6. Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #187 & 188 ... Marvel ...

And now we come to the big one: the Uncanny X-Men, the start of my comics addiction and the start of modern comics mania! How many years was there only ONE mutant title? And how many years did the mutants rule the top of the sales charts? And wasn't the X-Men cartoon a huge hit? And so was the movie that led to huge revival of all comic movies, right? Hehehehehe! Yes, I know, my opinion.

Anyhow, 188 was my first purchase from the newsagents at Hutton Lane (see? I still remember even though it was way back in the 80s) and the earlier issue was from Mile High back issue bins.

This tale of the X takes place as the X-men have gone through some harrowing times and seeing their ranks severely depleted until it is hitting almost rock bottom. Cyclops had departed. Storm had lost her powers. Wolverine had gone off to Japan with Kitty. So who is left? Nightcrawler and Colossus with recently joined Rogue. Yup 3 people and 2 are more of the super-strength and near invulnerable department - rather limited eh?

And still these 2 issues rocked!

We have the team recovering from their hard earned victories especially a recently depowered Storm and what should happen except that after their guest-starring roles in Rom the Spaceknight, Rom's enemies the Dire Wraiths (aliens using sorcery) should come invade the X-Men's books. That's apparent in 187 and that's also what was slowly but surely happening across the Marvel books as the threat of the Dire Wraiths is finally coming to a boil

On a subplot end (it's by Claremont so you know that there will be tons of subplots that may take years to sort out), we have Rachel Grey (new to our timeline)
overhearing a debate amongst the X-Men and lashes out when she hears that Jean Grey is dead! You see, the X-Men has no idea that in her timeline, Jean is Rachel's mother! Yup, that's the X-universe for you. So not much in terms of a threat in 188 but more of an intense soap opera which is fine ... it's entertaining and makes them a wee bit more relatable than say ... DC heroes of that time ... hehehe!

I loved it and easily rated 187 a 7-pointer while 188 gets an 8-pointer