Uncanny X-Men #190

[iamrman]

Kulan Gath has remade Manhattan in to a land of barbarians and it is awesome!

Spider-Man is the only one who wasn’t changed because Kulan Gath wants revenge on him after that Marvel Team-Up issue where Mary Jane was possessed by Red Sonja.

Reality might have been remade, but Selene is still fixated on Rachel and Amara.

Comments

[petermilley]

I'm amazed this only went on for what, two issues? I can't help but think today it would be at least a six-issue miniseries with spin-off issues in a dozen different titles.

[beyondthefringe]

X-Men: Age of Kulan. A core mini, crossovers in half a dozen ongoing, and 12 2-3 issues minis. Because you need to know what Cloak and Dagger are doing during this. Or the Punisher.

[scorntx]

Two issues? That's an insanely short one by Claremont standards...

[zylly]

...I really, really hate how right you are. How many times have we heard "this was just supposed to be a story arc in book x, but the editors convinced us to do it as a crossover instead?"

[scelestus]

This was such a cool arc!

[cainofdreaming]

Note to self: never pick up loose jewelry. It just leads to extra arms and no deodorant for thousands of years.

[mazway_75]

Claremont doing a stint on the regular Spider-Man title might have been fun, he captured Peter well.

[cainofdreaming]

I thought it was Kulan Gath who captured him?

I think I'd prefer to be captured by Gath.

[bravest_spinja]

Claremont did in fact write a year or so on Marvel Team-Up--Byrne was actually with him most of it. This was where Arcade first appeared and the Tigra issue was, well...on brand for the duo.

[beyondthefringe]

Definitely a classic story. And it hit pretty hard back then for the surprising brutality and casualties and hardcore action.
Thank goodness it’s never been substantially revisited to my knowledge.i don’t even think it got a What If or nod in Secret Wars. No alternate world for this scenario!

[mastermahan]

It actually has been revisited a few times. The Exiles ended up there once, Gath did the spell again in Silverclaw's country once, and to New York again in a Spider-Man/Red Sonja crossover. Which is still not bad for a well-remembered story from Claremont's X-Men.

[beyondthefringe]

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about those. Nothing goes to waste, does it. :)

[cainofdreaming]

He also had a city in the Antarctic during Savage Avengers, though since there weren't any natives the barbarianism was a personal choice rather than spell induced.

[scorntx]

Lot of extra lines on everyone's faces this issue.
Like they're all wrinkly or summat...
(Or is all the oil being sent to the arena to be used on gladiators?
... what? It's a barbarian fantasy land and there's no arena?)


Spider-Man's little known ability to recognise attackers from passing glimpses of stray body parts. Like that time he made out Electro from grainy security cam footage by his elbow alone.
"I'd know that elbow anywhere!"

(Gosh, it sure would be inconvenient if the story setting this one up was in another title several years before and difficult to reprint because of complicated rights issues, huh?)

[bravest_spinja]

It's weird, I like the idea, and I think it was overall a good story but at the same time the...world-building wasn't 100% right for me. Making Cap kind of look like Conan sort of makes sense as a shorthand for the reader (And I guess Kulan Gath wouldn't want someone wearing the flag of another country), but I think back to Conan vs Cap issue of What If? where it was actually neat to see a face off between two people who are in a lot of ways everything the other is not but each possessed of their own integrity and earning each other's respect. And I keep wondering what Cap's outfit is made of. I think when Busiek and Perez got to do their spin on it, it felt a little more baked.

[zylly]

I like the touch of Spidey's words being in the translation brackets, even though he's ostensibly the only one actually speaking English.