Issue(s): Uncanny X-Men #168
Cover Date: Apr 83
Title: "Professor Xavier is a jerk!"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Paul Smith - Penciler
Bob Wiacek - Inker
Louise Simonson - Editor

Review/plot:
This is the "Professor Xavier is a jerk!" issue where the Professor tries to demote Kitty to the newly formed New Mutants.

She gets into a fight with a group of Sidri aliens in the X-Mansion's sub-basement, and proves that she deserves to be an X-Man. She gets help in her fight from the dragon that helped the X-Men fight the Brood, which apparently stowed away with the X-Men when they returned home.

Kitty names it Lockheed and decides to keep it.

Xavier is still unable to walk despite having a cloned body with functional legs.

At the end of the issue, Cyclops, Havok, and Corsair arrive in Alaska so the Summers boys can meet their grandparents. Meeting them at the airport is Madelyne Pryor.

Note that, at least according to Scott, his father and Alex also notice a likeness to Jean Grey. This begins some confusion around Madelyne. By all accounts, Claremont intended Madelyne to be just a regular person, but he will continually throw in scenes like these. My personal theories are either that Claremont had his own separate plans for bringing Jean back or that Scott's marriage to Madelyne and subsequent retirement were meant to be a wink and a nod to readers, like mean old Jim Shooter won't let us bring Jean back but we know that she's really living happily ever after with Scott. In practice, when Jean is brought back a different way, it will cause a lot of thrashing until/through Inferno.

Nice stylized art from Paul Smith.

But the fact that it is stylized means that Madelyne Pryor looks nothing like Jean Grey, despite the reaction from Cyclops this issue that indicates that she's supposed to.

Quality Rating: A-

Historical Significance Rating: 4 - first actual Madelyne Pryor (she previously sort of appeared as a little girl in Avengers annual #10)

Chronological Placement Considerations: Since X-Men #170 has to take place before Defenders #120-125, this issue has been pushed back slightly in publication time to make room.

References:

• Lockheed helped the X-Men fight the Brood in Uncanny X-Men #166.
  
• We saw the Sidrian Hunters previously in Uncanny X-Men #154.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: X-Men Classic #72

This placement feels really unnatural. The previous issue of UXM has Professor X demoting Kitty. Then she apparently waits until AFTER the horrific events of GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS to complain about it? GLMK took place over the course of days, possibly weeks. This issue's opening splash page looks like it takes place on the same day (or close to it) as the previous issue.

So i do say in the God Loves, Man Kills entry that it takes place during this issue. Since Cyclops is in that story, but he returns from space with the other X-Men in UX #167 and is in Alaska meeting Madelyne Pryor at the end of this one, the graphic novel has to take place somewhere in between.

However, your bigger concern is the amount of space between the end of last issue and the beginning of this one. There are indications that some time has passed since last issue. The school grounds are covered with snow, unlike last issue. And Illyana complains at the beginning of the issue that Kitty has "been ranting non-stop -- making everyone's life miserable -- ever since you were shifted from the X-Men to the trainee team, the New Mutants. It's getting boring!". Sounds like that could have been going on for a while.

Placement is really tight around this time, thanks to a number of factors. In the X-Men, Professor X has been sick since circa UX #158, and then the X-Men went into space and returned last issue, and then Cyclops leaves the team. Finding a gap somewhere in UX #167-168 is the only way to fit X-Men appearances that include Xavier and Cyclops, and that includes three mega events: Contest of Champions, the Hulk's pardoning in Hulk #277-279, and the Champion's challenge in Marvel Two-In-One annual #7. Those three events feature just about every Marvel hero, so there are a lot of dependencies. However, it does seem to work for the X-Men if you allow that there's a gap.

I'll also appeal to authority and note that this is Marvel's "official" placement based on the 1994 X-Men indexes, and it's what the Marvel Chronology Project does as well.

