New Mutants (Vol. 1) #1

"Initiation!"
Published March 1983
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciller: Bob McLeod
Inker: Mike Gustovich

What's Going On?
An undisclosed period of time has passed since the events of the New Mutants graphic novel, and not a whole lot has changed.  The kids are still kind of awkward with each other and they are still having trouble controlling their powers.  The highlight of all this is Dani accidentally making Shan relive the death of her parents and her own brutal rape.  Oops!

A while later, the students gather for their first Danger Room training exercise.  The task is simply to cross from one side of the Danger Room to the other, but the training sequence is designed to counter their abilities.  Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Karma and Sunspot all fail in rapid succession.  Psyche, though, has a panic attack and runs away.  While she sulks and works up her nerve to try again, the rest of the team go into town with Stevie Hunter.  When Psyche returns and takes her Danger Room challenge (unsupervised), she passes...and is then struck down by an unseen assailant.  When she awakens, she finds herself in the Danger Room still, but with all the safety modes overridden and danger imminent.

Subplots, Oh the Subplots!
- Moira MacTaggert and Illyana visit London for a meeting with Israeli ambassador Gabrielle Haller.  Gabrielle wants Moira to help her autistic mutant son, although it is not explained how she wanted Moira to help.  The boy's father is Charles Xavier, although Gabrielle wants to hide that fact for some unknown reason.

- As the students head to town, they are followed by government agents as part of Project: Wideawake.  Why the government is following Xavier's students, or how they know about Xavier's school for mutants is not explained.

Writing!
Honestly, the writing feels a little rough in this issue.  The characters haven't really found their groove yet, and there isn't a particularly likable point-of-view character.  It looks like Claremont is trying to make Dani Moonstar the narrative focus in this issue; her nervousness helps with that, but it doesn't erase the broadly-painted stereotype she was portrayed as in the graphic novel.

Art!
Bob McLeod's biggest strengths are how well he portrays distinct characters (face, body, etc.) and their their facial expressions.  Sometimes that leads to goofy-looking scenes, but McLeod's weak scenes are still pretty endearing.

I mean, this is a pretty cute scene, but that is one crowded co-ed bathroom.

The choice to ink and color Dani's mental projections pink does not work as well on the typical cheap comic book paper as it did in Marvel Graphic Novel #4.

This looks less like an innovative way of expressing a superpower and more like a Pepto Bismol nightmare.

Retrospectively Amusing:
- Apparently, there are times where smacking a woman in the face is heroic.  Fun fact!

- I love how eloquent Roberto is in this issue.  He is never portrayed as a dumb character, but the traditional take on the character is certainly more of a party boy than a wordsmith.

- Apparently, the entrance to Storm's attic bedroom is in Kitty Pryde's room.  That doesn't seem awkward at all.  I suppose the other explanation is that several rooms have entrances to the attic, but that's still awkward and weird.

- Moira brings Illyana to London for a meeting with an ambassador because...she is a background character that Claremont likes to include in things, I guess.

- When Roberto asks if the students will become the new X-Men, he prefaces it by saying that he has been in the library, reading about the history of the school.  While it doesn't surprise me that Xavier would keep case files about his team's adventures, I would think that information would be sensitive enough to not leave in books kept in the school library.

- Xavier states that he will never have a team of super-heroes again.  Obviously, that shows the man in mourning, but it's hilarious in retrospect, especially after the publication of of X-Men: Deadly Genesis.

- Xavier lists himself, Moira MacTaggert, and Stevie Hunter as the adults that may supervise Danger Room sequences.  It seems like Claremont was preparing for Stvie to have a fairly large supporting role in this book.  I wonder how long that lasts?

Worth Noting:
- Dani, Rahne, and Roberto get their code-names this issue; they are Psyche, Wolfsbane, and Sunspot, respectively. 

- The scene with Gabrielle Haller is the first reference to Xavier's son, Legion, although his first appearance will not come for at least another year.

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.