You'll all be guests of the Hellfire Club -- for the rest of your natural lives! 
Appearing in "X-Men Minus One!"
Featured Characters:
- The X-Men (Main story and recap)
- Sprite (Kitty Pryde) (Leaves)
- Storm (Ororo Munroe) (Main story and recap)
- Cyclops (Scott Summers)
- Wolverine (James "Logan" Howlett) (Main story and recap)
- Colossus (Peter Rasputin) (Main story and recap)
- Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner)
- Professor X (Charles Xavier)
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- The Hellfire Club
- White Queen (Emma Frost) (Main story and recap)
- Black King (Sebastian Shaw)
- Tessa
- Unnamed Hellfire personnel
- Sentinels
- Sentinel Mk IV (First appearance)
- A-3
- A-4
- Sentinel Mk IV (First appearance)
Other Characters:
- Phoenix (Jean Grey) (Only in recap)
- David Munroe (Only in recap)
- N'Daré Munroe (Only in recap)
- Storm's Goddess (Mentioned)
- Janet & Harvey - White Queen's goons
- Muffy, an administrator at the Massachusetts Academy
- Unnamed Massachusetts Academy students
- Carmen Pryde (Mentioned)
- Theresa Pryde (Mentioned)
- Margali Szardos (Referenced)
- Project Armageddon (Mentioned)
- Jean Grey (Referenced)
- Project Armageddon (Mentioned)
- Steven Lang (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
- Mutants (Main story and recap)
- Humans (Main story and recap)
- Sentinels
- Abstract Entities (Only in recap)
- Demons (Referenced)
Locations:
- Earth
- North America
- United States of America
- New York State
- Illinois (Only in recap)
- Massachusetts
- Berkshire Mountains (First appearance)
- Snow Valley (First appearance)
- Massachusetts Academy (First appearance)
- Snow Valley (First appearance)
- Berkshire Mountains (First appearance)
- United States of America
- Africa (Only in recap)
- North America
Items:
- Ruby-Quartz Sunglasses
- Cyclops' Visor, Ver. 2
- Wolverine's Suit (Main story and recap)
- Adamantium (on Wolverine's claws)
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "X-Men Minus One!"
Professor X has the misfortune to announce that Kitty's parents have withdrawn her from the school. The X-Men object, but there is nothing they can do - it is Kitty's parents' prerogative. Kitty runs off to her room to cry. Later Storm comes to comfort her, but Kitty refuses to be comforted - her parents have taken her out of Xavier's to enroll her in the Massachusetts Academy, an institution run by Emma Frost![1]
The time comes for Kitty to leave. She says goodbye to each of the X-Men, with an especially fond farewell for Colossus,[2] and Storm volunteers to drive her. The drive is fairly uneventful, and Storm is shown to a lounge while Kitty gets squared away. Storm's stay is not to be uneventful however, as the White Queen drops in to see her...
Kitty sees Storm off, and then goes to get settled in.[3] Storm gets just out of the valley where the Massachusetts Academy is located and pulls over to the side. She gets out of the car and summons up a storm![4] She is heedless, and barely in control, and reveling in her mastery. Finished for the moment, she lands, reveals herself as not whom she seems (by implication, Emma Frost), smokes a cigarette, and places a call to Sebastian Shaw at the Hellfire Club! Mysterious references are made to a phase 2 of their plan, to be started after Emma as Storm rejoins the X-Men.
Beneath the Academy, Storm in Emma's body comes back to consciousness. She feels strange, her body not responding as she's used to, her night vision gone, her elemental powers fail to respond! She finds a light switch, and discovers she is in Emma's body!
The X-Mansion. Nightcrawler and Amanda Sefton are having a romantic stroll by the lake when a Sentinel ambushes them! Cyclops blasts it off its feet from the mansion, the X-Men alerted by Professor X, who felt the terror in Nightcrawler's thoughts. And the other X-Men come to their aid to help withdraw towards the mansion as additional Sentinels emerge from the lake. The X-Men and the Sentinels battle, and Nightcrawler mostly ends the threat by teleporting plastic explosives onto their legs! "Storm" arrives, realizes Shaw has started without her, and swoops into action, blasting a last Sentinel 'carelessly' so that it careens into Wolverine, knocking him unconscious. She defuses the rest of their wariness with a ploy, and then zaps them all to render them unconscious.
Massachusetts Academy. "Emma Frost"'s fingers might be less adept than Ororo is used to, but she still remembers how to pick locks. She opens the door of her cell and escapes into the corridor, only to attract the guard with a cry of pain - she now has Emma's telepathy and now outside the shielded cell she cannot keep others' thoughts out of her head. She forces herself up and pushes past the startled guards to run off. She goes to Kitty's room to gain her aid, but Kitty only sees Emma Frost, and tries to phase through the floor. On instinct, Ororo blasts her with a psi-bolt, knocking her unconscious, although she's afraid she may have killed her.
Notes
- In X-Men #129 we learn that Kitty's parents "splitting up" is a reason for them sending her to the Xavier School.
- The flashback of Ororo visiting Jean's Greenwich Village apartment is another instance of the retroactive establishment of them as close friends, something stated as fact without explanation until the second story in Classic X-Men #2.
- The flashback must be after the second story. Although the narration describes Jean as "Phoenix", the visit to Jean's apartment in the flashback is—if different from the one in the second story—likely before X-Men #96, because Jean moves back into the X-Mansion after becoming Phoenix in X-Men #101.
- Another indication that it is the same visit is Ororo's sweater vest over collared shirt, very unlike her usual fashion. She is likely again borrowing Jean's clothing, as she did in the second story, after they returned to the apartment and changed out of their wet costumes. Jean's discussion of needing to concentrate to control her telepathy expands on her earlier explanation to Ororo in the second story.
See Also
Recommended Reading
- This is the start of a storyline that concludes in Uncanny X-Men #152.
- X-Men #129–135 - the X-Men's first battle against the Hellfire Club.
- X-Men #113 - Storm's demonstration of her lock-picking skills.
- X-Men #14–16, X-Men #57–59, X-Men #98–100, X-Men #141, Uncanny X-Men #142 - previous stories involving the Sentinels.
Links and References
- Official Marvel Index to the X-Men (Vol. 2) #3 - See for further referencing
References
- ↑ The X-Men previously fought Emma Frost in X-Men #129–131.
- ↑ This is the first time we see Kitty and Colossus kiss passionately. (As opposed to Kitty's mistletoe trick in Uncanny X-Men #143). Other significant events in their romance thus far include Colossus being acknowledged as Kitty's boyfriend (Uncanny X-Men #149).
- ↑ Kitty's thought: I've been to another planet, fought aliens, demons, supervillains. The only other planet she's been to is Arkon's (in X-Men Annual #5) at this point. She has battled demons in Uncanny X-Men #143 and X-Men Annual #4, and aliens in Annual 5. Supervillains she's battled plenty of.
- ↑ While reciting lines from King Lear, no less. Blow winds, and crack your cheeks. Rage, blow! Your cataracts and hurricanes, spout till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks. You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires, vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, singe my white head! (Act 3 scene 2).