Shadow and Flame with Magik

Writer Chris Claremont

Artists John Romita Jr. & Dan Green

Colorist Glynis Oliver

Letterer Tom Orzechowski

Cover Dated October 1986

Cover Artists John Romita Jr., Bob Wiacek & Danny Crespi

Cool that the cover letterer got some credit.  That is a great cover!

This issue is titled, The Morning After, but it could have been titled “The Morning After and yet, Before” with how it teases Mutant Massacre.

Issue opens with Richard Salmons, who is a Hellfire Guard, trying to run away with Morlock Tommy (not sure what her mutant name is).  Salmons gets shot and electrified.  Tommy is spooked and runs off.  The Marauders are the ones who are chasing them.  They are ruthless here.  They kill Salmons, and they are not afraid of making enemies with the Hellfire Club.

Tommy, using her mutant power to become as thin as paper, and slips into a moving train car.

Meanwhile, Dazzler is a brunette and turning down an offer to go drink with the band.  This isn’t her band but Lila Cheney’s.  They know she is Dazzler, well, everyone knows she is Dazzler after her movie came out so that’s why she is a brunette now.  The band will keep he secret as Lila is also a mutant.

Dazzler sees a vision of Malice in the mirror and blacks out, so Malice now has control over Dazzler.

Rogue if flying about New York City, her clothes are tattered.  She files past the old X-Factor headquarters.  She saves two guys, and has to make a point of touching her bare skin with theirs.  Rogue flies off and catches her reflection and she is in rough shape.  She takes a break from looking for Rachel and goes to Bloomingdales.

Last issue, the X-Men were attacked by Nimrod and the Hellfire Club.  Rachel turned her attention to Selene, the Black Queen, and almost killed her.  The only thing that stopped her was that Wolverine stabbed her with his claws, almost killing her.

Rogue tries on some outfits and gets made up.  Her fashion sense is so 1986.  People start recognizing her from saving the people earlier.  They overheard her saying that she is an X-Man.  Some old dude shouts that she is a mutie and doesn’t deserve to be treated with any respect.  One of the guys she saved earlier stands up for her.  Rogue flies off and notices a sign for X-Factor on a bus.

Colossus was thinking about his kid sister when he first joined the team, as he drew several sketches with the intention of mailing them to her but she doesn’t have the time.  I imagine Xavier also gave him a talking to about being an X-Man and trying to keep in touch with his old family.  Also, shipping to Russia.

Illyana is worried about Kitty, who is upset with the treatment Rachel received.  The attempted murder of Rachel, I should type.  Illyana is Kitty’s best friend but she can’t get through to her.

Colossus hasn’t gotten over Kitty, and how could he, living in the same mansion with her, must be a constant reminder about how he cheated on her with some alien chick who didn’t even survive the experience.

Downstairs, in the Mansion’s Central Wing, the headmaster’s private study.  Can one even have a central wing?  Isn’t the term, wings, suppose to imply that they are on the sides of the main building?  Maybe I’m making too much out of one description box.

Shadowcat is tinkering away on Cerebro.  Lockheed is curled up on the console.

I refer to Kitty’s blue costume as her Excalibur Blue Sweater outfit but she did start wearing it after Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, years before Excalibur started, I just so associate it with that title.

Kitty really has gotten better at her powers, being able to have portions of her body phased and other portions of it being solid.  To the point of even having part of her arm phased while another part is solid, that is incredible mastery!

She finishes her complicated procedures.  She gives herself a pat on the back as Lockheed isn’t that impressed.

Kitty made modifications to Cerebro so that she can track Rachel and Nightcrawler easier.  That’s what happens when you lack a telepath on the team but keep telepathic enabled technology around.

Kitty wonders if they should even find their injured teammates.  Maybe their lives are better off away from all of this mutant fighting nonsense.

Lockheed is so cute, licking her face.

The Rasputin siblings come in, as they were listening on the other side of the door.

