"Mutant Massacre"
Cover of X-Men Mutant Massacre  (2001), trade paperback collected edition.Art by Terry Dodson.
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Publication date	October – December 1986
Genre	Superhero Crossover
Title(s) New Mutants #46 Power Pack #27 Thor (vol. 1) #373-374 The Uncanny X-Men #210-214 X-Factor (vol. 1) #9-11
Creative team
Writer(s)	Chris Claremont Louise Simonson Walter Simonson
Penciller(s)	John Romita Jr. Walter Simonson Sal Buscema
Inker(s)	Dan Green Bob Wiacek Sal Buscema
Letterer(s)	Tom Orzechowski Joe Rosen John E. Workman Jr.
Colorist(s)	Glynis Oliver Petra Scotese Christie Scheele
Collected editions
Mutant Massacre	ISBN 0-7851-0224-8

"Mutant Massacre" was a major Marvel Comics crossover storyline, which took place during the fall of 1986. It primarily involved the superhero teams the X-Men, X-Factor and the New Mutants. Power Pack, Thor, and Daredevil crossed over for an issue in their own comic books.

[edit] Plot

The mysterious Marauders attack a mutant named Tommy and her Hellfire Club boyfriend in Los Angeles for the purpose of following her back to New York and finding the location of the underground mutant community known as the Morlocks. The Marauders kill Tommy and hundreds of Morlocks before the X-Men and X-Factor teams arrive separately and fight them, saving scores of innocent Morlocks from death. The two teams however do not meet during the battle and suffer crippling losses: X-Factor's Angel is crucified by the Marauders while the X-Men's Colossus, Shadowcat, and Nightcrawler are all severely wounded. X-Factor's casualties are less due to the arrival of Power Pack and Thor, who help save the horribly wounded Angel and the rest of X-Factor from suffering any additional harm.

Thor uses his powers to cleanse the dead from the Morlock tunnels with fire, which causes problems for the X-Men, who briefly believe that the firestorm was caused by the Marauders and believe that the New Mutants died in said fire.

Meanwhile Wolverine saves the Power Pack from the Marauder Sabertooth. After the fight, Sabertooth follows Logan home to the X-Mansion. He destroys Cerebro, but is kept from hurting the other Morlocks when Psylocke engages Sabertooth in battle. Wolverine and the rest of the X-Men arrive and Sabertooth falls off a nearby cliff in order to escape the X-Men, pursued into the water by Wolverine. As the fight continues in the ocean, Psylocke is able to glean some information about the Marauders from Sabertooth's mind.

[edit] Reading order

[edit] Uncanny X-Men

• Uncanny X-Men #210 (Prologue)
• Uncanny X-Men #211
• New Mutants (vol. 1) #46
• Uncanny X-Men #212
• Uncanny X-Men #213

[edit] X-Factor

• X-Factor (vol. 1) #9 (Prologue)
• X-Factor (vol. 1) #10
• Thor (vol. 1) #373
• Power Pack #27
• Thor (vol. 1) #374
• X-Factor (vol. 1) #11

[edit] Daredevil

Daredevil (vol. 1) #238 is an unofficial crossover issue set after the events of the Mutant Massacre. The issue features Daredevil fighting Sabertooth after his escape from the X-Mansion.

[edit] Consequences

• Angel was pinned to the wall by Harpoon and Blockbuster, causing massive trauma to his wings which were later amputated following the onset of gangrene.^[1] He would eventually have his wings replaced by Apocalypse and become Archangel.^[2]
• Shadowcat became permanently trapped in her phased form whilst protecting Rogue from one of Harpoon's attacks.^[3] This resulted in a molecular deterioration that almost killed her until she was saved at the last minute by Reed Richards and Doctor Doom.^[4]
• Stabbed by hundreds of throwing stars by Riptide, Colossus was briefly quadriplegic as a result of Magneto using his powers to heal the damage done to his metal form.^[5]
• Nightcrawler, already badly injured after a battle with Nimrod, was beaten by Riptide who used his speed to injure the weakened X-Man, leaving him comatose.^[3]
• The massacre diminished the Morlock community and allowed for the villainous Morlock Masque to assume control over the Morlocks who returned to the tunnels after the "Inferno" event. Masque's tenure as leader of the Morlocks would be equally devastating, as he used his flesh altering powers to forcibly disfigure all Morlocks under his rule, an act that caused many, many Morlocks to go insane as a result of having their faces and in some cases, bodies, warped into new inhuman forms.^{[volume & issue needed]}
• Wolverine discovers that Jean Grey is alive after smelling her scent in the tunnels, but keeps the knowledge a secret from the rest of the X-Men.
• Apocalypse saved Plague from being killed by Harpoon and teleported her back to his ship so that she could be transformed into his horseman Pestilence. She had already staved off one attack from Sabertooth, by touching him and making him sick. Harpoon was about to kill her from a distance but was concussed by Apocalypse.^[6]
• It was later revealed that Gambit was employed by Mister Sinister to assemble the Marauders. Gambit was temporarily expelled from the X-Men for his part in the massacre.^[7]

[edit] Death list

Here is the list of Morlocks that were killed during the Mutant Massacre and the issue they were killed in:

Hundreds of other Morlocks were killed, but haven't been identified in the comics.

[edit] Original storyline

Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont originally conceived "Mutant Massacre" as a stand-alone storyline that would run in the pages of Uncanny X-Men.

Claremont’s original intention was for the future Sentinel Nimrod to merge with the alternate universe hero-killing android The Fury and gain its' abilities. Nimrod would massacre the Morlock community, critically injuring Nightcrawler in the process. Shadowcat would drive Nimrod away by phasing through it, only to be trapped in her phased form as a result. Nightcrawler and Shadowcat would be sent to Muir Island to recuperate along with Colossus, (acting as a bodyguard), and new character Longshot, with the four of them joining up with Captain Britain and forming Excalibur. Soon after, Mad Jim Jaspers would ally himself with the recovered Nimrod/Fury and create a "Jaspers' Warp", causing reality to break down. Nimrod would go on a killing spree, causing mutants to flock to the X-Mansion for protection and forcing the X-Men, led by Magneto, to ally themselves with the Hellfire Club. The X-Men would confront Jim Jaspers in Dallas and join forces with Forge to send Jaspers and the Nimrod/Fury hybrid into the Siege Perilous. The X-Men would return from the Siege Perilous retaining the changes each of them had undergone. Afterwards, Uncanny X-Men would become a darker comic and Excalibur would become a light-hearted comic. The X-Factor and New Mutants teams would rebuild human/mutant relations.

However, Claremont was forced to rewrite his initial outline, due to Alan Moore’s legal dispute with Marvel Comics over UK Doctor Who strips appearing in the US Doctor Who magazine, and decided to split the story into two, using the Marauders and the Adversary in place of Nimrod/the Fury and Mad Jim Jaspers.^[8][9]

[edit] Collected editions

The storyline has been collected into a trade paperback:

• Mutant Massacre (256 pages, October 1996, ISBN 0-7851-0224-8)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Mutant Massacre — guide by Mike Phillips