Uncanny X-Men #334 (July 1996)

We'll finish off the comic week with a final Retro-Review, this time a review for Uncanny X-Men #334. I can't say the cover of this one is ringing any bells for me, so let's crack it open and see what's inside!

Uncanny X-Men #334:

Summary: Lots of stuff going on here as this was the issue RIGHT before Onslaught was revealed, so needless to say, all of the pieces were being moved around the chessboard. We start with Juggernaut sneaking onto the grounds of X-Mansion in order to see Cyclops and Jean Grey, who were living in the Mansion's lake house at the time. Juggy ducks underwater, but spots a security camera, which he destroys before it can get a good look at him. Meanwhile, Archangel and Psylocke(who were living in Colorado at the time) are disturbed that they couldn't contact X-Mansion and decide to fly out to make sure everything was on the up and up. From there we head to Cannonball and Professor Xavier. Cannonball tells the Prof that he felt like he wasn't pulling his weight with the X-Men and was considering heading back to X-Force. Instead of reassuring Sam, the Prof tears into him, telling him to go whine elsewhere, and that if he didn't think he was X-Men material then he should get lost... Damn! Jean Grey, who had been confronted by Onslaught just prior to this issue, tells Cyclops that very fact. Cyclops recommends Jean see the Prof about Onslaught, but Jean is reluctant to do so... Gambit and Bishop see that one of the cameras under the water had been wrecked, and head off to see if there was any trouble, and are taken by surprise by Juggy, who defeats the two with ease. From there, the Prof continues to act out of character, and berates Cyclops upon bumping into him before vanishing, much to Cyclops's surprise... I have to say, crazy Prof. X was awesome... Juggy heads to the lake house, finds Jean, and asks her for help, since Juggy felt he knew who Onslaught was, but couldn't remember due to mental tampering. Jean doesn't trust Juggy, so he removes his helmet as a way to prove he wasn't there looking for trouble. Jean decides to take Juggy to a psi-shielded room under the school grounds where she could read his mind without anybody interfering, while Cyclops discovers that Prof. X was in his study, and had been for the past 48 hours, leaving him puzzled by the meeting he had just had.

Thoughts: This comic was a fantastic lead-in to the Onslaught event! Besides all of the stuff I listed above? We also had Dark Beast masquerading as regular Beast among the X-Men, and Graydon Creed and Bastion meeting. Seriously, this was a PACKED comic book! Naturally the increasingly insane Professor X stole the show here, as he should have, considering what was coming. The two main X-books around this time period(Uncanny X-Men and X-Men) were slowly setting up the Onslaught-as-Xavier reveal, but this may have been the first issue it became clear that Onslaught was indeed the Prof. Now, I don't know what it was like to read these books when they first came out, since the first time I read these X-books was probably around 8 years ago, and as such I knew who Onslaught was, but I'd think that after reading this issue the Onslaught/Prof link would have been pretty much confirmed. Make no mistake, this was a set-up issue. But as far as set-up issues go, this was one of the better ones I've ever read, and clearly laid the groundwork for what was about to happen to the X-Men, and why.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.

I love crazy, snarky Professor X!