The actual comic, this page is on the left page and where Kitty calls Piotr by his full first and middle names, mirrors when he called Illyana by her first and middle name on the previous left page, both on the bottom row of the page.  It just works out nicely that way.  I’m sure Romita purposely laid it out that way.

Kitty craves a hot fudge quad scoop sundae banana-rama split with all the trimmings.  I’m not much for sundaes.

Lockheed must weight, what ten to fifteen pounds?  He must feel super heavy on one’s head.  I guess you just get use to it but that’s where he prefers to rest.

I really should have reviewed issue 209 first, as I’m having a hard time remembering exactly the sequence of events.  The X-Men were all fighting Nimrod, the Hellfire Club shows up.  Once Rachel saw Selene, she split and started a fight with her.  That’s my memory of it.  Not exactly sure how Nightcrawler got injured.

Colossus references how time changes all things as Magneto started off as the X-Men’s greatest foe and now he runs the school.  Which means, this is Magneto’s office they are having this chat in.

Cerebro has found either Kurt or Rachel’s location.

Manhattan, Fifth Avenue.  Magneto lands and changes the molecular level of his uniform so that it looks like a business suit.  It still has the protection of armor but it gentle on the skin.

He is there to meet with the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle.  He sees that X-Factor is being interviewed.  The press thinks they are humans and rather deal with humans over the Avengers, who live down the street.  What they don’t know is that X-Factor consists of the Original Five X-Men.  To which, Magneto discovers for himself that is who makes up X-Factor, as before, they were just dudes and a red head in blue jumpsuits.  He mistakenly thinks the red head is Maddie, Scott’s wife but it is really Jean.  I forget why X-Factor never called the X-Men to sort out their cover story and to let them know that Jean is alive.  Too busy, I imagine, was the reasoning.  The real world reason is that they were waiting for a big reveal moment.

X-Factor’s cover story is that they are humans who hunt down or respond to mutant calls and deal with the threats.  The world suspects they kill or lock up the mutant menace but instead, they train them and house them.

Magneto doesn’t say high and moves into the club.  Shaw wants to make a deal with Magneto, it is time to stop fighting fellow mutants and start working together.  If the X-Men refuse, then the Inner Circle will not come to the X-Men’s aid.

Later in a derelict Hudson River warehouse.

Poor Kurt is having to defend himself against yet another mob.  There is no Xavier to quite these flatscanners.  He is too weak to teleport away.

The floor above Nightcrawler.  Kitty, Colossus and Illyana teleport in.  They are not wearing their uniforms.  Colossus figures the best way to handle the situation is to try to reason with the monsters.

The humans are all types of frighten as recently X-Factor had to fight off two mutants that really messed things up for everybody and now the humans feel bold enough to talk mutants themselves, as someone has to do it.

Colossus starts trying to make a speech but Kitty pushes the big idiot aside.  This was referenced in the Drawing Patterns article that featured Kitty Pryde’s love for speech making.  It didn’t make the top five examples but one of the commenters, er, commenting on it.

I really like how Kitty implies that these three normal looking peeps could be of mutants themselves.  She even goes as far as to reveal their actual powers.  One would think someone in the back of the room is probably thinking those are very specific power references.

Poor Kurt is force to sit there, be rescued and hear yet another of Kitty’s speeches.

The crowd dispenses and Kitty gets to talk to her dear friend, Kurt.  He tells her that he no longer as access to his powers.

From the Checklist, they are really promoting New Universe.  Issues that are being published – New Mutants 44 / Alpha Flight 39, crossing over with Avengers 272 / X-Men 210, with X-Factor, but barely / X-Factor 9 / Classic X-Men 2 / Marvel Age Annual 2 / X-Factor Annual 1 and New Mutants Annual 2.

The Delacorte Theatre.  Wolverine and Storm are chatting.  Wolverine is rethinking if he should have stabbed Rachel, he shouldn’t have.  Storm assures him that the situation should never have gotten that far.

Issue ends with the Morlock making it to the Tunnels.  The Marauders have been successfully following her and they just straight up kill her.