Issue(s): Marvel Team-Up #135
Cover Date: Nov 83
Title: "Down deep in darkness!"
Credits:
Bill Mantlo - Writer
Ron Frenz - Penciler
Mike Esposito - Inker
Bob DeNatale - Assistant Editor
Tom DeFalco & Danny Fingeroth - Editor

Review/plot:
The UHBMCC gives Chris Claremont a co-writing credit for this issue. There's nothing in the credits. Probably "an idea from" type of situation acknowledged in a later issue's lettercol.

Some kids that Kitty Pryde was babysitting wind up sneaking out and going for an adventure in the sewers (this is after playing a board game called Sewers & Serpents)...

...and they wind up getting captured by Morlocks. Spider-Man has already been captured...

...but Kitty Pryde is able to catch up (via Magne-Car!)...

...and rescue the kids.

The leader of these Morlocks is a human. He says that he and many of the other human Morlocks were living in the sewer long before Callisto and her mutants came, so he doesn't really feel bound by any agreements between Callisto and Storm.

This actually sort of resolves a problem i had with the Morlocks' first appearance, where so many of the Morlocks didn't appear to be mutants. It seems the majority are just homeless humans. Still, this isn't a particularly good story.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Storm is still wearing her old costume and hair style, placing this before the X-Men go to Japan in Uncanny X-Men #172.

References:

• The Morlocks were forbidden by Storm from raiding the surface world in Uncanny X-Men #170 but the leader of this group of Morlocks doesn't feel bound by that agreement.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Marvel Tales #245

Fnord, the only way this issue works is to pretend that Wolverine isn't there. He's in Canada (or Japan) when the X-Men encounter the Morlocks for the first time and by the time he comes back, it's with the X-Men and Storm has cut her hair.

Yeah, i guess we can assume that Wolverine briefly went back to the US to help arrange the X-Men's flight to Japan or something and then returned ahead of the rest of them.

The MCP does place this before Wolverine #1-4, but i don't think that's any better, since as you note Wolverine is said to be in Japan during the X-Men's first encounter with the Morlocks.

Oh, i take it back. I see now that the MCP breaks up the Wolverine story so that he stops back home at the X-Mansion after the Canadian part of his trip in Wolverine #1. But i think i'll just stick with what i've got.

Oh, I absolutely agree with your placement. I think Claremont should have to pop up like Byrne did years later and apologize and tell us to ignore Wolverine being here. Or maybe an editor.

Fnord, Eric, the 1996 X-Men/Alpha Flight series is a continuity implant that takes place before Kitty and Peter split up as a result of Secret Wars. In the 1996 X-Men/Alpha Flight series, Lockheed is with Kitty in the Mansion, Storm has long hair not a mohawk and Wolverine is with the X-Men. So clearly Wolverine had to come back to the mansion at some point prior to X-Men 172. Either that, or the X-Men thought Storm's mohawk was so hideous that they made her disguise it with an image inducer. :)

Thanks Michael. From what you say it sounds like this issue can still stay here based on my reasoning and the X-Men/Alpha Flight story will just go in the same gap. But i'll fine tune it if necessary when i get there.

Of course, for that work, this issue has to happen during X-Men #171, because otherwise Wolverine would already know that Rogue is a member of the team - they start that issue still in the Morlock tunnels and then Rogue joins the team. (And you have to discount Peter's comment at the beginning of 172 that it's been too long since they've seen him).

No matter how you try to do it, they tried to have too much happen in too short a time - it's just like all the appearances the X-Men had to get in between coming back from space and before Wolverine went off to Canada in the first place, at a time when Kitty has supposedly been demoted.

Sheesh, and to think I had a hard time back when I was just trying to figure out where to place my X-Men Annuals between issues. Fnord, you have my admiration.

Just re-reading "From the Ashes" and in #169, Kurt definitely says that Wolverine is already in Japan before they head down into the tunnels. So the MCP is wrong - this can't happen during Wolverine #1.

But, there is definitely a space for it between #170 and 171. 171 seems like it takes place directly after 170, but it can't. The X-Men are clearly leaving at the end of 170 to get medical attention for Kitty and Warren. Yet, there they are in the tunnels. But, if you look at the opening of 171, only Storm and Kurt are shown in the tunnels. It's entirely possible that after 170, they come back to the Mansion, this issue happens (with, I suppose, Logan returning home, although that's stupid and I blame the editors, not fnord), and then Storm and Kurt return to the tunnels, with Storm making it more clear that there's no attacking the surface world at the start of that issue.

In that case, you might have to break off #171 and place it after this issue. That would also allow for that 1996 series that Michael mentions.

First, just to correct myself the second X-Men/Alpha Flight series was in 1998, not 1996.
Re: Kurt saying that Wolverine is in Japan- it's possible that Kurt thought Wolverine was in Japan but he was in the States. His flight could have been cancelled, for example.
Re: the second X-Men/Alpha Flight series- one complicating factor is that Scott is in New York. On top of that,he has a conversation with Logan about Jean and he doesn't mention Maddie.
Another major complication stems from the fact that the second X-Men/Alpha Flight series is clearly intended to take place after Alpha Flight's first battle with the Master- there's a throwaway reference to their first battle, and besides, Walt knows about Aurora's MPD.
Just for completeness, there's another continuity implant with similar problems. In the X-Men vs. Hulk one-shot from 2009, which was written by CLAREMONT, Kitty's with Lockheed, Storm doesn't have a mohawk and Wolverine is present on the Mansion grounds. And just to complicate things further, Wolverine sees Lockheed on Earth in this story, while in X-Men 172, he was surprised to see Lockheed. And the Hulk seems to be in Savage Hulk mode.
There's really no good solution. The problem is that the writers (including eventually Claremont) kept forgetting that it makes no sense for Wolvie to be at the mansion after Kitty realized Lockheed followed her home but before Storm got her mohawk.

I mentioned in another comment thread what a nightmare that X-Men/Alpha mini was (Strucker appearing and having developed a drug addiction despite the fact that he was dead at the time, Snowbird leaving Canada with no ill effects, Aurora being around Northstar AS Aurora and not Jeanne-Marie, etc.).

As for Wolverine here: he's obviously a mock cardboard standee that Iceman made up as a joke. He brought it by to surprise everyone and in that scene he's standing behind it doing his best impression of Logan... an impression so dead-bang accurate that Colossus goes along with it.

Forgive me if what I'm about to say is sacrilege to the gods of continuity.

People are jumping through big hoops to explain Wolverine's appearance. And yet, it's a single panel with no impact on the plot. If we're going to jump through hoops, wouldn't it be better to just come up for a reason why this wasn't really Wolverine?

I offer the following:
1) Wolverine is a mock cardboard standee that Iceman made up as a joke. (credit to Dan H.)
2) Mystique is briefly infiltrating the X-Men, posing as Wolverine. Off panel, the X-Men discover Wolverine is still in Japan.
3) The panel is depicting Kitty's impression of Storm's side of the conversation. Because of the kids arguing, she can't hear what everyone is saying very well. She incorrectly attributes something someone said to Wolverine, in spite of the fact that he's in Japan.
4) We're seeing a Danger Room training session that hasn't yet begun, where Brood attack the mansion while people are watching television. Professor X has created a hologram Wolverine to fill in while he's absent.
5) Along the lines of John Byrne's Tigra apology in Avengers West Coast 56, Wolverine isn't there. He never was, and we never saw him. Anyone who thinks he was there is misremembering the issue. Anyone who can still see him in that panel is under the influence of Mastermind.

The bottom line...sometimes it might be better for continuity to treat trivial appearances as "typos". Not what was intended. Just ignore it.