Uncanny X-Men #191 (Mar 85): Raiders of the Lost Temple

Creative Team: Chris Claremont, writer; John Romita, Jr & Dan Green, artists; Tom Orzechowski, letterer; Glynis Wein, colorist; Ann Nocenti, editor; Jim Shooter, editor in chief

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

Guest Stars: Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, the New Mutants, Captain America, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Starfox, Wasp

In New Mutants #25: Professor X talk with Cloak and Dagger, then asks Magik to transport them all to Limbo; Magik and Rogue succeed in Cloak and Dagger's powers from Sunspot and Wolfsbane back to Cloak and Dagger; Cloak and Dagger renew their fight against injustice.

In Kitty Pryde & Wolverine #5: Kitty goes against Ogun. Takes the name Shadowcat

Synopsis: Kulan Gath now has Spider-Man chained up and tortured. He also has Dr. Strange and Selene and is making sure neither can cast any spells to harm him. Psyche and Sunder report that the rest of the rebels got away. Gath causes them some pain and tells them if the rebels arn't captured, next time it will be death. The rebels are headed towards Gath's fortress for an all out assault. They pass by a ruined library and are attacked by the librarian, Arilynn, who assumed they were the ones responsible for the it's destruction. The rebels are then attacked by Kulan Gath's forces consisting of the New Mutants, the Morlocks, and Vision & Scarlet Witch of the Avengers. Rogue (who is still made of steel for some reason), absorbs someone's energy, but turns flesh and his stabbed and killed from behind. Storm goes on a rampage and distracts all of Gath's forces while the rest of the rebels sneak away. Storm is rescued by Warlock, but they cannot understand each other (as Storm is speaking Gath's barbarian language). Captain America leads the rebels into the Morlock tunnels. Gath's forces are recuping after the battle. Cannonball and Wolfsbane are dead, but they took Starfox and Wasp prisoner. They are put under Gath's control and Wolfsbane is brought back to life. Warlock tries to find ways to communicate with Storm and in the process she starts to remember the real world. The rebels come up with a plan to assault Gath's fortress. Captain America and Colossus act as guards taking Rachel and Magma to Gath as prisoners. Rachel uses a Jedi mind trick to get them in the fortress, but they are attacked by Starfox and Wasp. Callisto, Nightcrawler, Magik, and Arilynn are using the Morlock tunnels to sneak into the fortress, but are attacked by the New Mutants/Morlocks. Magik releases Wolfsbane and Psyche from Gath's control. Callisto kills Sunders, only realising too late he could have been freed as well. In the fortress, Spider-Man is being crucified. The other rebel team, apparently winning their battle, are attacked by the evil Avengers. Vision punches through Colossus causing him to explode and the shrapnel mortally wounds Captain America. The rebels from the tunnels, apparenty winning their battle as well, arrive, but are turned to statues by Scarlet Witch. Spider-Man become so enraged by seeing all of this that with one last desperate attempt, he breaks free of his cross and goes for Gath, but is easily stopped and killed. Warlock finally gets through to Storm and they head for the fortress. Warlock turns Kulan Gath into a techno-organic being while Storm steals his amulet, effectively destroying Gath. But then Magma snatches the amulet away from Storm. She reveals herself to be Selene, the fake one disappearing. Selene plans on using the power of the amulet to keep up the fake reality and spread it over the world. Warlock merges his techno-organic self with Storm, who uses her new power to turn Selene into a techno-organic being as well. With the distraction, Dr. Strange is freed. He combines his power wit Magik's and rewinds time to moments before Gath was freed and calls upon some force to prevent it. Only the select few who survived the ordeal will have any memory of it. The rest, including the ones who died, will go back to the way they were a day before and have no memory of it, since it hasn't happened yet and never will now. The mugging and murder of Jaime Rodriguez, which caused Gath's release, is about to happen again when the change in the timeline occurs. A robotic being named Nimrod appears, kills the mugger, saves Rodriguez, and the amulet is lost in some sewer sludge. Nimrod realises there is a mutant menace going on and plans to exterminate them.

Yeah, but is it good? The parade of drizzling shit continues. Where to begin? How about Kulan Gath. Who is he? He was a D-level Conan the Barbarian villain that was later used in Marvel Team-Up story. It was more or less a gag issue as Kulan Gath and the spirit of Red Sonja somehow travel to our reality from theirs (Spidey's Mary Jane become Red Sonja) and Spider-Man teams up with his future wife to stop him. Odd, but forgettable issue. So Claremont and his hard on for sword & sorcery stories (which are fine, but have no place in X-Men) decides to bring him back. And we get a two part clusterfuck. Why was Rogue made of steel? What's the point of this random librarian? Why do we never get to see the end of any battles? What really made me mad was Spider-Man dying. I don't care if it's later reset like nothing happened, but who the fuck do you think you are killing Spider-Man? If you had a Spider-Man fan also reading X-Men and that fan sees Spidey being treated in such a useless, disposable manner, you just lost a reader. Captain America gets to be a team leader and fight through a mortal shrapnel wound, as Captain America should, but Spidey? Forget the fact he always fights against the odds. Just kill him off. It's also insulting that I had to read through two issues of this bullshit only to be told it never happened. This was even worse than Kevin Smith's Daredevil story. At least in that story, the build up to the "Mysterio ending" was entertaining. Well... there is one thing to come out of this story - Nimrod. And he's pretty cool, if unimportant in the long run. But I can think of a hundred different ways to introduce the character that doesn't involve wasting two issues of one of Marvel's greatest comics in history. I'm just glad Wolverine didn't have to get sucked into this shit. It'll be good to have him back soon.

Significata: Part 2 of the Worst X-Men Story ever. Dr. Strange causes rift in timeline bring Nimrod to the mainsteam line.  ¶ 4:38 PM