The Uncanny X-Men #129

One of the hottest comic book issues going right now is Marvel Comics’ The Uncanny X-Men #129 by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin.

This issue introduced to the world Kitty Pryde, Sebastian Shaw, Emma Frost The White Queen and The Hellfire Club.

It was a part of the infamous Dark Phoenix Saga that ultimately resulted in the death of Jean Grey.

Here's a brief backstory:

It had been almost ten years since I had collected and read comic books.

I met my future wife during that time and we were wed in 1979.

I accepted a job as an illustrator at a publisher in Texas and we moved shortly after we wed.

One day while out and about we stopped at a local used bookstore.  While there I came across a box of old comic books.  Among them were Frank Miller’s Daredevil and John Byrne’s The Uncanny X-Men.

I was immediately hooked and bought the whole batch.

Not long afterward I started a small comic book pull at a local comic book shop.  One of my pulls was The Uncanny X-Men.

Each week I would buy a couple of comic books including back issues of The Uncanny X-Men.

This was before the title became such a big hit.

One day at the shop I went to buy an old X-Men issue and found to my surprise that the entire Cockrum/Byrne pre-death of the Phoenix issues jumped in price.  So began the fan phenomenon of The Uncanny X-Men.

In issue #129 a lot happened.

Kitty Pryde is introduced, as were the other characters I mentioned earlier.

The X-Men are attached by techno-armored Hellfire operatives and Wolverine has a moment when confronted by a store owner about reading magazines.

While that may seem like a small incident it really demonstrated just how feral Wolverine is.  Chalk that moment up to John Byrne.

While Nightcrawler and Colossus were writer Chris Claremont’s favorite characters it was John Byrne who really developed Wolverine’s persona.

Also in this issue Banshee, Polaris and Havok quit the team and Scott reveals his true feelings toward Jean and she toward him.

Is it any wonder that this issue is such a hot collectible?

To me the entire John Byrne/Chris Claremont run on the X-Men is the best of the best. The incidents and multi-layered, multi-issue series set the template by which all X-Men stories that followed would emulate.

Byrne and Claremont set the bar and established the characters for years to come up until present day.

Jeremiah 31:3 - The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.