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Uncanny X-Men Special #1: Review

Jun 2014

Sean Ryan, Ron Ackins

Story Name:

No end in sight Part 1 of 3: Breaking in

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Rating:

Uncanny X-Men Special #1 Review by Rob Johnson (August 30, 2014)

Cyclops' brother Havok is of course with the Uncanny X-Men Unity Squad. The 3rd brother is Vulcan who took over the Shi'ar empire, leading to the X-Men: Kingbreaker and War Of Kings limited series. Iron Man had a lot of dealings with Death's Head during ##6-16 of his late series - his space adventures while not with the Guardians Of The Galaxy. As there this is obviously the original Death's Head from various 1980's Marvel UK series (and some US appearances such as Fantastic Four #338). He was replaced by Death's Head II on 1990's Marvel UK, but time-travel means he can still crop up in eg the SWORD mini-series. They both featured in the recent Revolutionary War issue.

This is penciller Ron Ackins 1st comics job. The same will be true of Rahmat Handoko in Iron Man Special #1. Part 2 of this story in IM Sp#1 will reveal that the man with the eye-patch is Monark Starstalker. Cyclops, Emma Frost, Magik and Magneto are hunted as terrorists after Avengers vs X-Men. They took over the old Weapon X facility in Canada and in All-New X-Men they set up a school for young mutants, an alternative to the Wolverine-run Jean Grey school in Prof X's Westchester mansion. They found new mutants Tempus, Triage, Benjamin Deeds and Goldballs, and then Emma Frost brought in her clone daughters the Stepford Cuckoos. The Cuckoos called Irma and Mindee here are the same 1. Originally named Irma she recently started calling herself Mindee. Why Triage uses Irma and Deeds says Mindee I don't know, especially as Chris Muse is supposedly developing a relationship with her.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Uncanny X-Men Special #1 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

A costumed man with an eye-patch is very worried about a task someone is performing for him.

A bunch of kids at the alternate X-school (Benjamin Deeds, Goldballs (Fabio Medina), Tempus (Eva Bell) and Triage (Chris Muse)) are watching a video of the original New Mutants, including Magik in her sunnier days. The current darker Magik fends off their questions.

Cyclops calls the 4 students for flight training, where they're joined by the 3 (surviving) Stepford Cuckoos. Chris tries to find out about the New Mutants from Cuckoo Irma. When they're in the air Cyclops hands control of the plane to Fabio. But suddenly they are attacked, and Scott has to do a forced landing.

3 mercenaries, leader the robot bounty hunter Death's Head, step out of a strange craft. The telepathic Cuckoos can't tell what they want, so Cyclops exits the plane and hits the mercs with his optic blast. The cyborg pair respond with heavy fire. Cyclops responds by getting Goldballs to fire lots of his solid golden balls at them, and tells Triage to call Magik and Emma Frost for help.

But the mercenaries break in through the roof of the plane, so the students flee through the door. Cyclops fights a rearguard action, but is captured by Death's Head with a helmet projectile that latches on to his head and smothers his optic blasts. The trio make their escape with him in their spaceship, and Magik teleports in too late to stop them.

Death's Head and friends take Cyclops to eye-patch guy, and it turns out there's been a misunderstanding. He really wanted Havok, and didn't know there were 2 Summers brothers. ("3 actually" points out Death's Head.) DH refuses to go up against the Avengers to get Havok, at least not for the money he's been promised. E-p guy refuses to pay for Cyclops. But the mercenaries just take the money anyway.

Emma Frost and Magik interrogate the 4 non-Stepford students, but don't get anymore than the Cuckoos were able to show Emma telepathically. She doesn't recognise the abductors, and decides to send Benjamin and 1 of the Cuckoos to infiltrate SWORD, to use their database to identify them.

Benjamin Deeds and Cuckoo Mindee get SWORD uniforms and IDs from somewhere, enter the SWORD ground base and get on a shuttle to the orbiting Peak satellite along with several real young recruits. Ben excuses himself during their induction claiming to need a restroom, but really to find a computer terminal.

Along the way he does run across a bathroom, currently occupied by a gelatinous alien. But eventually he locates a terminal in an empty room and searches the database until he finds a description match for Death's Head.

(Un)fortunately Iron Man happens by at that very moment and recognises the face of the robot bounty hunter. Benjamin's chameleon power kicks in (he can't completely control it) which makes him look like Tony Stark - but Shellhead doesn't recognise his own face.

Ben's mutant pheromones help make Stark believe that he's a real SWORD agent. And Tony offers to help him track DH down, because he knows his usual haunts. Benjamin accepts, much to the disgust of Mindee who's been following events telepathically.

The story continues in IRON MAN SPECIAL #1.