X-Men Annual #5 (1981): Ou, La La -- Badoon!Creative Team: Chris Claremont, writer; Brent Anderson, penciler; Bob McLeod, inker; Tom Orzechowski, letterer; Glynis Wein, colorist; Louis Jones, editor; Jim Shooter, editor-in-chief
Starting Line Up: Storm, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus, Sprite
Guest Stars: Inivsible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch, The Thing, Franklin Richards
Synopsis: The Fantastic Four pick up a police call of a woman with a gun outside their building. They go check it out. The woman is a Shi'Ar scout She's being attacked by the Badoon. They have invisible camoflage, but the scout's gun can detect them in the scope. Thinking she is blasting at innocent people, the FF subdue her. She tries to explain what is happening, mentioning Lilandra, Arkon, and Xavier's names, but is killed by one of the Badoon. Mr. Fantastic, Torch, and Thing are all blasted and abducted. Invisible Woman catches a glimps of the Badoon through the scope. The Shi'Ar had mentioned Xavier's name, so she goes off to ask him for help. Meanwhile, Storm has been having nightmares of the X-Men the Badoon along side Arkon. She awakens and finds the Invisible Woman, along with her son Franklin (future X-Men, buy the way) at the door. She tells the X-Men of what little she knows. Xavier fears for Lilandra. The mention of Arkon's name rings with Storm. She tells the team of her nightmares. Cyclops confirms the blaster is Shi'Ar technology and decides they should go to Arkon's world to investigate. They just happen to have some of Arkon's teleporting bolts left over from Annual #3. Kitty tries to debut another new costume, but once again it doesn't fly. The Invisible Woman goes with them, and they teleport.
They arrive to find the planet in ruins. They are greated by Sachia, whom they met last time there. She confeses she had been sending Storm the nightmares as a request for help. The planet has been conquored by the Badoon and Arkon taken prisoner. The remaining forces are hiding in the woods waiting for an opportunity to strike. The Badoon are using a trans-dimensional warp gate to keep their numbers and supplies up. The only people allowed near the castle where the Brother Royal of the Badoon sits are attractive females. So Cyclops splits the team up. Storm and Invisible Woman will act as slave girls to gain entrance to the castle and free Arkon and the FF if they're being held there. Colossus and Sprite will go with him to cover their entrace and escape. Wolverine and Nightcrawler will go with Sachia and meet up with the Imperion army and attack the stargate.
In the castle, the Brother Royal is interrogating Mr. Fantastic. He wants to know all there is to know about Earth's superhumans. The ruse of Storm and Invisible Woman works and they are permitted into the castle. Meanwhile, Wolverine and Nightcrawler have arrived near the stargate. Sachia explains the gate was given to the Badoon by traitors of the Shi'Ar Empire. Their plan was to have the Badoon conquor Arkon's world, and then the Earth. From the Earth, the traitors will attack Lilandra and the Shi'Ar. Nightcrawler will simply teleport himself to the stargate. Sachia will cast a spell to make herself and Wolverine look like Badoon. Once they shut down the stargate, the Imperio army will attack. Nightcrawler and Wolverine have another philosophical debate about him using deadly force. It goes nowhere, so they commence their attack. Meanwhile, Bother Royal is impressed with his new slave girls. But Invisible Woman sees an image on a screen of Mr. Fantastic being tortured, which causes her to blow the cover and attack. Once the alarms have sounded, Cyclops, Colossus, and Kitty go into action. They smash through the front door. Brother Royal sends his guards after Storm and Invisible Woman while he sends a huge robot after the team at the front gate. Meanwhile, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, and Sachia arrive at the stargate but are overwhelmed by the Badoon army. Back in the castle, Storm and Invisible Woman find the FF and Arkon and free them. Arkon barely has the strength to stand. Brother Royal and his elite killer cadre arrive. At the front gate, Cyclop's team presses on until they are attacked by the huge robot. It KOs Cyke and Colossus then chases Kitty. She tries to get it to destroy itself, but to no avail. As she's cornered, Colossus jumps back into battle and fights with the robot until both fall out a window down many stories. Colossus emerges victirious. Back at the stargate, Nightcrawler sees the gate starting to come alive, so he blasts it as quick as possible. The stargate explodes. The Imperion army then charges the battlefield. Back at the castle, everyone meets up as they continue to fight the Badoon guards. Mr. Fantastic comes to the conclusion that the Badoon's weapons don't have individual power sources and there is large power source transmitting to them. They head to the basement to find it. Brother Royal, who had escpaed, alerts them that he has set the castle to self destruct in a matter of minutes. The X-Men and the FF use the opportunity to shut down the power source (which will defuse the bomb). Mr. Fantastic Four instructs Colossus and Thing to keep the two firing elements from touching, Storm to create a lot of cold to keep the reactor from overheating, Torch to keep a small flame going to keep him warm while he slinks his stretched arm through the machinery to find the computer core, Invisible Girl to create a force field tube along same path of his arm, and finally Cyclops to fire into the tube. The computer core of the energy source is destroyed and everyone is safe. Later, Arkon addresses his returning army, which includes Wolverine and a badly injured Nightcrawler. They get to work on healing him.
Days later, there's a huge feast in celebration of their victory. Colossus armwrestles the Thing, but gets distracted by Kitty in a Imperion dancing girl outfit and loses. Elsewhere, Storm is by herself. She is approached by Arkon. The two confess their love for each other (???) but decide to leave it be as each has their own world.
Yeah, but is it good? What the fuck? Storm and Arkon fall in love? Where the Hell did this come from? I don't want to even get in to how stupid and out of nowhere that was. The part of Storm living a solitary, loveless life is explored later, and in a much deeper way than this superficial crap. The rest of the issue is... ugh. Apparently Claremont though the annual from two years ago was so good it needed a sequel. That issue managed to be decent on the fact that it was just a big fight issue. This one has way too much junk going on all at once to be any good. The action is all over the place. And the ending where everyone's powers combined is the only way to save the day... gimme a break. A Colossus/Thing smash fest would have been more fun. The only thing any good about this issue is the mention of a plot against the Shi'Ar empire. Unlike other comics' annuals, Claremont was making an effort to have the stories minorly involved with the main comic at the time, but also function as a stand alone issue. So the betrayers of the Shi'Ar will pop up later. And, like in the regular series, Cyclops has rejoined the team at this point. This issue avoids the question of team leadership, although Cyclops pretty much assumes command. The topic will pop up soon in the regular series. I'm just glad this crap is contained to an Annual where it can be easily skipped. But it does make you look back at last year's annual and think "How come last year on the same month of an annual, the regular series was a clip show, but this year on the same month as the annual is a double page epic?" This issue also has by far the dumbest story title I've ever seen.
Significata: There are traitors among the Shi'Ar Empire. Storm and Arkon fall in love apparently. The first time Storm's lonely life is mentioned. Cyclops assumes leadership most of the time despite the fact he's no longer the official team leader. The attraction between Colossus and Kitty is reaching a point where it finally needs to go somewhere.
