X-Men: "This One Will Kill You!"

Uncanny X-Men #123 (1979)

By Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Terry Austin

Background: The current X-Men roster is Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus and Banshee, who however has recently lost his powers.

So, What Happens? After a brief meeting with Spider-Man, Scott Summers and Colleen Wing are kidnapped by Arcade, who a short time later also gets Nightcrawler, Colossus and their dates for the opera, Wolverine, Banshee and Storm. Spidey, who had met Arcade before, tries to warn the X-Men but is too late. The heroes awaken in full costume inside the balls of a gigantic pinball machine, only to be shot out and separated inside the new Murderworld. Cyclops finds himself inside a room with three doors, whose wall will squash him if he opens the wrong one; Colossus lands in a dark room where an alleged KGB colonel accuses him of having betrayed Russia; Wolverine is in a hall of mirrors where he's attacked by deformed android copies of himself; Nightcrawler is attacked by deadly dodge-em cars; Banshee by replica war planes; Storm, finally, is in a room where her elemental powers are reflected against her. Cyclops is the first to break out of his trap and find Wolverine, but the two of them are assaulted by a brainwashed Colossus, now calling himself The Proletarian and bent on killing them.

Notes: The story's full title is "Listen-- stop me if you've heard it-- but this one will kill you!" referring a common phrase when making a joke. Colleen Wing is a friend and occasional love interest of Iron Fist, whose title - for a time written by Claremont and Byrne - had recently been cancelled and then paired with Power Man. Spider-Man had fought Arcade alongside Captain Britain in Marvel Team-Up #66, at the end of which they had managed to break free and destroy Murderworld. When Scott and Colleen are captured, Dr. Strange's Sancta Sanctorum is visible in the background.

Something Silly This Way Comes: Spidey's prolonged cameo must be one of his most pointless guest appearances ever. Also, instant androids?

Review: Arcade and Murderworld are two concepts so rooted in the '70s that they are always on the cusp between being genuinely fun and failing miserably. It's therefore a good thing that they are quite enjoyable here in a silly sort of way, because at least half the issue involves just a lot of setting up that could have been covered in half the space, along with plenty of references to other books and a useless Spider-Man cameo that doesn't really add anything to the rest of the story. 

Is this tale any good then? Yes, but only up to a point. The introduction, featuring how each X-Man got kidnapped, is not all bad as it provides some insight into Scott's and Logan's private lives and relationships, but it does take space away from the rest of the issue, so much so that the ending seems to come abruptly and Cyclops' escape is far too easy to be credible, undermining the entire idea of Murderworld as a serious threat. On the other hand, the X-Men had experienced some fairly serious adventures recently, and were about to enter the Hellfire Club and Dark Phoenix storylines, so it's likely that Claremont and Byrne wanted to break the tension with something a little more lighthearted for a couple of months.

To cut a long story short, this issue is ok but nothing memorable, and certain not a masterpiece. The various traps are inventive but not particularly original, and even the art seems to lack the usual amount of expressivity and detail. For the most part I agree that jumping from one landmark storyarc to another too soon makes them all commonplace and dilutes the tension, but I wish more effort had been put into this story.

Final Verdict: A bit of a filler, but it has its good moments. 3/5