Issue(s): Uncanny X-Men #248
Cover Date: Sep 89
Title: "The cradle will fall!"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Jim Lee - Penciler
Dan Green - Inker
Daryl Edelman - Assistant Editor
Bob Harras - Editor

Review/plot:
As we saw at the end of last issue, there's an alliance between several of Wolverine's old enemies, all of whom are basically cyborgs at this time, and if i understand the narration panel correctly, we should think of them all as Reavers now.

Click for cyborg-enhanced vision.

But as we also saw last issue, Nanny knows that the Reavers are going to attack the X-Men, and she's taken it upon herself to save them.

Before, that, though, the next part of our Dissolution of the team. Longshot has been having nightmares and self-doubts.

I should note that as part of his nightmare, we see Ricochet Rita transform into Spiral.

It's part of a longer string of nightmare weirdness, but worth mentioning due to Fabian Nicieza's revelation that Rita really is Spiral. I'd guess Nicieza saw that scene and maybe took it more literally than Claremont intended, or maybe it just gave him the idea (or maybe it's just a coincidence!).

When talking to Storm about this (while still in a dream state; the conversation is facilitated by Gateway, "in the manner of [his] aboriginal people"), he notes that he popped up in the X-Men's Danger Room with no memories and the X-Men never did anything about it. Storm's response is "since your life seemed lived entirely for the moment... those are the terms which we dealt with you".

Listen, Longshot, don't take any offense by that. The X-Men do it with everyone. Just ask Warlock or Rachel Summers or Magik or Dani Moonstar once she became a Valkyrie. We just roll with this stuff; we never think to investigate it.

Based on all of this, he decides to leave the team. It's kind of an anti-climactic departure. It wasn't even 100% clear to me that he was leaving until this scene a few pages later.

Ok, now we can get to Nanny's pre-emptive attack. I should note that Psylocke incorrectly identifies Nanny as a robot. We learned in X-Factor #40 that that isn't the case. But we also know that Nanny has some telepathic powers of her own, so maybe she's able to block Psylocke from probing her.

Nanny and Orphan-Maker subdue Psylocke, Havok, and Dazzler, making them think they are children and wrapping them in armor the way we've seen them do in the past.

With Psylocke under her control, Storm and Colossus have to fend off mental attacks as well as the super-strong armor and the mutants' regular powers.

Even Jubilee is attacked, but she's able to fend off Nanny by distributing her fireworks with a fan.

Note that Jubilee is wearing the hodge-podge of costumes that we saw in Uncanny X-Men annual #13, which she wasn't wearing last issue. Not necessarily a clue for placement, but worth mentioning.

Storm and Colossus still manage to do ok...

...but Storm is caught by Nanny, who decides to withdraw.

Colossus frees Havok from his armor, and, disoriented, he uses his blast full power on Nanny's ship, seemingly killing Storm.

One day in 1991 around the time that the second X-Men series was about to be launched, i walked into a comics store in a mall with some friends and saw this issue, which i owned, behind the glass counter and marked up to some ridiculous price. I was certainly happy, if surprised, to see that. I asked my friends why it was priced so high. I mean, it's not like anyone thought that Storm was dead, right? Or that Nanny and Orphan-Maker were particularly great villains? But they informed me that it was because it was the first instance of Jim Lee art on X-Men. I nodded sagely, but walked away trying to wrap my head around the fact that it was the art, not the content of the story, that mattered. Therefore, i'll leave you with this scan of Wolverine, even though it's really just a robot.

By the way, you can pick up a perfectly readable copy of this issue for less than $3 today, but if you kept it in Near Mint condition (which i certainly didn't), you can definitely get more.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - Longshot and Storm removed from the team

Chronological Placement Considerations: This takes place while Wolverine is away during Wolverine #17-23.

References:

• In his nightmare, Longshot recognizes Ricochet Rita as the woman from the movie in Uncanny X-Men #224 (but not from the Longshot miniseries).
  
• Longshot appeared in the X-Men's Danger Room in Uncanny X-Men annual #10.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Note that Gateway enters Longshot's dream, just like he did with Maddie, and it ends badly again- Longshot might have been able to help fight off Nanny. That would seem to suggest that Gateway had some ulterior motive for entering Maddie's mind and not telling the X-Men.

Ahh the price-gouging 90s collectors market. I'm both anticipating and dreading you getting into that decade. As for this issue, I was still at an age where I thought the changes and deaths were going to stick. I was sad that Storm was dead until my older brother gave me the comic equivalent of the "facts of life" talk. I especially enjoyed the Tootie part.

This is still well-paced. One can disapprove of the pictures of Betsy in a swimsuit (or Ali in spandex) but think it still serves the story. The panel where Nanny's arms come out at the reader and Jubilee is dodging is very well done. It's the closest Nanny's ever come to being a serious villain. It also says something about what the X-Men are reduced to that the ultra-sexy Havoc and Dazzler are made robotic puppets, just so they will kill Storm. Even when I read this issue in realtime, I didn't see the point. The X-Men themselves were the ones who taught me, you kill a major character for real, it needs to be dramatic. Making Storm collateral damage after a generic (and stupid) fight? It's the least-dramatic way of handling things, a good example of why the X-Men-in-Australia move was the wrong way to go, but a decent introduction for the long "Shattered Star" storyline.

And things continue to just get really strange. Claremont's going to take two years to dismantle the team before putting it all back together and leave. I never though Storm's death would stick. I didn't even believe it at first. And I would never quite be clear, since all the others go through the Siege, how precisely Storm survives. Nothing about how it was written later made any sense to me, but all of the Nanny stuff just made my head hurt.

Strange how Ali has become insanely tan and Alex isn't at all. I never quite understood the sudden change in Ali's skin tone.

I say this as a big fan of Jim Lee, but how perfectly typical for him that in his first issue of X-Men, in the second panel with Betsy, we get a great butt shot of her in lingerie. That will pretty much set the stage for Lee.

gah - Nanny plays to the worst of Claremeont's creepy fetishes.

Another disturbing issue of his late 80s masterpiece, The Erotic Adventures of the X-Men.

And how is Ali keeping up with Alex on that run? Her powers doesn't include superspeed, and even female Olympic gold medalists can't surpass boys' high school champions in their chosen sports. She's obviously in very good shape and you could explain a lot of things away with 'mutant metabolism,' but so is he.

Of course while running, they both have time for long-winded speeches, so maybe they just aren't going very fast. They're only sweating because the Australian desert is hot. Sure. That's it.

At this point, Claremont loses it. The next two years, with only a few exceptions, are unreadable dreck with terrible stories. His general premise is ill conceived. I'm not surprised that at the end of it, he lost his job. About the only thing I liked was the build up of the Reavers as a major enemy, and unfortunately it was one of the first things jettisoned in the new order under Harras.