STORY: "Yet No More Like My Father" (22 pages)  The X-Men defeat the Brotherhood when Krueger shuts down their powers.  Angel learns that his mother is planning to marry his Uncle Burt.

What you need to know:
Krueger turns up looking for his money and simply shuts down everyone's powers.  The Brotherhood are beaten up pretty quickly, and Krueger gets kicked in the face by Candy Southern (since his powers only work on mutants).  And that's the last we see of him.  The X-Men let his crew go free, and the crew release Avia.

Marvel Girl admits that she may have telepathically influenced the crew to turn on Krueger.  Cyclops isn't too happy about that.

Candy Southern finally gets to tell Warren the news that she's been trying to deliver since issue #8.  Warren's evil Uncle Burt is about to marry his widowed mother.  Not surprisingly, Warren is duly appalled and races off to intervene.

Ah yes... Uncle Burt Worthington, the original Dazzler.  His only previous appearance was in a three-part Angel back-up strip which appeared in Ka-Zar vol 1 #2-3 and Marvel Tales #30 (after Ka-Zar got cancelled).  Since Ka-Zar was a quarterly reprint title, we're talking about a seriously obscure villain.  In that story, the Dazzler tricked Warren's father (Warren Worthington Jr) into helping with a diamond smuggling operation.  When Warren Jr worked out what was happening and threatened to tell the police, the Dazzler had him killed.  The Angel fights him, both guys get unmasked, and eventually the Dazzler apparently plummets to his death after a mid-air battle.  There's also some stuff about the Dazzler trying to conquer the world with a diamond-powered death beam, and a bunch of henchmen using jet-powered pogo sticks.  Let's be honest, it doesn't exactly sound like a classic, does it?

Uncle Burt's plan here is simply to marry Kathryn, kill her off soon after, and claim the family fortune for himself.  She's in love with him because he supported her through the death of Warren Jr.  Burt is in league with the family doctor, Dr Stuart, who is supplying him with poisons for Kathryn.  Meanwhile, Stuart is trying to persuade Warren not to reveal the truth to Kathryn, because she's awfully fragile.

Once again, there's some odd non-linear storytelling here as next issue jumps back to the X-Men returning home from the battle with Krueger, for no immediately obvious reason.  Fortunately, this time it only takes three pages to catch up again.

The Ashley Martin subplot continues its glacial progress, as the police finally turn up in response to the giant robot, and Xavier gets rid of them.

The recap narration on page 1 refers to Havok, Iceman and Lorna Dane as "the youngest members of the team", but that appears to be an error.  They're certainly not being taken on missions at this stage when the X-Men have a choice.

Unusually, the title splash page doesn't come until page 14.

Clunky dialogue award: "That traditional circus call for help won't do you much good, friend!"

The title is a reference to Hamlet, as Warren and Hank helpfully points out.  Hamlet describes his uncle as "my father's brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules."  (All the texts I can find say "but", as does Warren when he quotes the line, so it's a bit of a mystery why the actual title says "yet.")

The hidden cover number is #80.  It's on the Dazzler's left boot, doubling as his ankle.

Comments:
An odd issue, which finishes off one story and then shifts gears halfway through to a different one altogether.  The Krueger/Brotherhood story is perfectly okay, although it's not going to win any awards for originality.  The Dazzler story is more problematic.  The point of this story is apparently to tie up a minor continuity point by explaining what happened to Angel's mother.  Unfortunately, you have to swallow an awful lot of implausibilities for this story to work.

So long as Burt's believed dead, Warren can plausibly keep his mouth shut and leave Kathryn in blissful ignorance.  But even allowing for the fact that this is an uncommunicative aristocratic family, how on earth did Warren fail to notice that Uncle Burt wasn't dead?  Does he really take that little interest in family affairs?  For that matter, how did Burt survive falling to his death in Marvel Tales #30 - especially given that he's got to be up and running again in time to help Kathryn through her mourning period?  (The only explanation given is that Dazzler had "carefully laid contingency plans", which isn't very informative.)  On top of that, Burt is a moustache-twirling melodrama villain and Kathryn is a saintly dupe, so there aren't even any particularly interesting characters here.  It just doesn't work.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X
Cyclops, the Angel, the Beast, Lorna Dane, Havok, Iceman (rejoins the X-Men) and Marvel Girl I (between pages 13-14 of this story, all appear in flashback in the next issue)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Candy Southern (between pages 13-14 of this story, appears in flashback in the next issue)
Ashley Martin and Teri Martin (both next in issue #16)
Avia (last in issue #11)
Kathryn Worthington

VILLAINS
The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants: The Blob, Mastermind and Unus the Untouchable (all next in Amazing Adventures vol 2 #12)
Krueger, Blunt and other freaks (no further appearances for all)
The Dazzler and Dr Stuart (first appearance)

Revised: 31 May 2006

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