This classic book tells the story of the formation of the 2nd X-Men team! We are greeted with several pages of Nightcrawler's initial Marvel appearance. Kurt is being pursued by an angry mob of local villagers in a small town in Germany. They finally catch up to an angry Nightcrawler, who actually has more pity and sorrow for their ignorance than he does anger. The mob is just about to drive a stake through his heart when..............Professor X shows up to save the day! He freezes the mob telepathically and explains to a befuddled Kurt that he is a mutant and that it is ok to not be NORMAL..just look at the idiot normal mob trying to kill him!! Prof X explains he can however help Kurt find his true potential if he will accompany him to the school for Mutants :=) Kurt agrees.
Next we see Prof X at a military complex in Canada..hmm...wonder why we would be heading to Canada?! Oh...to a top secret military base...where we come upon................WEAPON X, the Wolverine. A Canadian military super agent! Apparently Logan didn't have amnesia back then...ahhummmmff.....Anyway Prof X offers him to get away from the redtape and become a freeagent..Logan jumps at the opportunity! Prof X then travels around the world gathering Sunfire in Japan, Colossus in Siberia, Storm in Africa, Thunderbird in Arizona, and former X-Man ally Banshee in Nashville...
Chapter 2 begins with the new team assembling at the school in Westchester, NY...................and we see the new X-Men in their new Dave Cockrum designed costumes for the first time ever!!!!!!! Except Wolverine who we saw in a somewhat similar getup in Hulk 180 and 181...
Once the new team is assembled and they admire their costumes, Cyclops arrives to bring them all down to earth and up to speed on recent events! He explains how the new mutants were discovered using Cerebro and how Cerebro also detected a new powerful mutant recently on the Isle of Krakoa. The old X team had been sent there to find this new mutant and bring him back. However upon arriving on the Isle an energy force something attacked them! Cyclops doesn't remember what happened, only that some time later he found himself back on the Strato-jet returning to the States, his eye beams completely gone. He tells the Professor what happened, just as his eye beams return, stronger than ever! He reveals the new X-Men's mission: rescue the old team!
Sunfire wants no part of the mission and he leaves. The rest of the new X team board the X Plane. Suddenly, Sunfire flies up to the plane and demands to be let in. Why he changed his mind, no one knows. The team flies with Cyclops to Krakoa. Upon arrival the X-Men split up in search of the old team. They fight off a number of natural menaces but finally all arrive and assemble once more at a strange looking temple on the island. They find the old team inside the temple being fed upon by some strange looking plant tentacles! It is the Island itself that is the MUTANT and the mutant is feeding upon the Old team. The new team was suckered to the island to become more food. Cyclops did not escape when the original team was captured..he was let go as BAIT!!
Well, needless to say..the new team defeats Krakoa and rescues the old team. I won't SPOIL it all and tell you the details..you will have to read this book for that! I will however tell you that Bobby Drake rescues Lorna Dane...much to Havok's jealousy!
CharleyX adds: I WILL spoil it for you: the battle rages furiously between the old and new X-Men teams and the living island. Professor X also joins in, pitting his telepathic might against the gestalt mind of the mutant ecosystem. Finally, Xavier stops his attack and mentally provides a plan to defeat the evil mutant. Storm calls down lightning to power Lorna up, more than ever before. Meanwhile, Cyclops and Havok also pour their powers into Lorna, causing her to glow with incredible energy. At the critical moment, Xavier gives the word, and Lorna sends her raging energies downwards into the Earth, creating a pocket in which the Earth's magnetic field doesn't exist! The X-Men quickly load onto an ice raft and Krakoa begins to shake and then the whole island is expelled from the Earth like a grape being squeezed out of its skin! A whirlpool forms in the island's absence, and Iceman quickly constructs an air-tight ice bubble that lasts until the waters calm. The X-Men break out of the ice bubble to find that their Strato-jet has survived as well. They then go home, but the question remains: "What are we going to do with 13 X-Men?"