Welcome to the eighth installment of A Very Merry X-Mas, where I count down my 24 favorite X-Men (or X-Men related) Christmas stories!

Today, we look at #17 in the countdown, "Zounds O' Silence" by Larry Hama and Michael Golden from Marvel's 1992 Holiday Special.

Earlier this year, I took part in an awesome project for Vulture where we spotlighted the 100 Most Influential Pages in Comic Book History. One of the pages chosen was from Avengers Annual #10, chosen to honor the work of Michael Golden, who was one of the most influential artists of the late 1970s/early 1980s. Golden sort of works as the guy (along with Walter Simonson) who transitioned the Neal Adams style of comic book art (which was so prominent in the 1970s) into the Art Adams style of comic book art (which, in turn, led to most of the most famous artists of the early 1990s, like Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld). Golden is a comic book legend, but it is interesting to note that despite his high standing in comic book history, Golden is not quite the household name as other artists of his stature. One of the main reasons for this is because Golden was never the most prolific of artists. His stint on Micronauts in the late 1970s with Bill Mantlo stands as, more or less, his one sustained run on a comic book series. Thus, whenever Golden happened to pop up (whether it was a short story, a one-shot or even a comic book cover), it was a cause for celebration. Therefore, seeing him cut loose on this story more than makes up for it being a real stretch as a Christmas story.

The story is dubbed "Zounds O'Silence" because it was a silent issue. The story was written by Larry Hama, who, you might know, is sort of famous for that sort of thing.

It's an over-the-top display of Wolverine slashing his way through an increasingly deadly stream of foes...

At the end of the story, Wolverine's flesh is burned off by acid (all the best Christmas stories have people's flesh get burned off by acid, I have found) and then we get the big twist...

Yep, this was all just a kid playing with his action figure. 1992 was right around the time that X-Men action figures exploded in popularity. They ultimately became so popular that Marvel bought a piece of the toy company that licensed their characters, ToyBiz, but when it came time to restructure Marvel during their bankruptcy in the late 1990s (a bankruptcy driven by corporate manipulations and not poor sales, really), ToyBiz ended up leveraging their connection to Marvel and took over the company themselves, which is why ToyBiz founder Ike Perlmutter is the chairman of Marvel, even after they sold the company to Disney.

So while this was a stretch as a Christmas story, it was still an awesome comic book story.