This is my world now, Charles. My dream. It has taken me years to achieve it. I intend to enjoy it. Did you think I'd settle for anything less?
The Shadow King
The Muir Island Saga is a Marvel Comics crossover, released in 1991. Spanning between Uncanny X-Men and X-Factor, it served as a conclusion to Chris Claremont's seventeen year run on the X-Men franchise, though due to reasons Fabian Niceza wrote the majority of the story, with Peter David writing the coda.
Previously with the X-Men, things have been tough. The X-Men have been scattered across the world, some of them off in space having to deal with another crisis, while on Earth some of their friends and allies have been undergoing... changes, as an old enemy begins influencing them all one by one, bringing out their darkest thoughts, corrupting them to his side. Charles Xavier's dream faces its worst nightmare, and in order to save it, he will have to call in his first students to help, and he may have to make some unthinkable sacrifices.
Tropes found in The Muir Island Saga:
- Achilles in His Tent: Between X-Factor issue #68 and #69, the team were in seclusion in Colorado, mainly because the events of issues #65-68 were Hell for them, Cyclops especially. Val Cooper or more accurately Mystique in her place drags them out of retirement to help sort things out.
- Apocalypse Maiden: Polaris and Legion serve as Shadow King's main influences on the X-Men, Polaris thanks to her emotion controlling powers.
- BFG:
- Forge packs one with mind-control scrambling abilities.
- Moira packs her own, which she blasts Banshee with
- Big Bad: The Shadow King.
- Big Damn Heroes: Just as it looks like the Shadow King-in-Legion is going to kill Chuck, Storm shows up to zap him.
- Blood Knight: One of the effects of the Shadow King's influence is that everyone wants blood. Real blood.
- Boom, Headshot!: Mystique kills Jacob Reisz, disrupting the Shadow King's control over everyone else, by blasting him point-blank in the face with a really big gun. Admittedly, Reisz's body was already long dead, the only thing keeping it upright was the Shadow King's control, and getting shot in the face will mess up anyone's concentration.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Everyone on Muir Island, thanks to the Shadow King. Even Charles's team of X-Men get brainwashed one-by-one when they go there.
- Break the Cutie: Jubilee, thanks to the Shadow King.
- Call-Back:
- Charles tries distracting the Shadow King controlling Colossus via using the Danger Room to simulate their first encounter.
- At the end of the epilogue, the question is once again raised what everyone's supposed to do with too many X-Men. Since Beast is around this time, and Peter David's doing the writing, he has a snarky answer: "Bag 'em!"
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
- Stevie Hunter reappears in issue 278 and 279, but once Claremont's gone she vanishes into the aether without so much as a mention.
- Dr. Lien Shen, the Shadow King's Dragon, just disappears after Uncanny X-Men #279. She wouldn't reappear until 2001, in X-Treme X-Men (which, not incidentally, was written by Chris Claremont).
- Amanda Sefton is last seen under the Shadow King's control setting some demons on Jubilee. She then completely vanishes from the rest of the story.
- Death of Personality: In order to undo the Shadow King's possession of Colossus, Charles has to destroy Peter Nicholas, the persona the Siege Perilous gave him when he went through it, and restore Piotr.
- Demoted to Extra: After the huge deal made about restoring Colossus's personality, thanks to the shift in writers he proceeds to do nothing afterwards, just making a silent appearance in the background.
- Depending on the Writer: When written by Claremont, the Shadow King's influence is More than Mind Control. With Niceza, characters are just plain brainwashed, and horrified when it wears off.
- Discard and Draw: Lorna loses the emotion powers she'd gained a while back, but regains her magnetic powers.
- Empty Shell: Legion's fate at the end of the story. Charles tries probing his mind, only to find nothing. He'll remain like that for a good several years.
- Evil Feels Good: Part of the Shadow King's control is that he brings all the awful parts of people to the fore, and they enjoy it. Supposedly. Though given what a monster the Shadow King is, it's likely he makes them feel enjoyment, in order to make them feel worse afterwards.
- Evil Gloating: In their final showdown, the Shadow King engages in it, though apparently as he gets high on the thrill of apparent victory he starts making less and less sense.
- False Innocence Trick: Siryn pretends to be more helpless than she is when fighting Banshee, her da, and when he gets close, she clobbers him.
- Fighting from the Inside:
- Legion, specifically David himself, tries fighting off the Shadow King, but it's not enough.