I woke up this morning and noticed that I had phrased my post with more... conviction... than I really felt. I assumed you had considered things I hadn't taken into account. It just seemed really jarring to me that everything could be put on holdnlong enough for GLMK to take place. Also, Kitty is still wearing her green costume in that story. That seems like something she would do before her demotion or after being reinstated, but not in the middle of it, considering how she's costumed here. She is also clearly a member of the X-Men in GLMK, but again, I didn't lo too closely at your reasoning in the synopsis, just at the Placement Considerations section. It still feels weird to me and I have to wonder if it was possible to put GLMK in a more natural "break" between arcs, but I'm sure you took that into account.

Could GLMK take place before the X-Men go into space? The New Mutants aren't alluded to in that, are they? And Kitty is training with the X-Men in the danger room, still a part of the team. Worth considering?

Jay, no problem with the tone of the comment and i always appreciate challenges on placement. At a minimum it makes me spell out the placement considerations in more detail, and that's good for this project.

If we wanted to try placing GLMK earlier, we'd have to go back before Uncanny X-Men #158, since any later than that and Xavier is too sick to be involved. And that's before Illyana Rasputin is aged to a teenager in #160. We could assume a temporary recovery after #160 if we had to (this is actually what the MCP does for CoC and Hulk), but i prefer not to.

Kitty's costume is a problem no matter when you place GLMK. It doesn't debut in the main series until issue #169. There's no comments or fanfare when it's introduced, so we can assume she's worn it before (which has to be the case since both Cyclops and Wolverine are gone by #169, and by the time Wolverine is back with the team, Storm has a mohawk).

We know from comments in #168 that the other X-Men were arguing with Xavier about Kitty's demotion, so i don't think it's terrible to have her in a Danger Room session with them. Notably, the session is run by Illyana while Xavier is out for his television appearance.

All that said, i still think your problem with GLMK specifically is resolved by the fact that it takes place during this issue, not before. For Cyclops, the MCP has all but the last page of this story occurring before GLMK. So it can take place after Kitty is reinstated on probationary status. The implied larger objection is all the other X-Men appearances between #167-168. My opinion is they work ok considering they are mostly pretty generic for Kitty.

In 1983 the revived E-Man written by usual DC scripter Marty Pasko did an X-Men satire and renamed Kitty Pride "Kit-e Porn" in reference to her relationship with Colossus. Claremont's reaction to this was reportedly "If Pasko ever sees me, he'd better run!"

In Comics Journal #112, SF author Richard McEnroe claims that Claremont swiped Madelyne Pryor from Martin Caidin's novel "Wingborn".

Claremont swiped an idea? NOOOOOO! That's not true! That's impossible!

I think that it was more that Claremont's mother was a pilot, so Betsy and Maddie both wound up being pilots. (And Scott also had his pilot background stressed more under Claremont.)

Claremont has usually showed a personal preference for planes. I've heard he bought a plane with his X-royalties, made a big deal of the X-Men's SR-71, all the X-Men knew how to fly it, the main character of his "First Flight" series was a pilot, etc. Maybe it was inspired by his mother, but it's definitely one of his interests.

"But the fact that it is stylized means that Madelyne Pryor looks nothing like Jean Grey, despite the reaction from Cyclops this issue that indicates that she's supposed to."

-Nobody looked like themselves for Smith's entire run, IMO. I was following the book in real time from late in Byrne's run, and I like the second coming of Cockrum a great deal more now than I did at first back then, but I've never warmed to Smith's run at all.

Well, I've always liked Smith's run. This is the issue, I think, where I fell in love with Kitty, and I can't imagine I'm the only guy my age (born in 74, somewhere in the same vicinity as fnord, I would guess) who did.

I love that Nightcrawler had a BAMF doll made based on Kitty's fairy tale.

When Kitty introduces Lockheed and asks if she can keep him, Xavier has one of my favorite lines: "If I say no, will he eat me?"

Forgot to mention, also one of my all-time favorite titles. And to be fair, having read all the X-Men issues through the early nineties, a fairly accurate one as well.

I'm another born in '74 (then) kid who had a crush on Kitty Pryde.

I think that at the time, GLMK was supposed to be considered non-canon, which could account for the continuity issues described here. If it's intention was to just be a good, self-contained X-Men story for new readers, Marvel probably didn't want to worry about the state of the characters in the comics at the time interfering with the presentation of a classic, no-baggage representation of the team.

