MICRONAUTS MONDAY: X-MEN AND THE MICRONAUTS NO.4 - DOPPELGANGER!

The X-Men and the Micronauts vol.1 No.4
Writer: Bill Mantlo/Chris Claremont
Artist: Butch Guice / Bob Wiacek
Letterer: Rick Parker
Colorist: Julianna Ferriter
Editor: Bob Budiansky
EIC: Jim Shooter

How's my enthusiasm level? ::checks dipstick, frowns, tries to put on brave face:: Let's wrap this up.

I'm pretty sure that this issue begins with the Entity -- currently inhabiting Professor X's body, and rolling undetected around the X-Mansion -- psychically molesting Danielle Moonstar. Dani's been running around these four issues in bikini bottoms and a t-shirt, and now she's getting brain-raped by her headmaster's Naughty Thoughts Come To Life.

Fuck every single word of this.

This is a real problem with Xavier* and I sort of think it's his responsibility to mention it in the school literature. "My brain is often filled with evil versions of myself who can change reality on a whim plus sometimes when that happens my evil brain guy will touch your children. We also have donuts in the Student Union every Friday." Probably also Xavier primarily uses Cerebro to introduce himself to other psychics and explain that he's on the Psychic Sex Offender Registry ... "I'm required by law to inform you that I mind-groped a mutant."

(*The problem is with Claremont, and I've been wrestling for a little while with how to address the question in a single paragraph. I admire a lot about Claremont's infusion of admittedly-often-skeevy sex-positivity into his comics -- in the ever-chaste world of comics, at least sex existed in the X-Men! Maybe it manifested primarily as every female character roiling with pulsing sapphic desire, but there were frequent depictions of happy, rewarding sex between assorted characters and, you know, questions that the readers themselves might be wondering about with few other sources to provide guidance. But damn, the brain rapes and universal longing for domination and excess ... there were some bad, destructive ideas floating around there, but I may as well leave it at "In conclusion, Chris Claremont is a land of contradictions ...")

Grossed out by that, actually. A terrible way to open the story, especially since the last issue ended with Professor X's mean twin tryna stick his prong into a literal child. In fact, much of the comic has centered on Kitty Pryde's degradation, the violation of her principles, body and mind. She's about to get beaten up by her friends, too, let's watch and learn ...

Dark Kitty.

Karza, wearing Pryde's body, decides to kill all of her briefly-affiliated allies with a sniper rifle. That is a bad way to kill ::counts on fingers:: more than one person at a time, so it's no surprise that Nightcrawler pops up out of nowhere and belts Kitty across the mush. While Karza/Kitty (the tyrannical sci-fi version of Hello Kitty) retreats to his/her hideout in the Entity's fuck-attic, Xavier mentally connects with Kitty/Karza (the tyrannical sci-fi version of Kitty Kelley). This leads Kitty/Karza to a confrontation with Karza/Kitty that gets completely fucked up when the X-Men and Micronauts show up.

There's a brief irrelevant fight, after which everyone's on the same page. Karza/Kitty dons a new costume to show off how he's/she's evil, and it's hilarious. I wish they had given us a costume montage of Baron Karza picking out exactly which shade of high-heel magenta bootie to wear.

That's cute, but the Entity is now using Cerebro to attack the Enigma Force itself, threatening the Microverse in its entirety! The combined forces of the X-Men, the Micronauts, and a surprisingly okay-with-this-situation Baron Karza launch a final assault on the X-Mansion back on Earth. Unfortunately for them, the New Mutants have all been mind-controlled by The Entity and launch an attack on the returning Bioship (and its tiny inhabitants).

And since I'm on the topic of the New Mutants, it seems a good time to finally point out that this isn't really much of a Micronauts book. I suppose I could go back and re-read these other crossovers, but I feel like most of the early X-Men crossover series were really about the X-Men first and whatever other team second. Except the one with the Fantastic Four, that thing is golden. What was I saying?

I imagine him singing these lines.

So, yes, this is an X-Men story in which the Micronauts warm the bench for the most part. So very little of the Micronauts' universe plays a role in the story, besides the settings, and even the character elements of the narrative all reflect on Professor X and Kitty Pryde more than anyone else. Hindsight grants us consumers of entertainment a great deal of perspicacity, but there also seem to be four or five better premises for this crossover. Sorry Bill. Sorry Chris.

Lockheed is summoned to join the fight, cleaning house on the New Mutants. This is not terribly much help to anyone involved, since the New Mutants have basically murdered Bioship. Lying in a pool of team member Magma's mutant lava, the ship is rapidly perishing while he tries to keep Professor X's body alive by remote control. X and the Entity are battling it out on the psychic plane, while someone remembered that Fireflyte is basically a portable Deus Ex Machina and she manages to return Kitty and Karza to their own bodies.

Karza fucks off, Xavier beats the Entity, and Bioship fucking dies and it's never mentioned again. Storm even gives a speech about how they'll never forget Bioship's sacrifice, and no one stops to mention that actually probably they could've just picked him up outta the magma and let him rest up for a week?

Bioship literally chooses to die -- for expediency's sake.  The X-Men need to be returned to normal size, the Micronauts need to go back to the Microverse, and Bioship doesn't have the energy to do all of that AND live. So instead of putting the guy in the shop for a week, maybe patch him up with some'a that fancy Shi'ar alien technology, they just make him make the X-Men big again and he dies. I have so many questions about why that worked out like that. Also, Magma should go to jail.

The X-Men and the Micronauts, the end! Next week, back to the Micronauts for the last three issues of the original series, and then I need to figure out what I'm doing after that!

"Hello? Nightcrawler? Hello?"