Uncanny X-Men #164

"Binary Star!"
Published: December 1982
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: Dave Cockrum
Inker: Bob Wiacek

What's Going On?
The X-Men are aboard their spaceship, on the run from the Brood.  Since the X-Men are unwittingly acting as incubators for the next generation of Brood queens, the Brood are at a disadvantage; they need the X-Men alive, but some of the X-Men are willing to kill the Brood to escape.  Actually, we just see Carol Danvers destroying Brood ships without remorse.  When Storm accidentally kills some Brood with her (space?) lightning, she freaks out and stops fighting.  Predictably, the X-Men fight off the Brood and escape to the relative safety of...um...somewhere else in space.  The less predictable part of that escape was the emergence of Carol Danvers' new cosmic powers and code name.  As Binary, Danvers is a heavy hitter, able to take out several spacecraft and fuel another without breaking a sweat.  Once they have a moment to breathe, Storm uses her women's intuition to determine that she's pregnant with evil; she freaks the hell out and takes off in an escape pod.  At that point, Wolverine pretty much has to tell the team about the Brood eggs.  While everyone is furious, only Binary has the power and lack of consideration to blow a hole in the side of the hatch and fly off to hunt some Brood, leaving the rest of the team to experience the joy of explosive decompression.

Subplots, oh the Subplots!
- Well, Carol Danvers' journey to becoming a new superhero was less of a slow burn and more of a "Hey, I've got new powers now!"  One issue of her suffering from a mysterious malady, and the next she has a new power set, uniform, and code name.  Why would she need a new code name?  What part of her new abilities would not make sense with the name Ms. Marvel?

- While the X-Men continue their space story, we check in with Professor Xavier and Colossus' sister, Illyana back at the mansion.  This is the first time we've seen Xavier in this title since the X-Men disappeared; he is understandably depressed, but his attitude is hilarious:

It's like Xavier is a Goth kid who is too cool to care.


Art!
Check out Colossus' "thinking" face:

Did he just admit to being stupid?

Writing!
Kitty Pryde actually utters this line: "Star Wars was never like this!"  Way to tap into the mind of an American teenager, Claremont.

Retrospectively Amusing:
- Xavier shows absolutely no signs of having a Brood egg inside him.  This winds up being a major subplot in The New Mutants when that title launches a few months later, so it's interesting that Claremont was not foreshadowing this bit from the start (or hadn't come up with that plot yet).

- The ad for Saturday morning cartoons included a show called Pandamonium, which appears to involve talking pandas and...an evil sorcerer?  How did this show fail?!?