X-Men #148 (Aug 81): Cry, Mutant!Creative Team: Chris Claremont, writer; Dave Cockrum & Josef Rubinstein, artists; Janice Chiang, letterer; Glynis Wein, colorist; Louis Jones, editor; Jim Shooter, editor-in-chief
Starting Line Up: Storm, Angel, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus, Sprite
Guest Stars: Cyclops, Banshee, Spider-Woman, Dazzler
Synopsis: Cyclops and Lee Forrester check out the mysterious island that appeared out of nowhere. They find the huge city completely empty. Lee makes a move for Cyke, but he pushes her away, Jean still in his heart. She gets upset and takes off. He stumbles around blindly for a bit before he fips off his blindfold and lets the beams rip out of frustration. Lee comes back appologizes. At the mansion, with the Danger Room still messed up, Wolverine and Nightcrawler are hunting each other in the woods. Wolverine uses a ninja trick and wins. He always wins. Inside the mansion, Angel is fighting with Xavier and Storm over the place of someone like Wolverine on the team. Angel thinks he's dangerous, using the destroying of the Storm robot last issue as an example. They both agree they do not care for his methods, but he's proven to be an invaluable member and they wish to continue to help him reform his killing ways. Angel decides he can't work with Wolverine and quits the team. Banshee and Moira are still hanging around the mansion after the last story, as well as Colossus' little sister Illyana, and so is Spider-Woman from an X-Men apperance in her title. Banshee greets an unknown young lady in the mansion with a letter from his evil cousin, Black Tom. The letter explains the young lady, Theresa Rourke, is his unknown daughter for his first marriage. Everyone is joyous except Moira. She confides to Storm she's a little afraid of having to share Banshee's love with anyone. She's also sad she can never give Banshee another child, out of fear it will be like Proteus. In Manhattan, a rag clad being named Caliban (we know this because he speaks in the third person) emerges from the sewers. He's lonely and looking for friends who are "like" him. Nearby, Storm, Kitty, Stevie Hunter, and Spider-Woman are at one of Dazzler's concerts. Storm chastises Kitty for being rude to Spider-Woman. In the lobby of the building, Caliban is coming is search of the ones "like" him. The security guards attack him without any provocation just because he looks odd. He turns their negative emotions into strength and defeats them. The crowd starts to panic, so Kitty goes to investiage (before Storm can stop her). Dazzler senses what's going on and creates a lightshow distraction for Storm and Spider-Woman to follow suit. Caliban senses Kitty is like him, so he tries to take her with him. Storm and Spider-Woman try to stop him, but are limited by the all the people around. He tries to get to the sewers, but once he's in the open, they attack again. They realise he's a mutant who sensed they are mutants too (Spider-Woman is a mutant?). He explains he is just lonely and wants someone to love. Everyone hates him because he is so ugly. Storm offers him to come with them and they'll give him a home, but are interrupted by police. Caliban escapes to the sewers. Kitty suddenly feels bad for her treatment of Nightcrawler because of his appearance. Back on the deserted island, Cyclops is about to explain his optic blast to Lee when they are interrupted by someone. Cyclops instantly recognises the voice and prays Lee won't give his name away. The voice belongs to... Magneto.
Yeah, but is it good? Wow. Lots going on here. Ok... where to begin. Magneto is back, but we knew it was coming because Xavier said so a few issues ago. We still don't know what his plan is, but we can be pretty sure he'll either strike on issue #150 or before and end there, since Marvel puts big events on every 25th issue. Then we have Caliban, who's mutant power is he can sense other mutants. Nifty power. Obviously useless to the X-Men since they have Cerebro, but it could make him a good pawn for a villain. He's really not important now, but will come to play a pretty big role waaaay in the future. Here, it's just a pretty useless fight to give the issue some action. And Spider-Woman? What the heck? Claremont was writting her series at this time, hence the crossover, but geez... None of the Spider-Womans (and there have been like three of them) were any good. Then we have Banshee finding out her has a daughter. That sure came out of nowhere. And it sure went nowhere. She would eventually become a member of Excalibur, but again, waaaay in the future. Angel proves he was a useless member by quitting. It's become obvious he was just rounding the numbers on the team until Kitty was ready for some action. The play between Nightcrawler and Wolverine is getting better and better. You really get a sense they are the best friends on the team. Storm and Kitty have more of a mother/daughter relationship. The Storm/Colossus "big sister/little brother" relationship is barely explored. In fact, Colossus hasn't really done much lately other than be the guy Kitty has a crush on. But his little sister is living in the mansion now, so who knows. I'm also getting sick of the exclamation point at the end of every title. "It was cold outside, so I put on my sweater!"
Significata: Angel quits the team again. Banshee finds out he has a daughter, Theresa Rourke. Caliban debuts, his powers being the ability to track mutants and turn strong emotions into strength. Storm offers him a place on the team. Kitty regrets her attitude towards Nightcrawler. Magneto is revealed to be living on the myserious island.