- On getting inside Colossus's mind, the Professor finds he is fighting the Shadow King, but it too isn't enough without help.
- Val Cooper, having been taken over by the Shadow King to assassinate Mystique, reveals she managed to fight off his control long enough to nearly kill herself, allowing Mystique to take her place.
- Funetik Aksent: Chris Claremont, one last time. In order, we got; Guido Carosella (Italian-American), Siryn and Banshee (Irish), Moira (Scottish), Gambit (Cajun) and Rogue (Mississippi). Guido's, at least, gets downplayed when Niceiza takes over the writing.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Forge's ability comes to the rescue, with a means of fighting off the Shadow King's control.
- Galactic Conqueror: The Shadow King's ultimate goal, once he's done crushing Xavier.
- Gilligan Cut: As Charles' team prepare to go down to Muir Island, Jubilee exclaims quickly and at length how she's not leaping out the plane. Next panel...Jubilee: THIS IS FAN-TAS-TIC!
- Grand Finale: Kind of sort of. It is the conclusion of a lot of long running plot threads from Claremont's run, but not really from any conscious desire on his part - continuous behind the scenes meddling and acrimony meant he left the X-Franchise, not returning for the next decade.
- Harmless Freezing: Since fighting Multiple Man hand-to-hand is dangerous, Iceman just freezes him solid.
- Hate Plague: Thanks to the power boost from Lorna and Legion, the Shadow King's causing one across the entire planet, then feeding on that hate to become even stronger.
- I Lied: Logan tells Jubilee that he can't bring himself to fight her... just long enough to get close and knock her out.
- Lampshade Hanging: The epilogue, being written by Peter David, has the Professor and Jean express a criticism over how Death Is Cheap.Charles: Sometimes it seems that in Mutant Heaven, there are no pearly gates, but instead revolving doors.
- Like a Son to Me: In X-Factor issue 69, the Professor expresses grief over the disappearance of Nathan Summers, since he never got to meet the child he thought of as his grandson. At least, as far as he knows.
- Minion with an F in Evil: Jubilee may be under the Shadow King's control, but unlike most she isn't terribly enthusiastic about it.
- Nuke 'em: SHIELD's contingency if the X-Men fail to stop the Shadow King is nuke Muir Island and hope it kills the Shadow King.
- Poke in the Third Eye: The Shadow King is controlling Polaris, and the X-Men are concerned they might have to kill her to stop him. Fortunately, Psylocke and her psychic knife provide a helpful solution. Namely, stabbing Lorna with the focused totality of Elizabeth's psychic powers. That does the trick.
- The Power of Hate: In their first showdown, way back when, Charles only barely won against the Shadow King. This time around, the Shadow King has become much stronger.Charles: Can hatred do this? Can hatred fuel someone to the point where they become omnipotent?
- Psychic Static: Charles and Jean's telepathy isn't much use when the Shadow King is putting this out.
- Putting the Band Back Together: The Original Five X-Men come back into the X-Men fold, having stayed away during Magneto's tenure and the Professor's sojourn into space.
- Redeeming Replacement: In the epilogue, Val Cooper (the real one) approaches Guido and Polaris, mentioning she's looking to make a better replacement for Freedom Force.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Side-effect of Shadow King possession in Colossus's case include demonically red eyes.
- Red Shirt: Charles brings some SHIELD agents to Muir Island, but he figures they'll just be cannon fodder with the Shadow King around. And by gum, he's right.
- Shooting Superman: Gambit runs into Multiple Man, and tries his usual exploding card trick. Unfortunately, every time Madrox takes a hit, it makes another dupe, so...
- So Much for Stealth: As they sneak into Muir Island, Cyclops asks Beast what Sun Tzu would say about their efforts. Hank notes that four of the five of them are wearing spandex. Moments later, they're attacked by their corrupted former friends.
- Stripperiffic: After her possession's over, Lorna switches out her jumpsuit for a swimsuit number. She doesn't keep it for long.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: For whatever reason, X-Force doesn't get involved in the events of this storyline, despite a previous adventure only a few months prior having them run into the Muir Island gang and noticing something is tremendously wrong with Moira.
- Villain Ball: The Shadow King gains possession of near-all the X-Men, but his sadism means he refuses to just kill Charles, instead preferring to toy with and destroy him.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: In Charles and the Shadow King's fight on the Astral Plane, Charles's injuries transfer over to the real world. Meaning, from the X-Men's point of view, his legs spontaneously break.
