Issue(s): Uncanny X-Men #230
Cover Date: Jun 88
Title: "'Twas the night..."
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Marc Silvestri - Penciler
Josef Rubinstein - Inker
Terry Kavanagh - Assistant Editor
Ann Nocenti - Editor

Review/plot:
This issue starts with a nice moment: Storm getting a chance to revel in the fact that she's gotten her powers back.

Note that she also has a new costume.

The rest of the issue is about the X-Men settling into this new headquarters that they've taken from the Reavers. Madelyne Pryor finds it very easy to figure out their computer systems.

Some interesting things about those scenes, including Madelyne saying for sure that it was the Marauders who took her baby (why didn't she convey that as part of her television message to Cyclops?) and the fact that Madelyne is wishing for the means to make the Marauders pay and a narration panel saying that Madelyne should be careful of what she wishes for.

Also note from the first scan that the idea that the Reavers had extraordinary technology is both teased and hand-waved away as being due to the fact that the whole world was at their disposal. I don't know if the idea at this point was really to create a mystery or just to provide the X-Men with advanced technology as part of their new status quo.

But back to the settling in. Storm does a full fledged purging of the headquarters after Dazzler discovers a... something under the bed in the room she's chosen for herself.

And the biggest part is after Longshot is into the Reavers' treasure room and, thanks to his power to feel impressions from objects, gets overloaded by the spirits of all the former owners.

So after some debate, the X-Men decide to figure out who each object used to belong to, and, through Gateway, return it.

It turns out that it's Christmas Eve, so the X-Men are basically playing Santa Claus.

Which is actually a little weird, because i figure most objects are items of value stolen from bank vaults, museums, or the very wealthy. I don't know what could possibly have been of enough worth to the Reavers but also would make sense as a present to go under the Christmas tree. Are Timmy and Sally getting their gold-plated Sony Walkmans back? But it's a feel-good Christmas story, so just go with it.

Storm also takes the opportunity to look in on Magneto and the New Mutants.

The other cool thing in this issue is seeing Rogue do some outreach towards Gateway.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Longshot is unconscious for "days" after his initial contact with the stolen goods. I'm placing this prior to Alpha Flight #61 since their headquarters seem more cleaned up in that appearance. Also - and i say every year i won't do this but i seem to do it anyway - i'm placing this next to Daredevil #253 and X-Factor #27 since both issues take place during Christmas. The MCP has the New Mutants cameo between New Mutants #66-67.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Note that this issue the X-Men have to track down the owners and inform Gateway where the owners are before he can teleport them to the owners. Next issue, he can teleport Peter to Illyana without knowing specifically where Illyana is. This inconsistency regarding Gateway's powers is never adequately explained.
We've known since Uncanny X-Men 223 that Maddie knew the Marauders took her son- Maddie thinks about how the Marauders stole her son and left her for dead. As for why she didn't convey that message keep in mind that (a) they were in the middle of a battle with a demon and (b) Maddie didn't know for sure that Scott knew who the Marauders were.

Is this the last time Claremont writes the collective New Mutants before getting fired in 1991?

My theory is that Claremont, who has said he thought of Gateway as a sort of living index--intended Gateway and the computer to be, if not somehow the same, operating on the same principle: the computer, which is alive, accesses information across time and space the way Gateway accesses physical places. Claremont's idea of Dreamtime factors into this somehow. We'll see in an issue or two that the access can be hazardous: once Maddie knocks herself out and goes into a dream state after punching the computer, Gateway observes I her dream as Sym contacts her. Claremont later had plans for the Shadow King to access Dreamtime and attempt to expand his power worldwide (or wider) through Gateway, but we never get to see that play out as CC intended. Clues and fragments are all we have to speculate on.

No, the New Mutants appear next issue (although all but Illyana are unconscious) and then Claremont writes them in Excalibur 8, X-Men Annual 14 and Uncanny X-Men 270-273.

This Christmas was also shown in X-Factor #27.

This may have been answered before, but why are they doing Christmas issues in April/June? Even if the issues were produced around Christmas, they had to know by the time they hit the stands they would be several months late.

Cover dates are actually months off from the actual release dates for reasons that i think relate to subscription vs. in store delivery but maybe someone else can explain better. However, the dates were only off by two to three months so your question is still valid.