It bothers me a little how Claremont writes Kitty and Illyana like longtime besties after the X-Men's return from space. Meanwhile, during the dozen issues Illyana had spent at the mansion prior to that, she'd been a seven-year-old and only got "aged up" to become a peer of Kitty one issue before the X-Men were kidnapped by Deathbird and the Brood. When exactly did they form this bond? I get that Illyana's grateful to Kitty for everything she did to help her escape limbo and she looked up to her even before that, but there's no "reverence" in her tone here. Instead, there's a familiarity that seems out of place.

What was Claremont's reason for making Maddie look a lot, if not exactly, like Jean again?

D09, the intent was to have Maddie look exactly like Jean. Unfortunately, neither Cockrum or Byrne were the artists anymore, Paul Smith was. Up to this point, we had never seen Jean as drawn by Smith. Also, for some reason, he chose to use Louise Simonson's then hairdo for Maddie, which made her look even more different from Jean. The end result was a new character who didn't look particularly like Jean Grey.

The explanation I've read from Claremont was that Maddie was just supposed to be a one in a billion look alike for Jean. No powers, no hidden agenda. Basically, she and Scott would happily ride off into the sunset. Cyclops would be available to the X-Men in emergency situations, but otherwise, he was going to live in superhero retirement.

Then X-Factor came along...

I've read the one-in-billion look-alike story too, but I think Claremont is indulging in some Stan-Lee-style post hoc embellishment. Just three issues later, in 171, we learned that Maddie had a terrible plane crash on exactly the same day that Jean Grey died. That sort of wild coincidence raises a big red flag that Maddie is not just a random girl. Also, even in the freewheeling early 1980s I doubt that Claremont seriously believed that anyone would let him retire an A-lister like Cyclops.

Based on Claremont’s comments that he intended for Maddie to be a totally normal woman who just happened to be the exact likeness of Jean, it seems that he basically created her as the Universe’s Gift To Cyclops. Your last girlfriend died? Congratulations, here she is resurrected through some cosmic coincidence. In story she's not a resurrection of Jean, but really that's what CC metatextually designed her as. Obviously once Jean came back, she literally had to become a clone of Jean. But at the start, she's just Claremont giving Scott another Jean.

Cyclops gets a hero’s farewell in 175, and can retire with his dream woman who is a pilot like Claremont’s mother. I think at the time the plane crash at the exact same time was intended as a wink to the readers: “I wouldn’t be allowed to bring Jean back, so here’s basically Jean in all but name.” It also gives Scott something to be suspicious of during Mastermind’s plan, and to be honest would have been better if it was revealed Mastermind had changed the date of the crash to freak Scott out. Once Jean comes back, it just becomes suspicious.

"Also, even in the freewheeling early 1980s I doubt that Claremont seriously believed that anyone would let him retire an A-lister like Cyclops."

Why would it be hard to believe? He tried to do the same thing with Colossus.

I try to avoid ranting about Claremont, but people really really really do over-romanticise him.

Well, how can anyone be an X-Man fan and not be a romantic? :)

It would make sense that people with Romantic dispositions like Claremont's X-Men, because Claremont is a Romantic. That is why sometimes he worked best with people like Byrne, who is a Classicist. When teamed with another Romantic, like Cockrum, there is no-one to say which ideas are good or bad, which is why you sometimes end up with great ideas, but also leprechauns. space whales and exact duplicates of dead women you loved.

Well, you missed the point entirely.

@Andrew- Roger Stern has said that he thought Avengers 230 would be the permanent retirement of Hank Pym. What's the difference between retiring Hank and retiring Scott? Avengers 230 came out the same month as this issue.
@Jonathon- I think that Maddie was different from Jean. She was something relatively unique at Marvel- a woman that had been driving/flying when an accident occurred, one that implicitly killed children, and yet was written as a normal person. You rarely see that at Marvel, even today- someone that got people killed in a "normal" scenario and especially a woman that implicitly caused the death of children.

Which makes Maddie's eventual transformation into the Goblin Queen have even more Unfortunate Implications.

