"First Blood"
Probably the most significant thing about this issue is right on the cover, although I didn't even notice it at first. It isn't Colossus, in human form, and pouring comics code authority approved black blood out of his chest. If you look in the background, you can see Tigra, a rather minor member of the Avengers, looking downcast at the fallen Colossus. Tigra isn't a major Avenger, she is one of the few characters not even be included in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (although for all I know someone is now planning to make a billion dollar blockbuster and cultural milestone starring Jenna Ortega as Tigra, but I digress). When we last left the X-Men, they were about to find themselves involved in some cosmic slop involving the kidnapped empress of the Shi'ar, so I wondered to myself: what is Tigra doing here?
And I also have to make a confession: in the past few issues, Carol Danvers/Binary/Ms. Marvel has also been hanging around with the X-Men on their Bermuda Island base, dealing with amnesia. I just didn't mention it because it didn't seem plot important. The point being, while the X-Men have their cosmic adventures and interpersonal conflict, there is sometimes a B-lister kinda hanging out in the background.
Our story starts with Storm, Cyclops and Corsair having a loud argument above the Blackbird, because Cyclops has just found that Corsair is his long-lost father, and also found out that Storm knew this but has been concealing it from him. This interpersonal conflict is cut short when they are all transported onto the Shi'ar flagship, along with the rest of the X-Men, learn about the missing Empress Lilandra, and are then transported (sans Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler, who stay on the Shi'ar ship) back to Avengers Mansion to wait. We then have Corsair and Storm walking around midtown Manhattan, and getting ambushed by Lilandra's evil sister Deathbird, as well as The Brood, in their first appearance, and the X-Men, with the help of Tigra, and no other Avengers, have to fight them off. At the end, Professor X is kidnapped, and Colossus is impaled and seemingly dead. There was a lot going on in this issue!
Death is cheap in comics, and I know that Colossus obviously survives. But I was still surprised by the last page, showing his injuries. This was relatively early in Chris Claremont's career, and the usage of fake deaths, parallel worlds, time travel and clones was not yet derigeour. This story actually has some impact. But I am also a bit confused in trying to explain what is going on: in some ways, it is breaking new ground, with an extensive space opera and multiple alien races interacting in a complicated political drama, layered on top of the complex interpersonal motivations of the X-Men...but at the same time, we have that old comic book cliche fight in a construction site. It is really complicated to explain what is going on here, and I fear I am failing in my mission to communicate the essential importance of the story behind the flood of details that it involves.