Since last week was St. Patrick's Day, I wanted to write about a comic focused on an Irish/Irish-American character. And I figured why not an X-Men comic? After all, it had been a while since Marvel's Merry Mutants had graced this here blog, and well, the X-Men have been known to be a rather..."international" team since Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975). One of these "new" X-Men was an Irish hero: Sean Cassidy, the first Banshee.
Much like his brief compatriot Sunfire, Banshee actually was a pre-established character, having first appeared in X-Men #28 (January 1967). In that comic, he was an antagonist to the original X-Men team, but that was because the villainous organization known as Factor Three forced him to fight the X-Men by putting an explosive headband on him. He would become an ally to the team afterwards, fully joining in the GS X-Men era. He would leave the team for a while due to injury but rejoin the late 80s. The 90s would see him as one of the mentors of the group of young mutants known as Generation X, whom you may have met if you read this blog entry. He would end up killed during the events of X-Men: Deadly Genesis. However, the Grim Reaper was never very good at holding on to X-Men members. He would be briefly resurrected in the X-Force series and the Chaos War event. He would be reborn a third time in the Uncanny Avengers series by a pair of villains known as the Apocalypse Twins (they were not related to En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse, their story is a whole other can of worms) to be one of their Four Horsemen. Death, in particular. And his fourth return would be during the Krakoa Era. And fans make jokes about Jean Grey not staying dead. Sean has her beat! 😖
Yeah, old Sean has been a big part of the X-Men mythos for years, even though many adaptations tend to exclude or relegate him to more minor roles. And one of the things he's known for in the comics is that he has a castle. Yeah. Cassidy Keep. Located in County Mayo, Ireland, the Keep has been the ancestral home of the Cassidy family for many generations. First constructed in 1185 AD, the Keep first appeared in X-Men #101 (July 1976). While the Keep is known for being the home of the Cassidys, it also has some...other residents. Let's meet them as we look at X-Men #103!
The cover is a Dave Cockrum and Irving Watanabe piece. It's pretty cool, depicting Black Tom and Juggernaut trying to fight off the X-Men from the top of a castle. I do wish that Storm and Banshee were switched, as this story takes place at Sean and Tom's ancestral home, and their family feud is the focus of the story. But that's my only complaint, really.
"The Fall of the Tower"
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: Dave Cockrum
Inker: Sam Grainger
Colorist: Janice Cohen
Letterer: John Costanza
Editor: Archie Goodwin
Editor-in-Chief: Archie Goodwin
The story begins in Cassidy Keep. As I said earlier, it is the ancestral home of the Cassidy family, which included the heroic Sean "Banshee" Cassidy, his villainous brother "Black Tom" Cassidy, and Sean's future daughter Theresa "Siryn" Rourke. It's here that we find one of the new X-Men at this time, Kurt "Nightcrawler" Wagner, being carried away by...tiny elf-like men.
You see, last issue, Black Tom fought the X-Men, and he had a new ally with him: Cain Marko, the unstoppable, invincible Juggernaut. The two managed to mop the floor with our heroes, naturally. Nightcrawler wakes up, and the German teleporter is none too happy with, as I said, being carried around by little elf-like men.
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| "Stranger danger!" |
He finds this impossible...even though he himself is a demonic-looking man that can teleport.
I mean, you'd think Kurt would be a little more...open-minded to the weird considering his mutation and powers. Oh, well. He is understandably confused as to what is going on. Thankfully, there's another man there that'll catch him (and us) up: Eamon O'Donnell, the seneschal of Cassidy Keep. "What is a senechal", you may ask? Well, from what I gather, he's some kind of official that was appointed by a royal to be the administrator of the Keep. He explains why Black Tom and Juggernaut are here.
They came by a month ago, being able to easily take over the Keep thanks to the Juggernaut being for all intents and purposes, invincible. They also took Eamon's family and the leprechauns living in the Keep prisoner. And all of this at the orders of a mysterious man wearing red armor and a matching horned helmet.
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| "For the last friggin' time, I am not Satan!" |
They're going to need a plan if they want to rescue the X-Men and the other hostages. One remarks that when they found Nightcrawler, part of his body seemed to have melted into the shadows. Kurt is puzzled by this, until he discovered that yeah, he can melt into shadows. That's handy. The group are alerted that Black Tom has the X-Men in his lab.
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| Black Tom's parties are WEEEEEEEIRD. |
Tom is torturing the X-Men to lure in Professor Xavier. After all, he'll do anything to save his students, even let the two villains kill him. This gives Kurt an idea.
All he needs is his image inducer, the device he uses to hide his natural appearance.