Well, given the examples cited (and Banshee, too, now that I think of it), I guess the actual retirement of Cyclops wouldn't have been as unthinkable then as it would be now. But I still think that even if Claremont originally wanted Cyclops to retire, he changed his mind pretty quickly.

My understanding is that Cyclops would retire, but he'd always be available for crossovers or big events or reunions. The first big storyline Claremont did after Byrne left brought in Alex, Lorna, Iceman and other minor characters. If the Beyonder calls up all the X-Men, Scott will be one of them, no problems there. But otherwise he has retired. Worked for Banshee.

Michael - Agreed, Maddie evolved into a different personality from Jean, even before she joined the team. (Then again, I think the post-return Jean written by Claremont has a different personality to the original Jean/Phoenix Claremont wrote.) But as she was originally conceived, I think it’s clear she was Jean resurrected through a back door. I think as Claremont started writing Maddie, he got to like the character in her own right and gave her qualities Jean had never shown. Partly I guess because Jean had been the most powerful person on the team, while Maddie had no powers so ended up showing both more bravery and more kindness than the original model. Possibly the de-powered Jean that Claremont originally intended to happen at the end of the Dark Phoenix Saga might have shown some of those qualities, but we never saw that. (I also like your point about Hank Pym retiring this month – maybe Claremont heard about that and thought he’d like to do something similar for the Silver Age character on his team.)

ChrisW – Exactly my understanding too. He came back for an annual (who wouldn’t want to go to Asgard?) and an Alpha Flight teamup (personally if I were Cyclops, I wouldn’t have got out of bed for anything less than an FF teamup), otherwise he was out the book.

AF – Interesting, as from my perspective it was you missing the point, both of the comments that you originally responded to, and also of the reply. If you want to contribute something constructive to the site, maybe you should get the rant off your chest, rather than just making snarky comments?

@Jonathan-re: Jean and Maddie- Jean was never shown as that maternal prior to her return, save for one incident where she went to comfort Kitty because she was the most normal looking X-Man present. But then Maddie got pregnant, turned into a healer in the X-Men/Alpha Flight series, gave birth, etc., so Jean became more kind/maternal almost to compete with Maddie.

Scott falling in love with an exact lookalike of his dead girlfriend: a bit disturbing when you think about it.

When trying to decide where and how to place God Loves / Man Kills during 168, some issues arise. I will not consider Cyclops' story, because those pages stand almost completely apart from the rest of the story, and are easily read elsewhere. I'm also not considering how odd it is that Kitty is so upset about having to leave the X-men after the horrible ordeal with Dracula (where she learns her parents are divorcing) and God Loves / Man Kills. The first serious issue I have is that it is snowing in 168, but not at all in GLMK. A second one is that in the first few pages of 168, Nightcrawler drives Wolverine to the airport for his temporary leave offpanel while dropping off Kitty and Illyana at Stevie's. If the events of GLMK start after that, we'll have to assume Wolverine postponed his trip and returned with Nightcrawler. If not, 168 must take place entirely after God Loves / Man Kills. This would work, except it will give you a tremendous headache trying to place X-men / Alpha Flight Vol. 2, because it takes place right after GLMK, but before Wolverine leaves. That would work, except it doesn't because Lockheed appears in X-men / Alpha Flight Vol. 2 in Kitty's room, and Kitty definitely doesn't ecounter Lockheed in 168 until after Wolverine leaves.
My current solution;
1. God Loves / Man Kills
2. Uncanny X-men #168, except for the Cyclops pages
3. Wolverine postpones his trip offpanel
4. X-men / Alpha Flight vol. 2
5. #168, Cyclops pages

@Spikey- note that Wolverine also appears in Marvel Team-Up 135, which definitely takes place after X-Men 169-170, where Wolverine is absent. Also note that X-Men/ Alpha Flight vol. 2 explicitly takes place after Alpha Flight's first battle with the Master, which complicates things immensely, especially vis a vis Defenders 122-125.

