you know, the amazing thing about MCP is it sounds like it should be a lot of fun. Obscure characters who wouldn't get any exposure anywhere else fighting obscure villains. Lots of different writers and artists. And short stories for short attention spans (like mine).

But most of the stories focus on overexposed individual x-men and have the obscure characters have boring adventures, so it sucks.

can't wait for the 700 parts of the panther story smashed into one entry. I remember having an issue where for 8 pages the panther has his leg trapped in a tin roof. and that's the whole story.

Just from looking at the covers back then, I always thought that MCP was primarily X-Men related stories and some smaller stories were reserved for non X-men characters.
On another note, I HATE Sunfire. He's just an obnoxious super-hero. Every appearance of his, he comes off as holier-than-thou. However, it sure makes him a memorable character.

FNORD - Just curious - is there some reason you did a synopsis on this backup of #32 before having done the main storyline for #32?

What i do on any given day is pretty much just based on how much time i have. My goal for the day was to get through all the single-issue stories that overlap with the Coldblood 10-parter and the Black Panther 25 parter that Kveto mentions. Didn't quite finish but i may squeeze them in later. Then i'll go back and do the Coldblood story, and then the Black Panther (which may take a couple days!), and then i'll come back to the Excalibur story.

Ok. Thanks for the explanation. I see MCP presents a unique challenge in regards to the overlapping storylines across multiple issues.

If I had to guess I think the text panels are Lobdell going for a "dubbed Japanese movie" thing. The stiltedness of some of the dialogue would point towards that as well.

Fnord, you're doing the Excalibur story this year? I thought you'd hold off until 1990-1991. The Excalibur story features the Train Dragon, and Excalibur is on Earth, so it has to take place after the Cross Time Caper.

Even better. Maybe i'll jump ahead and do the Wolverine stories from #38-53, or maybe i'll just defer them all until later because they exhaust me.

"Eeee! We are blinded! The light -- we cannot see!"

Apparently the writer thought people resort to repeating vowels and the royal we when exposed to bright illumination.

Wait. It's one thing for your unstable molecule costume to stretch or turn invisible. But to suddenly turn into a tuxedo? Have we seen anything even remotely like that anywhere else?

We've seen Storm change costume by striking herself with lightning. And Rahne's costume disappears when she turns into a wolf and reappears when she turns human. (The fan assumption is that's it's on her in wolf form, just too small to see.)

Michael, can you give me an example of the Storm lightning bolt thing? I don't doubt you're right, but I have no recollection of it, and it sounds horribly DC to me! Good point on Rahne, it does seem Claremont was quite loose on what unstable molecules could do. I can vaguely accept them working for Wasp shrinking or Reed stretching etc, but how do the molecules know to disappear when Rahne turns into a wolf? (or when Colossus' legs turn to steel?) And who knows what he was intending with Mystique, whose costume changed with her, but also could change her skull belt into a gun when she wanted? (Though if any of that had been explained, I guess we wouldn't have had the success of Naked Mystique in all the films.)

In X-Men 98, Storm changes into her costume when glowing with lightning. And in Iron Fist 15, Storm changes from her costume into an evening gown.

Thanks Michael. I'm guessing that didn't happen again after those instances, seems very corny to me. Come to think of it, Claremont also had both Jean+Rachel able to change their and other people's clothing. Reasonable enough if you're powered by a cosmic force I guess, but definitely a point where telekinesis is indistinguishable from magic. (Rachel refers to her Dad hating her Mum doing that, which always sounded to me as if she'd witnessed her depowered Mum doing it, though that's not actually specified.)

In X-Men 101, the dialogue suggests that Storm can use her powers to cause the unstable molecules of her costume to change into any clothes she desires. That is WEIRD. How do the molecules know whether Storm wants to change into an evening gown or a bikini? Can she defeat other heroes by striking them with lightning and turning their costumes into straitjackets?
And yeah, it was mentioned again in modern times- in XTreme X-Men 32, Storm is seemingly wearing nothing, strikes herself with lightning and suddenly is clothed.

In Rahne's case, I think it was explained in a letters column that her costume turns into some kind of collar while she's in wolf form.

I remembered the Storm bit in #98, but I always took it that she disintegrated her clothes and her unstable uniform was underneath it. I didn't think it had actually transformed.

As for Jean - she's rearranging the costume at the molecular level - Xavier flat out says that when she first does it, while unconscious, immediately after "becoming" Phoenix. That's different than the whole "unstable" molecules in the costumes thing.

Unstable molecule costumes are one of Marvel's most brilliant ideas. It just seems like some writers think that means the costume can do anything you need it to for the story.

I know Jean and Rachel (and probably Mystique) weren't due to unstable molecules, I was sort of coming up with a vague theory of Claremont's uses of costume changing that were basically "magic" more than "science", even by the standards of comics science. Ms Marvel would be another example. In fact, in X-Men 246, Carol in Rogue's body picks up her old costume and puts it on. What she doesn't realise (and Claremont forgot) is she should actually have the power to change into Ms Marvel's costume anyway, that was a power Rogue took from Carol, who reverted from her costume to her streetclothes when Rogue took her power. As for Storm, X-Men 98 is relatively unclear, Banshee also changes to his costume on the same page and to me it looks like they both use their powers to shred their street clothes and have costumes on underneath. But Michael is definitely right about X-Men 101, Storm states it is "simple" for her to "re-polarize" the molecules to look like a uniform. I'd forgotten that, but it is weird as it happens just as everyone is being amazed at what Jean's new powers can do to create a new costume, and next panel Storm does it too and says it's easy, which seems an odd decision as it stops the reader being so impressed that Jean can do it.

Most mind-contrl villains shouldn't have to do this sort of thing, but the Corrupter kind of got the short end of the stick: not only does his version of mind-cntrol turn the victim into a violent asshole, the Corrupter himself also seems affected in much the same way, since we've seen that his original human identity was relatively normal person.