The other weird thing is in-story timing. Fall of the Mutants took place during the summer; Rogue comments on the blizzard in Dallas and notes that it's the second time they had snow during the Summer. But then two issues later, it's Christmas. This is especially weird for the X-Factor issues (coming soon), since it means that Ship sat for several months before repairing itself and Apocalypse triggering the bomb.

I knew they were off by a couple of months but spring is pushing it. There's an ASM issue during Inferno that takes place at Christmas. I know that's probably close to a year away real-world time but stuff like that messes with the sliding timescale because it's unlikely the events of Inferno take place a whole year from this point.

Yeah that's why i always say i'm not going to bother lining up Christmas issues even though i have usually been doing it anyway.

I alway assumed Fall of the Mutants took place during a warm Nov or something.

Here's an article on the cover date issue:

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Cover_date?o=2801&qsrc=999&ad=doubleDown&an=apn&ap=ask.com

Here's a little bit of it:

Comic books [edit]
The general practice of most mainstream comic book companies since the creation of the comic book in the 1930s was to date individual issues putting the name of a month (and much later the year as well) on the cover which was generally two months after the actual release date. For example, a 1951 issue of Superman which had the cover date of July would have been published two months earlier from that date in the month of May, generally speaking. In 1973 the discrepancy between the cover date and the publishing date went from two months to three months.[2] In 1989 the cover date and publishing date discrepancy was changed back to two months, though generally each comic book company now uses its own system.

Of the two major American comic book publishers, DC Comics continues to put cover dates on the cover. Marvel Comics stopped putting cover dates on the cover in October 1999; instead, the "cover" date was moved to the indicia on an interior page.

Comic books were four months ahead with the direct market, so X-Factor 27 came out in December and Uncanny X-Men 230 came out in February. It would have come out in January if not for the fill-in in issue 229.
So, fnord, since Marvel had 14 months of comics dated 1989, will you be squeezing fourteen months into your 1989 review?

The X-Men could very well have been in Australia for a few months since evicting the Reavers. It's also possible that when Roma resurrected the team and sent them to Australia she moved them in time as well as space. I think the apparent summer/Xmas problem is easily solved in this case.

In real time, the "Fall" of the Mutants took place in the Autumn, I seem to recall. My guess is that the X-Men's deaths in Dallas took place, in-story, at the end of summer, in early September. And I do kind of choose to be live that Roma was as arbitrary about when she placed the X-Men as where. (We'll see a more troubling inconsistency like this in a little over a year when the X-Men go through the Siege Perilous. Most of them arrive at their new destinations more or less immediately, but Rogue reappears what seems to be quite a bit later, though it's possible UXM 269 takes place out of publication sequence.)

(Actually, 269 can't take place much out of sequence. We'll see when we get there. Point being, if the Siege Perilous can be inconsistent about when it "drops" someone, Rom might be too.)

@Michael, yeah, i'll continue to categorize by year regardless of how many issues of a comic, or how many comics, come out in that year. By the early 90s when Marvel's output explodes that means the year categories will be huge whereas, for example, 1972 is relatively tiny. But the years are just a way to break up the entries instead of having one giant list or arbitrary pagination.

Regarding the release vs. cover dates and Robert's question, if i take your info together with Clyde's and understand it to mean that newstand comics were cover dated two months ahead and direct market books came out an additional two months early, it seems like they were targeting topical subjects like Christmas for the direct market audience and the (shrinking) newstand buyers would be reading about Christmas in February. It's a sign of the changing market, if that's the case.

@Walter, looking at the X-Men independently, what you're saying makes sense. But if i want to keep Christmas together for all books, then this story happens at the same time as X-Factor #27, which is only a day after the Fall of the Mutants based on the newscast Michael cited. Although i'll want to look and see if it's stated that it's actually Christmas day in the X-Factor issue.

Another weird thing- Storm finds out Doug is dead this issue but we don't see any reaction from Betsy for quite some time.

This was one of the final "downtime" X-Men issues I bought in the 80's. It's a nice little Christmas story with great character moments. Ororo and Logan toasting to "best friends," and "what we stand for and fight...to life!" is a charming bit, as is the above ending with Rogue bringing cake to Gateway and listening to him play his music.

I only wish Maddie would have stayed with the team instead of ending up as she did because Marvel had to do something about what Claremont called "the redhead problem."

Love the mother's necklace bit.

So what was under Dazzler's bed?