MTU 135 is another big source of headaches indeed, as it must take place after the Morlock introduction, but before Wolverine's wedding / Storm's haircut. I usually simply a) pretend that either Wolverine is not actually there but is some wishful apparition, b) Storm is wearing a wig because she regretted cutting everything off (Kitty pulls that stunt too before and during Kitty Pryde/Wolverine), c) Wolverine came back to the states temporarily to make arrangements or d) ignore that one frustrating panel where he appears altogether to make the most of that nice story.

Had not previously considered the Master problems. Have never read much Defenders as I actually read only X-men and everything related, but of course from 122 onwards it becomes a borderline X-men book because of the Angel joining around that time. Only recently have begun trying to fit in Alpha Flight as well, and Alpha Flight #1-#4 (and #5 with Puck still in the hospital as well) must have taken place before X-men/AF Vol. II. So does Defenders 122-125 come before that or after that, I can't remember? Somewhere along the line one is bound to run into trouble again with the AF issues, as it is pretty far along the line (after Guardian is incinerated) that Wolverine and Puck are introduced for the first time to each other. Lordy, maybe I'm better off pretending X-men/AF II was simply never written, because it feels like I'm stuck in a very vicious circle.

It's complicated- Vision isn't paralyzed in Defenders 122-124, which means they take place before Fantastic Four 260-261, which cross over with Alpha Flight 4, since Vision is paralyzed in those issues. Defenders 125 takes place after Warren's kidnapping by Callisto in X-Men 169-171. Half the Defenders are abducted in Defenders 122 and returned in Defenders 125.

Thanks Micahel, this is basically how I feel when trying to read the GLMK era;
http://i.imgur.com/fTHboKI.jpg
Maybe that cosplayer was inspired / frustrated while reading these books, too, when he came up with that outfit -_-.

My understanding was GLMK took place during the "Kitty being nice to Xavier" montage. Since that seems to take place of a long period of time.

For what it's worth, I recall an interview in Amazing Heroes - it was a thick issue with a painting of Claremont with the X-men on the cover, which perhaps Mark Drummond can find - in which Claremony expresses the view that GLMK simply CANNOT take place in normal continuity and was not INTENDED to. That doesn't reflect the subsequent treatment of the story but it goes a long way to explain the reason it poses so many difficulties. Most of the other issues reflect problems of coordination between writers and editors of different titles but GLMK doesn't gave that as an excuse. Here Claremont's own stories sit together uneasily at best.

My recollection is dim - it was 32 years ago that I read that interview - but ge spelled out points about Storm's hair, Kutty's uniform, et al, that he thought required it take place in an alternate universe.

I have the entire run of Amazing Heroes, but I don't recall any issue with Claremont saying that or any cover with that description. Are you sure it isn't Wizard or Hero Illustrated?

Mark, thanks for the response.

I did some searching and I recognized this as the cover of the issue with the interview I'm describing.

https://i1.wp.com/i6.photobucket.com/albums/y202/indeeeeeed/Amazing%20Heroes%2075/image_5.jpeg?zoom=2

But it since occurred to me that he may have said it in an earlier interview in Comics Scene.  I tracked down that by the cover on Google too.

http://www.comiccollectorlive.com/LiveData/Issue.aspx?id=fee58560-c39b-4c28-84e1-b0e75954b9d4

Apparently I forgot that cover, but that statement about GLMK doesn't ring a bell at all, so it may indeed be in that Comics Scene(I never bought that fanzine as it came off a bit cheesy to me).

Ubersicht, that makes sense. Neal Adams was supposed to be the artist for GLMK, and had produced a number of pages. By the time he finally left the project (for whatever reason) and Marvel still wanted to go through with it, enough time had passed that the X-Men had moved on with their lives.

The main problems are with Illyana and Maddie, or at least can be reduced to that. If Illyana has been aged to be a teenager, then the X-Men are on Magneto's Island and not at the mansion. Then there's the Brood Saga, and Scott immediately leaves to meet Maddie. There's lesser problems as well, didn't Charlie take drugs to inhibit his telepathy so that his cloned body could relearn to walk? Wolverine leaves for a solo adventure. The mansion was still being rebuilt when the X-Men were kidnapped for the Brood Saga, so where are the New Mutants when Xavier is possessed by Stryker and killing Scott and Ororo?

