Comics / Back Issues

Uncanny X-Men #176

By Leroy Douresseaux
August 2, 2007 - 21:28

It was 1983.  Alan Moore was still a little more than a year from making just about every superhero comic book writer who’d been working in comics for the last two decades irrelevant, so Chris Claremont was still god.

Over time, the Uncanny X-Men had become, under Claremont, a long soap opera in which any one issue nursed a primary story and at least two more subplots.  By 1983, Claremont had written 90+ X-Men comics, and threads of story lines from years earlier were still hanging around.

In Uncanny X-Men #176, the primary storyline revolves around Scott Summer/Cyclops and his new wife, Madelyne Pryor, a Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/Phoenix look-a-like, on a honeymoon from Hell.  Mr. and Mrs. Summers are fighting for their lives after the newlyweds are forced to land their small, twin-engine plane on the open water of the South Pacific.  They’re having engine troubles.  A nasty, summer squall has been stalking their flight path, and then, a giant squid attacks them.

Interspersed throughout that main story are other lingering threads remaining from other stories, and opening scenes of future storylines.  Wolverine visits his Japanese lady friend, Mariko, as he still clings to the hope that they will marry.  Henry Peter Gyrich, government mutant watchdog/secret agent man, sits in on a national security meeting where government officials plot to form their own mutant super group.  Nursing various grudges against their mutant cousins, the X-Men, the Morlocks plan a new offensive to settle scores.

Two decades later, I find myself liking this comic as much as I did when I first read it.  What’s clearer to me now than it was then is that the X-Men under Claremont was a superhero soap opera – a soap opera first and a superhero comic second.  I think The Comics Journal said as much (as often as they could) back in the early 1980’s.  The combination of familiar characters (who were like old friends or even family), recycled plots, recurring conflicts, and well-worn relationships, and a generous cup of melodrama, resulted in the superhero comic as comfy old couch.  I wouldn’t call it nostalgia so much as I would describe it as finding joy and comfort in favorite stories read again and again.

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Last Updated: November 29, 2025 - 16:51