This is "Look Back," a feature that I plan to do for at least all of 2020 and possibly beyond that (and possibly forget about in a week, who knows?). The concept is that every week (I'll probably be skipping the four fifth weeks in the year, but maybe not) of a month, I will spotlight a single issue of a comic book that came out in the past and talk about that issue (often in terms of a larger scale, like the series overall, etc.). Each week will be a look at a comic book from a different year that came out the same month X amount of years ago. The first week of the month looks at a book that came out this month ten years ago. The second week looks at a book that came out this month 25 years ago. The third week looks at a book that came out this month 50 years ago. The fourth week looks at a book that came out this month 75 years ago. The occasional fifth week looks at books from 20/30/40/60/70/80 years ago.

This is a special fifth week ("special," as the way I do these things, it seems like most months qualify, as I count any month that has at least five Saturdays or five Sundays in them, which is the majority of them). In fifth weeks, I pick a year from 20/30/40/60/70/80 years ago. This time, I'm going back to December 1980 for the final issue of John Byrne, Chris Claremont and Terry Austin's run on X-Men, Uncanny X-Men #143.

As you would know if you followed our annual Top 100 comic book countdown, this year was the Top 100 Comic Book Runs of All-Time, and the winner was John Byrne, Chris Claremont and Terry Austin's run on X-Men/Uncanny X-Men.

Well, towards the end of the run, Byrne was getting more and more irritated by the fact that although he was the main plotter of the series, Claremont's script would be the last word on the book, so whatever Claremont wanted could be added at the last minute. Byrne ultimately quit when he drew a scene of Colossus easily pulling out trees on the grounds of the X-Mansion and Claremont added a caption saying that it was very difficult for Colossus to lift them. Byrne was basically, like, "If he's going to just ignore what I draw, I'm out of here," so he quit to take over a gig writing the Fantastic Four (and drawing it, as well). Byrne had already been working on the other issues by the time he saw the finished #138, so his final issue after he quit was #143.

I assume the fact that Byrne was leaving is why Terry Austin did the cover for the issue instead of Byrne (Austin also did the cover for #142, but that was because Byrne's original cover was delayed in the mail). This issue, titled "Demon," was really good. What's funny, it is pretty much just the film Alien (to the point where Byrne was sure that they were going to get sued from the filmmakers over the similarities, as he thought that they were going to mix things up a bit more to make it less obvious), but Byrne and Claremont and Austin are so talented that the story reads a lot better than just an Alien riff. You really feel Kitty Pryde coming of age as she fights off a demon as it chases her throughout the X-Mansion while she is all alone on Christmas Eve while the rest of the X-Men are off doing Christmas related stuff.

The story opens up with the various X-Men going about their plans for Christmas, with Nightrawler using his teleportation powers to sneak a kiss from Wolverine's visiting girlfriend, Mariko. Wolverine then almost stabs his good friend!

This was part of a deal where Jim Shooter wanted Byrne and Claremont to highlight the fact that Wolverine was still very much the type of guy who could snap at any time. This was glossed over pretty quickly in the comic and soon, Kitty is using the mistletoe to sneak a kiss of her own on Colossus. Kitty is 13 at the time and Colossus 18 so..yeah...

Anyhow, everyone leaves Kitty alone in the mansion and she is beset by a demon and the rest of the issue is a clever fight throughout the home of the X-Men...

The issue is just a masterclass in sequential storytelling, as Byrne and Austin fit so much action into the pages, while keeping the action rapid pace. Meanwhile, Claremont's captions show Kitty Pryde's thinking as the story follows her through her various ideas of HOW to kill the Demon. It is really clever seeing how quick-thinking she is. The key to this whole story, though, is that as quick-thinking as she is, none of it is, like, ABSURDLY clever. It is all smart planning on her part, but also pretty normal stuff. Take the demon to the Danger Room and let the Danger Room attack it or go to the X-Men's jet and use the jet's engine to blast it to smithereens...

The X-Men then give Kitty a Christmas surprise by bringing her parents for a surprise visit! What a great story, but sadly the finale of an amazing comic book run.

If you folks have any suggestions for January (or any other later months) 2011, 1996, 1971 and 1946 comic books for me to spotlight, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com! Here is the guide, though, for the cover dates of books so that you can make suggestions for books that actually came out in the correct month. Generally speaking, the traditional amount of time between the cover date and the release date of a comic book throughout most of comic history has been two months (it was three months at times, but not during the times we're discussing here). So the comic books will have a cover date that is two months ahead of the actual release date (so October for a book that came out in August). Obviously, it is easier to tell when a book from 10 years ago was released, since there was internet coverage of books back then.