In theory, it's possible to explain this away, but that's a lot of unnecessary effort. It doesn't fit. Live with it.

Well, Scott leaves in the middle of Uncanny 168 to meet Lee, and then at the end of the issue we see him on the visit to his grandparents where he meets Maddie, so in theory this could take place DURING Uncanny 168. The problem, as you mentioned, is Wolvie leaving, but that's also a problem with Marvel Team-Up 135.

I don't have the book handy to check, but wasn't Scott's first appearance in this issue when he surprises Lee, so he could have left at any point after the final panel of #167. Fnord obviously had to work out the placement of other appearances based on things like this, but for all intents and purposes, he probably left soon after Kitty was fired from the X-Men.

Am I the only one who thinks that in that scene with Kurt, Amanda and Bamf doll, the original intention was for him to be nude? Because the dialogue and his pose both hint at sexytimes soon ahead, and the doll is rather strategically placed...

@Tuomas No, I totally had that same thought the last time I read this issue, a couple of years ago.

Yeah I wondered the same thing too.

And of course Amanda's saucy "Yum" (which brings up some...disturbing imagery in that context when one considers what she might possibly find so..."delicious".)

I know that a lot of the problems with Madelyne came about due to editorial/other creators. But Claremont really did himself no favors making Maddie an exact duplicate of Jean. Even without the benefit of clone-based hindsight, it makes it a little odd to have Scott later on talking about how he's "moved on"...while hooking up with his ex-girlfriend double (when this type of plotline happens on tv, like Friends for instance, this is always used as a sign that the person is NOT in fact over an ex) I'm then reminded of Byrne's implication that Claremont had just as much trouble "letting go" of Jean as Cyclops had.

I think the Nightcrawler pic might be a nod to Stan Lee's *almost*-nude centerfold pic:

http://imgur.com/gallery/XmzYX

(semi-suitable for work, depending how prudish your coworkers are)

Are you kidding? In 2017, Stan could be posing nude now and people would probably pay for it. The 21st Century is not at all what we were expecting.

I agree with Jon about Claremont doing himself no favors by making Madelyne Jean's exact double. If he got bored with Lee, surely there must have been a cute brunette out there to interest him.

As I stated in a comment on issue #175 (when Mastermind is revealed as being behind making Maddie appear to be Dark Phoenix), there should have been a reveal that Maddie did not look like Jean at all (except for maybe certain superficial characteristics like having red hair). Then Cyclops would have needed to decide did he love Maddie because she looked like Jean, or because he fell in love with her. Having her look different would have shown Scott loved Maddie for herself, and not as Jean. Maybe make her have lots of freckles, different eye color, and slightly different body style and height. Still comic book attractive/cute, but definitely not Jean. I think that would have prevented a lot of heartache down the line.

You're totally right. The 'complete look-alike' peaked with "A Tale of Two Cities" and the 'like-a-look" peaked with Dave Sim's "Cerebus" and Lord Julius. Outside of soap operas, it's a stupid concept.

It would not have worked at 1980s Marvel. If you haven't noticed from my comments, I really like the idea of Scott falling in love with a woman who's really similar to Jean, but has enough differences that [a] it keeps him remembering Jean and [b] follows the love story by having him think Maddie is so much better than Jean. Jean's dead. Maddie's in his arms right now and asking what he wants for breakfast. Is this a choice? Maddie wins in every situation, and that's before they're married with children.

I believe the Stan pose is certainly and the Nightcrawler pose very probably inspired by Burt Reynolds' posing in Playgirl - which I know from a Best of Carson where Johnny Carson copied the Reynolds pose but needed a catcher's mitt for adequate coverage

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17896980

No reference to Carson's parody but corrects some of what I said. It was Cosmo and predated Playgirl.

Heh. Such a representative issue of the whole run.

On one hand it really rewards long term reading - continues some long running threads, continues and starts new ones. Memorable moments.

And on the other hand, start of the terrible terrible not good at all Jean Grey Clone Saga.