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| "Did you guys get that thing I sent you?" |
...How did Kurt fake the wheelchair? Anyway, he uses his agility to annoy Juggernaut and use him to wreck the place. Black Tom is all like "Hey, wait! Doesn't Xavier need a wheelchair? How on Earth is he walking and leaping around?" He eats a Mighty Dropkick from Kurt, then sticks to a wall, making Cain be like "Hey, that's NIGHTCRAWLER!" He tries to flatten the blue-furred mutant swashbuckler with a Mighty Punch, but all he ends up doing is giving Cassidy Keep a massive new window.
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| Cain and Tom's remodeling business didn't start well. |
The sight of the sky is able to distract Storm from her claustrophobia, and she creates a hurricane that ends up helping free the other X-Men. Well, except for Banshee. The lab is wrecked, and Kurt ends up under rubble.
Black Tom and Cain bring Sean to the top of the keep. And not because they want to sightsee. They taunt our heroes by threatening to toss him down to them a piece at a time...if they can get up and try 2and save him in five minutes.
Storm easily gets up there thanks to her powers. Colossus tosses Wolverine to the top.
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| "I knew I could throw him over the castle! Sean owes me $100!" |
I believe this the second time we saw the Fastball Special, it first being used in X-Men #100 (August 1976). However, it's not going to be that easy. Storm finds herself besieged by laser turrets built into the Keep's turrets. And Colossus (who still has to climb the castle's wall) is getting pieces of the castle's stone wall thrown at him by Juggernaut. As for Wolverine? Well, Piotr accidentally tossed him across the castle to the other side.
He ends up meeting one of the leprechauns, Padraic by name. He asks the Canadian feral mutant to come with him. Hopefully, it won't end up for Logan like it did John McClane when he was invited to come out to the coast.
While Black Tom and Juggernaut are trying to bring down Storm and Colossus, Nightcrawler is able to secretly free Banshee from his bonds. He uses his sonic scream to wreck the floor under Juggernaut, making him fall down into the castle.
He finds himself at the feet of a flight of stairs...and Colossus, Storm, and Wolverine are waiting for him at the top. Meanwhile, Banshee takes on his malevolent brother. Sean and Tom respectively fight with a sword and axe as their powers have no effect on each other. Their fight gets interrupted by Juggernaut brawling with Sean's comrades.
Tom sees a chance to relieve his heroic brother of his head. However, Banshee kicks him over the edge of the castle, while he himself hangs on. A horrified Juggernaut jumps into the drink after him, vowing to make the X-Men pay if they killed the only man he ever could call a friend. Ororo then dissipates the weather that had been kicked up. The X-Men search for the bodies of Tom and Juggernaut, but they're never found. We'll see them again in the future.
The story ends with the man who hired Tom and Cain reporting to an alien being. He warns her a 'Princess Neramani' is due to reach Earth in weeks, and that must not happen. The armored man isn't worried, as he managed to ally with the X-Men's oldest foe...Magneto.
I enjoyed this issue. It had lots of action, and some fun moments. I got a good chuckle out of Piotr accidentally tossing Logan over the castle. It makes a bizarre bit of sense. This new X-Men team hasn't been together for very long. They've had some adventures, but that doesn't mean that there aren't kinks in their dynamic that still need to be ironed out. I thought Kurt using his image inducer to pose as Xavier was a clever way of faking out the villains. I like it when superheroes use their brains as something besides punching bags.
I do wish we got a bit more exploration of Sean and Tom's dynamic and reasons for their enmity. I think that would have helped give this issue a bit more emotional resonance, for lack of a better term. I did like seeing the beginnings of Black Tom and Juggernaut's friendship. That was neat. I admit, I also wondered how Tom had an advanced lab and laser turrets put in Cassidy Keep so quickly. Yes, the story did establish that he and Juggernaut were there for a month, but you'd think that kind of stuff would take a bit longer to build and install. Although, considering that Cain and Tom were working for, maybe it was alien technology.
One cool thing we see here is the beginnings of the friendship between Black Tom and Juggernaut. Yeah, the two would actually end up becoming friends over the years and would work together a few times.
I have heard Cockrum's art be described as being very different from many other comics at the time, and I can certainly see why. It reminds me of Neal Adams's in a way. I'm not sure how to explain it. It does have a bit of 1970s "grit" to it.
If you want to read this story for yourself, I have read it thanks to the 2004 trade paperback The Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 2, which was published exclusively for Barnes and Noble. However, it has also been collected in the 2017 trade paperback Uncanny X-Men Epic Collection Vol. 5: Second Genesis. This trade was also reprinted in 2023. You'll likely have an easier time getting those. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! And if you want to give this blog a little additional support, please make a donation to my Ko-Fi. See you next time!
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