Uncanny X-Men (Vol 2) #357: The Sky is Falling

The city of Ptarmigan Creek is being attacked by crows.

Inside the restaurant, the original five X-Men are bantering at the dinner table like old times. Suddenly, they are alerted to the sounds of people screaming and running outside. Forgoing dinner, the X-Men rush out of the restaurant.






Outside, they are attacked by flocks of crows. Jean suggests they “spread out” to help as many people without “[compromising their] identities”. The X-Men try their best to fend off the crows without their powers. Just then, the strange man Bobby kept seeing appears in the crow, and seem to be controlling the crows. Bobby is relieved that he is not crazy.

Chris, the town’s Sheriff, appears with his shotgun to scare the birds away. He surmises that some freak natural phenomena like “overbreeding” or “misrouted migration” have affected the crows. Bobby is still convinced the strange Inuit man was controlling the crows. Chris just laughs it off, that the strange man, “Moon Wolf” is a “crazy loon”. Chris advises them to stay indoors for the rest of the night.






The X-Men return to Scott and Jean’s house. They are determined to get back out there and defend the town from the crow attack. While Scott tries to figure out how they can use their powers discreetly, Jean suddenly appears in her Phoenix costume. Since there is no way they can go about this discreetly, “[their] responsibility is to save [the town] first and worry about personal repercussions later”.

Melissa walks in on the X-Men and sees Jean in costume and Warren with his wings exposed. She tells them that she had suspected they were mutants since she saw Warren on the roof with his wings. She does not care if they are mutants and agrees to keep their secret. She just hopes that they can help Chris and make sure he is unharmed.






Soon, the X-Men are suited up and off into battle, just like old times. Beast and Angel are to cover the “outlying areas”. Cyclops and Phoenix are going to “handle the in-town crisis”. Iceman is tasked with “looking for [his] Indian whacko”.

Cyclops and Phoenix find Chris but the police officers refuse their help. Sure enought Chris and his deputy office become ruthlessly numbered by the crows. Cyclops and Phoenix rescue them and leave them with an elderly couple to tend to their wounds. Cyclops and Phoenix head back out to face the crows and regroup with the rest of their team mates.






Moon Wolf summons “Chulyen the Crow God”. Thousands of crows gather to form an ominous silhouette of a giant. To save everyone, Cyclops unleashes a huge optic blast at the crows. But that takes a toll on his body and he collapses in exhaustion. Beast and Angel “discovered chemical pollutants leaking into the birds’ primary water source just out of town”, causing the birds to be poisoned and develop “maniac psychosis”.


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