"Rogue Storm"

When we last left the X-Men, they were all trapped inside of Doctor Doom's castle, each inside of a fiendish chamber with a specific, overly elaborate entrapment mechanisms. Nightcrawler is in a featureless room and can't teleport, Wolverine is in an op-art checkerboard room where he can't use his senses, Colossus is in a room with high-powered lasers, and Storm is trapped as a statue, where she is psychically causing a gigantic storm to center on Doctor Doom's castle. This being a Chris Claremont comic, there is even more plot going on behind the scenes, but this is the basic.

Pretty normal circumstances, by comic book standards.

Our action than promptly begins when Nightcrawler teleports outside, in a very risky move (since he can't see where he is teleporting too). Colossus realizes he has to take the risk of transforming into human form to escape his trap, Wolverine must calm the beast within (which is how a lot of Wolverine stories end up), Angel has to fly through some traps, and finally when the X-Men are reunited and confront Doctor Doom, Storm breaks out of her prison, and, wearing a gravity defying outfit, threatens to reenact the entire Dark Phoenix storyline, becoming a being of pure elemental power. Incidentally, this isn't subtext: both the cover of the comic and the dialog between the characters make reference to the resemblance of the two situations. At the last moment, the X-Men remind Storm of the power of friendship, and the story resolves with everyone on good terms, even Doctor Doom and the X-Men.

So let me admit something about this little project: along with just being entertained by what is going on, issue by issue, I am looking for the transition between the X-Men being episodic adventure stories and it becoming a sprawling opus full of ideological statements. So far, what I have read is interesting comic book fare. But this issue shows both the positive and negative parts of Chris Claremont becoming Chris Claremont. The basic plot is silver age silliness. Villain traps super-hero team in his fortress and tests them with deadly devices! But then their escape is not just finding a gimmick, but finding a psychological way to escape the traps. Colossus has to give up his power, Nightcrawler has to take a leap of faith, Wolverine must conquer his violent urges, and Angel...well, Angel just has to fly out. And all of this is presented through long, long internal monologues. So the interesting thing about this issue is that it takes a silly, episodic plot but starts building psychological characterization around it.

Oh, and also, the entire idea of "female character shows her inner rage/power" is certainly against the idea of women as helpless damsels, but it certainly seems like an unusual well to go to too many times.