The Fall of the Mutants is a X-Men Bat Family Crossover released in 1987 by Marvel Comics. Like the previous crossover event, the Mutant Massacre, the story took a the crossover idea into a unique path to tell its story.
The storyline was technically three separate ones divided across the three X-Titles at the time, Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor and New Mutants. Like Mutant Massacre, one could read any of the parts without missing much but if one read all of the titles, they would get the entire story.
In Uncanny X-Men, the X-Men are on the hunt for their leader, Storm, who disappeared with the mutant Forge unexpectedly. Their hunt leads them to Dallas, Texas, where they not only encounter Freedom Force, the US Government-deputized Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, but find themselves a pawn of a trickster god called The Adversary. To save everything, the team may be forced to perform the ultimate sacrifice.
In X-Factor, the Social Darwinist Apocalypse finally makes his move on the world. Aided by his Four Hoursemen, one of which being former member Warren Worthington III, the Angel, the team finds themselves in a difficult fight. Can the original X-Men stop Apocalypse and save their old friend and the world?
In New Mutants, the young heroes are brought to the mysterious Ani-Mator's island by the strange creature known as Bird-Brain. However, not only has this drawn in the attention of the Ani-Mator himself, but also Cameron Hodge's anti-mutant militia, the Right. By the time this story is over, the kids will be changed forever.
The story ran through Uncanny X-Men #225-227, X-Factor #24-26 and New Mutants #59-61. There were four tie-in issues in Daredevil #252, Power Pack #35, Captain America #339 and Fantastic Four #312 all dealing with the events in X-Factor. Though usually not collected, The Incredible Hulk #340 takes place immediately before the events of the Uncanny story. The events of the story would also lead to the creation of the Excalibur series, featuring the three "living" members of the X-Men.
Tropes involved in this storyline:
- Adaptation Distillation: There's a PC-DOS video game, X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants, which focuses only on the Adversary portion of the storyline and not only involves X-Factor, but Shadowcat, Nightcrawler and Rachel Summers, the latter two still injured from the Mutant Massacre and Rachel having ran away at the time.
- Adaptive Ability: Super Sabre seemingly knocks out Dazzler with a Sonic Boom. Actually the X-Man absorbed his sound, recharging her.
- Bearer of Bad News: Kitty takes the job of telling the revived Nightcrawler about the X-Mens’ death.
- Bittersweet Ending: Whoo, boy, is it? Apocalypse, the Adversary and the Ani-Mator are all defeated, but at a high cost as the X-Men are believed dead to the world at large and Doug is killed by a Smiley-Bot saving Rahne being shot at. Magneto suffers a crisis of conscience because of Doug's death while the world celebrates X-Factor's victory against Apocalypse and mourns the X-Men, granting mutants a brief reprise from the hatred.
- Cassandra Truth: Zigzagged. Destiny foretells the death of the X-Men in Dallas; everyone believes her, but the team won’t back out.
- Clingy Costume: Spiral fuses Destiny’s gold mask onto Dazzler with her dagger. The mask remains stuck to her face until the sacrifice.
- C-List Fodder: Averted and played straight.
- Averted with the X-Men. The X-Men are sacrificed by Forge and a lot of people saw this happen, even if Roma restores them to life. The team does play this up for all its worth, allowing them to strike at their enemies even if it means letting their loved ones believe they were gone.
- Played straight with poor Doug Ramsay. Of all of the members of the New Mutants, Doug had the "lamest" of the powers, being able to comprehend and speak any language. Thus, him dying wouldn't hurt the team power-wise but would give them motivation later on (behind the scenes, the artist hated Doug and convinced Louise Simonson no-one would really miss him). Thankfully, Doug would be
Vindicated by History years later and resurrected with a new spin on his powers.
- Devil in Disguise: The Adversary disguised himself as a Redneck Sheriff to pick off any opposition.
- Face–Heel Turn: Caliban, pretty much The Sixth Ranger of X-Factor, abandons the team to join Apocalypse.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Like Mutant Massacre, it was an early example of a crossover event. However, they were still working out the logistics of it all, still retaining the Three Lines, Some Waiting aspect of the previous storyline, but streamlining it just a little more. The next storyline, Inferno would become the Trope Codifier for events like this.
- Faking the Dead: An interesting variant. The X-Men are killed by Forge using them as means to seal away the Adversary but are later resurrected by Roma. Instead of showing back up to the world alive and well, the team decides to use their new invisibility to electronics to strike at their enemies.
- Foreign Cuss Word: Perhaps not a swear word, but Doug is enraged by one of the werebeasts’ indecipherable comment about Wolfsbane. He tells him to shut his filthy mouth.
- He's Back!: Colossus returns to the team following being laid out during Mutant Massacre. As well, Storm finally regains her powers after having them stripped from her by Forge years earlier. Warlock and Sunspot return to the New Mutants after an absence of eight issues.
- Heel–Face Turn: Archangel regains his facilities and returns to the side of good, but it takes him a while to rejoin his friends.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The X-Men and Madelyne Pryor sacrifice their lives to allow Forge to seal away the Adversary.
- Kite Riding: Longshot becomes a human kite, pulling his fellow X-Men to the Adversary’s base.
- Life/Death Juxtaposition: After the X-Men die, Nightcrawler awakens from his coma caused by injuries from the Massacre.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Uncanny storyline was caused by Forge, who used a spell to summon the Adversary during his time in Vietnam to win a battle going bad.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The X-Franchise goes through major changes starting with this event, many of which are still in effect to this day. The X-Men participating in the fight in Dallas are presumed dead to the world and stay that way for years, Angel's transformation into Archangel sticks around for many years, even alternating between Angel and Archangel, and Doug's death ends the innocence that the New Mutants had.
- Pain to the Ass: Blob falls on Wolverine to keep him immobilized. Works at first, until Wolverine unsheathes his claws on his posterior.
- Power Incontinence:
- Due to injuries from the Massacre, Colossus stays in his armored form by default, with changing to human being a painful process.
- Iceman suffers from this as, prior to the events of the story, Loki had kidnapped him for a plan to resurrect the Frost Giants. He ends up donning a Power Limiter belt to hold back his powers.
- Power at a Price: Apocalypse infects Beast with a virus that increases his strength, but takes away his intelligence, causing him to be an average-intellect man.
- Put on a Bus: Kitty and Nightcrawler make their final appearances in UXM for the remainder of Claremont’s run. The bus was actually a new spin-off comic, Excalibur.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Magik does this twice, once towards the Ani-Mator over the death of Doug and once towards Magneto over the death of the X-Men.
- Sequel Hook: The Captain America tie-in segues into Armor Wars.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: At the end of their stories, both X-Factor and New Mutants teams change up their outfits, the former to embrace their true roles as heroes and the latter to break away from Magneto and keep following Xavier's dream with the X-Men supposedly dead.
- Unwitting Pawn: The Adversary tricks Storm into believing Forge has gone insane with guilt and will become a destroyer of worlds, making her act to kill him, to prevent this.
- What If?: What If? Vol 2. #50 explored the story in a different angle, with what would have happened had the Hulk killed Wolverine in Incredible Hulk #340 instead of the two just slugging it out. The story ends with the Adversary being put away, but with the actual deaths of Dazzler, Madelyne Pryor, Longshot and Havok along with Avalanche, Pyro, Blob, Mystique and Super Sabre with Forge pulling a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Written Sound Effect: Blob landing on Wolverine is this.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In the Fantastic Four tie-in, Beast does this to Sharon Ventura, who was suffering from suicidal depression due to her transformation into the She-Thing. Being told this by a man who was slowly losing his intelligence made her realize the scope of her problems.
