Uncanny X-Men #161

“Gold Rush!”

Published: September 1982

Writer: Chris Claremont

Penciler: Dave Cockrum

Inker: Bob Wiacek

What’s going on?

Professor Xavier is in a coma, psychically fighting “an alien consciousness” that is trying to take over his mind.  While the X-Men, Starjammers, and Xavier’s girlfriend, Lilandra, wring their hands helplessly and hope for the best, Xavier is reliving a similar situation from “twenty years ago.”  In this flashback, we see a young (but still bald) Xavier treating Gabrielle Haller at an Israeli psychiatric hospital.  Gaby has been catatonic for years, thanks to the horrors she witnessed in Dachau, and her doctor has asked his old friend Xavier to help as a last-ditch effort.  Naturally, to avoid suspicion, Xavier spends several weeks slowly breaking down her mental barriers cures her immediately.  At the hospital, Xavier meets a volunteer named Magnus, a survivor of Auschwitz.  The two immediately bond, according to the script.  It’s hard to see why, since Magnus is pretty brusque and comes across as an extremist nut whenever the conversation veers toward politics, genetics, sociology, or just about anything.  Meanwhile, Xavier shows some questionable judgement when he enters into a romantic relationship with his patient, Gaby.  Then Hydra strikes, kidnaps Gaby, and Xavier and Magnus must reveal their mutant powers to each other and save the day.  Then Magnus becomes evil and steals a bunch of Nazi gold on his way to becoming the villainous Magneto.

Subplots, oh the Subplots!

• Cyclops reacts poorly to the Professor’s illness, and by “poorly,” I of course mean “like a total dick.”  Granted, the man has gone through a lot recently, with the death of his love, Jean Grey, and giving up the reins of the X-Men to Storm — but it is scenes like this that make Cyclops difficult to like.
• This is the beginning of the Brood storyline in proper; the past several issues have had Xavier dealing with a mysterious sickness, but this is where it is revealed to be an alien creature called the Brood.
• The last page has Deathbird usurping the Shi’ar throne from Lilandra and the Brood claiming the X-Men as “host-forms for the spawn of…the ‘mother-of-us-all!’”
• This story becomes retroactively important when Legion travels back in time to this era during the “Legion Quest” storyline.

The Retroactively Amusing:

This story was written back when Marvel allowed their characters to age in something approaching real-time.  That means that the pre-X-Men Xavier and Magneto are in their early-to-mid thirties. 

While it’s not unheard of for a man that young to be completely bald or have shock-white hair, I do think it is funny that the two don’t age a day over the next twenty years of comics (Erik the Red notwithstanding).

The Not-As-Retroactively Creepy:
Xavier seduces his patient, Gabrielle Haller.  That seems like a really terrible idea.  Oh, well, he must not have realized what a mad idea that was at the time…

Professor Xavier is a jerk.  On a side note, does the fifteen-ish years Gaby spent catatonic mean that she is still mentally a child?  Does that make Xavier even worse here?

Everything 80's:
This is the back-cover ad for this issue:

I sure don’t remember anything about MegaForce, but it looks awesomely bad.

The last page of this otherwise unremarkable flashback story has 1) a royal coup 2) all the X-Men defeated in a single panel 3) a lead-in to the next several months of stories.  Chris Claremont may be known for his decompressed storytelling, but the man has moments where he likes to cram absolutely everything in at once.