X-Men and the Micronauts #2

"Into the Abyss!"
Published February 1984
Writers: Chris Claremont and Bill Mantlo
Penciller: Jackson "Butch" Guice
Inkers: Bob Wiacek and Kelley Jones
Cover Artists: Jackson "Butch" Guice and Bob Wiacek

What's Going On?
After being defeated last issue, the Micronauts find themselves split up as a team, fighting an enemy that is attacking them on a physical and emotional level; one by one, they are defeated...and then healed by The Entity as his loyal followers.  Meanwhile, the X-Men split up with Baron Karza, leaving him on Homeworld to build up an army to attack The Entity.  They then use Bioship's mental connection to Commander Ranin to figure out where in the Microverse the Micronauts are, and they go there.  When they arrive, they find themselves in an incredible facsimile of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, only they are about six inches tall and are attacked by full-sized Micronauts, dressed as X-Men and led by Professor Xavier.  Once the X-Men have been defeated, it is revealed that the "Xavier" leading the Micronauts is actually The Entity in disguise.

Sub-Plots, oh the Sub-Plots!
- Baron Karza still has his consciousness switched with Kitty Pryde's.  While he is awake in Kitty's body, he has enough control over his mental powers to control his own body and keep Kitty from assuming control of it.  When he is defeated in Kitty's body by the Entity, it looks as though Kitty has been freed to control Karza's body.

- When Professor Xavier falls asleep in the X-mansion, The Entity weakens and swears to go after the cause of his weakness.

Writing!
Like last issue, the story is pretty evenly split between the Micronauts in the first half and the X-Men in the second half; perhaps Manto and Claremont split their writing chores that way?  In this issue, each member of the Micronauts has a moment in the spotlight, but the X-Men are largely handled as a team.  It makes sense, I suppose, for the lesser-known characters to be fleshed out a bit, since the point of a crossover like this is to draw some of the X-Men readers over to the Micronauts title.  The New Mutants make a brief appearance in this issue, but they primarily serve as background decor.  There really aren't any great moments in this issue, but it does move the plot forward, at least.

Art!
Jackson Guice gets to have some fun with the character spotlights on the Micronauts, but other than that this issue is pretty bland; he seems to have some problems with some of the faces in this issue, but nothing too distracting. 

Primary mutation: weather control.  Secondary mutation: vaguely fish-like head

We do get a slightly better look at The Entity in this issue, but there isn't enough detail to show his face beneath the helmet.  There are two inkers in this issue.  I expected Kelley Jones' inks to have an obvious difference to Wiacek's --- Jones is a very distinctive penciller, so I assumed that his inking would be similarly stylized --- but, for the most part, their work here is difficult to distinguish.  Some of Kelley's trademark tendencies toward teh grotesque do show up in this panel, though:

The Entity's face appears to be inspired by Jason Voorhees

Retrospectively Amusing:
- The Entity comments that all living beings are like toys to him.  Since half the characters in this story are based on toys, I thought that was cute.

Everything 80's:
I'm not saying that comic readers do not enjoy fishing, but this advertisement is targeting an audience that you don't see ads for in modern comics.