Issue(s): Uncanny X-Men #184
Cover Date: Aug 84
Title: "The past... of future days"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
John Romita Jr. - Penciler
Dan Green - Inker

Review/plot:
In this issue, we meet Forge...

...as he meets with Valerie Cooper and Mystique, in her Raven Darkholme form. He's a weapons designer who picked up contracts when Tony Stark stopped selling weapons to the government.

Forge is building Analyzer and Neutralizer weapons based on ROM's. They're unable to crack them completely, but he's attempted to duplicate both. He's got the Analyzer down, but hasn't yet tested the Neutralizer. He says it will neutralize the power of any super-being, mutant or otherwise.

But he's not sure if the effect is permanent or temporary or what the side effects are.

Actually, the Analyzer doesn't seem to be complete either. He runs the device and declares that a mutant is in the room.

Right before Mystique kills both him and Val, he laughs and declares that he's the mutant.

Forge also has a crazy hologram set up in his main room. It's also dangerous. The stair platforms are free floating and it's said that people have fallen from the five story drop.

The hologram is complete with smells, wind, and even illusionary fauna.

A little over-scripting here, right? Both characters are clearly ducking the eagle illusion. But reading the dialogue, you'd think only Val was concerned.

As Val and Mystique are arriving, Forge is having an argument with an older Native American named Naze, who is upset that Forge is denying his destiny and not helping with what sounds like a pretty major problem. Naze says

The ancient patterns are being broken, the proper order of things overturned! The fabric of life itself is unravelling!

After the Forge scene, we switch to Rachel Summers, who is in New York trying to figure out what to do after her failure to reach Professor X. It's beginning to dawn on her that she didn't travel back to the right timeline.

As we saw last issue, Selene is also in New York, and when she detects Rachel's power, she pursues her.

After a long chase and battle...

...Rachel reaches out to Xavier telepathically, and he responds. He fights Selene with his astral form and some of the X-Men soon show up to help in person as well.

Selene flees, and Rachel passes out after declaring that the world is doomed.

I don't know why, but i didn't love this issue. I guess it's partially because the X-Men are barely in it and not enough is done to establish why Rachel is here. Also the art seems a little... thinner?... than usual, even though it's the same great art team as past issues.

Anyway, it's still good.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 6 - first Forge. First Naze.

Chronological Placement Considerations: Due to the subplot with Valerie Cooper and Mystique driving in Dallas last issue and arriving at Forge's place this issue, this needs to take place soon after Uncanny X-Men #183. But it also needs to take place after Rachel Summer's appearance in New Mutants #18. We need to push all of the X-Men and New Mutants books back in publishing time to get Warlock's arrival on Earth prior to Marvel Team-Up annual #7 due to some Spider-Man dependencies.

References:

• Rachel Summers watches a replay of the X-Men fighting the dragon from Uncanny X-Men #181 on a storefront TV.
  
• Rachel recently attempted to reach Professor Xavier in New Mutants #18.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Forge's shorts...guh.

"The Past...of Future Days" or, as we know it, the present.

In Ms. Marvel 17, Mystique mentions to Ballard something about "your culture", implying she's not a part of it. True, we know that her nationality of origin is not North American, but given that she was shown reporting to a strange alien-looking man she calls "Lord" in the next issue, I wonder if Claremont originally intended her to be an alien or something similar!? Interestingly "Lord" looked a bit like Nightcrawler, complete with pointed ears.

Claremont develops this idea further here in Uncanny X-Men #184 where upon Forge switching on the scanner he designed capable of identifying human, mutant, Kree, Skrull, Wraith, etc. it identifies only one mutant ...himself ... failing to pick up on Raven's mutant signature.

While Forge might have chosen to not give Raven's identity away, his reaction seems to suggest her power being the result of something else?

While the technology could pick up aliens too, would he not be more likely to give her up if she was alien as opposed to one of his own kind?

His comments after scanning the room suggest he is surprised about Raven's reactions, but if he picked up that she was like himself a mutant, he surely wouldn't have been.

So why didn't the tech identify her as a mutant?

What is Mystique really then?

"What is Mystique really then?"

A Kree agent with an image inducer (or actual shapechanging powers - perhaps a skrull double-agent?), sent to Earth to spy on Ms Marvel, obviously.

No idea how she's passed for a human mutant with a ridiculous and overlong backstory since...

Maybe she reads as a human when she changes into one?

Most people never liked Rachel, but I do, especially now. I first read this back when I was a teenager and was never bothered by all of her whining. I just thought it was cool that Claremont used her again after her appearance in Days of Future Past. I wanted to know more about her and her future.

Selene, however, I never liked back then, but now I appreciate her more after re-reading a lot of her early stories.