I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read.

Chris Claremont reserved his wildest ideas for the Annuals he was charged with writing. The comic book scribe who took the X-Men and associated characters to astronomical heights of popularity in the nineteen-eighties was seemingly given infinite latitude in the stories he concocted for Marvel’s merry mutants. As long as the books sold — and did they ever sell — the editorial mandate seemed to be “Sure, whatever you want, Chris,” which led to some truly loopy adventures. The X-Men might zip off to some strange world in outer space or do battle with Dracula.

By the time Marvel Comics was dispensing the 1984 Annuals, those double-sized, special editions of ongoing series that were largely scheduled for summertime release, the sprawling saga that had Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters as its home base was entering into its boom years. The main X-Men title had recently been joined by The New Mutants, a series in theory intended to replicate the earliest iteration of team named for their extra abilities by focusing on teenagers who were still learning how to deal with their emergent superpowers. The New Mutants was a hit, which meant an Annual was a necessity, and the very first one was billed on the cover as “a rock fable.”

For The New Mutants Annual #1, Claremont reunited with Bob McLeod, co-creator of the team and artist for the first few issues of the ongoing series. The issue finds the Xavier School classmates securing tickets to see Lila Cheney, the hottest rock star of the moment who’s on a much-hyper farewell tour. After they use some connections to slip into Lila’s soundcheck, they soon determine that their not going to have a ear-rupturing night off from do-gooder doings after all.

Those snapped chains securing the jumbo-sized amps were no accident. The New Mutants launch into action to save the Jett-like musician. After some commiseration with Lila, during which she takes an immediate shine to Sam (a.k.a. Cannonball), the team decides they’ll need to spend the actual concert sneaking around behind the scenes to protect the rocker from further danger. Their sleuthing leads to the discovery that Lila is being targeted for elimination by a Vrakanin bounty hunter, so just the normal hazards of a life in showbiz.

From this points, things escalate quickly. Lila reveals herself to be a mutant with formidable powers to teleport across galaxies. She snaps Sam and her away for an off-world tryst that involves her decking him out in rock ‘n’ roll fetish leather. Specifically Lila takes him to her far-distant place of residence, a space Dyson sphere, which Sam knows all about from reading science fiction (“Shoot, this makes Mr. Larry Niven’s ‘Ringworld’ look puny by comparison,” he exclaims after setting his eyes on Lila’s adopted homeworld). Sam’s teammates try to follow through the energy remnants of the portal Lila created only to find themselves floating in space and then immediately rescues by their new teammate, Warlock, who instantly transforms himself into a spacecraft, and…well, it’s a lot. Marvel Annuals invited writers to pack in an immense amount of story, and Claremont was more amenable to that invitation than most.

Suffice it to type, the New Mutants find their way to their cohort and battles a fleet of invading Vrakanins determined to colonize Lila’s Dyson sphere. It all makes for a fearsome melee.

The fable ends back at the boarding school, all of our heroes safe and sound. The spectacle out of the way, Claremont could get back to his real specialty in crafting these X-Men and X-adjacent comics: the lovelorn soap opera of it all. In his heyday, Claremont knew how to keep believers true.

Previous entries in this series (and there are a LOT of them) can be found by clicking on the “My Misspent Youth” tag.