STORY: "On Wings of Angels" (22 pages)  Marvel Girl tries to escape; Cyclops and Beast explore the city; and Angel learns about the history of the Nhu'Ghari.

What you need to know:
Marvel Girl comes round, and immediately makes an escape bid.  That just leads to her coming face to face with Magneto.  Some of the Nhu'Ghari are a bit sceptical about Magneto's treatment of her.  They think he ought to be putting her to work.  But they decide to stick with the plan.

Cyclops and the Beast stumble upon Magneto's big plan - a giant airship powered by balloon-like seed pods.  Basically, he's going to use it to escape the city before it's destroyed (by an imminent volcanic eruption which we don't learn about until next issue).  The seed pods contain the radioactive gas which he credits with causing the city's magical effects; he's planning to use it to brainwash people and heal his wounds once he's out of the Savage Land. 

The Angel is taken in by a group of renegade Nhu'Ghari who are running a refuge for escapees from the city.  They give him the Nhu'Ghari version of history.  They used to be a human tribe who moved onto the future site of the city a hundred generations ago.  The magic of the city (the same stuff that does the healing) mutated them over the centuries into the Nhu'Ghari, who don't have the physical strength to look after the place.  So they approached the gullible neighbours, set themselves up as prophets, and brought them back to the Nhu'Ghari city as slaves.  Fortunately for them, the magic also makes the slaves weak-willed (although nobody really shows much sign of this in the course of the story - is the magic slave-specific?).

As if there weren't enough plots already underway, Havok and Lorna Dane arrive in the Savage Land looking for the X-Men.  They don't actually find them, but this does kick off a storyline of their own.  They promptly bump into Ka-Zar, who says he doesn't know the area all that well, but he's looking into reports of "dark happenings in this area", and they're welcome to tag along.

On the spur of the moment, Lorna names herself Magnetrix.  She drops that idea pretty quickly.

The number #69 on the cover is on the bench, just below the N of "Alone."

Comments:
Okay, so by this point the magical properties of this city are turning out to be "whatever's convenient for the plot."  It's also one of those middle-act issues where the pace slacks off a bit.  Still, there are some nice visuals in this story, and the double page spread of Magneto's airship is surprisingly effective considering what a ropey piece of technology it really is.  It's a solid little story of the X-Men encountering an alien society and learning about it - arguably not really an X-Men concept, but still a decent old-school superhero book.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (next in issue #5), Cyclops, the Angel, the Beast and Marvel Girl I
Havok and Lorna Dane (between issues #1 and #5)

SUPPORTING CHARACTER
Avia

VILLAINS
Magneto
Amphibius (between issues #1 and #10)
The Nhu'Ghari (also in flashback which is their chronologically earliest appearance, preceding the flashback in issue #4)

GUEST APPEARANCES
Ka-Zar and Zabu (both last in X-Men vol 1 #63; both next in issue #5)

OTHER CHARACTERS
Savage Land tribesmen

Revised: 31 May 2006

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