title every month). But this may have been a good chance to introduce one of two of them further to the X-Fans not yet buying that title. Speaking of the missing X-Men, I would love to be able to summarize what is happening in the Wolverine mini-series going on at this time, but I can't find a synopsis of it anywhere. All I know if he ends up in Japan with his lady, Mariko Yashida. This is debut of Kitty's blue costume she would go on to use for many years. She also mentions she's tired of the Sprite codename (that no one uses). Our little Kitty is growing up. Oh, and one last thing. Why does Claremont continually use a catatonic state to put away villains he wants to go away but not die? Why can't some just go to jail for once?

Significata: First appearance of the Morlocks (Callisto, Sunder, Plague, and Masque are named). Caliban is revealed to be a member. Kitty debuts her lasting blue costume. She wants to get rid of the name Sprite. Sebastian Shaw has recovered, but the White Queen is catatonic.  ¶ 8:00 PM