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X-Patrol (ES) Vol 3 34

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How do, Cyclops? Welcome to my "lady or the tiger" room. You have three doors -- one's a way out -- the other two lead to horrible deaths. The choice is yours

—Arcade

Appearing in "Listen -- Stop Me if You've Heard It -- But This One Will Kill You!"

Reprint of the 1st story from
X-Men #123

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Vehicles:

  • Arcade's sanitation trucks
  • Arcade's helicopter

Synopsis for "Listen -- Stop Me if You've Heard It -- But This One Will Kill You!"

Reprint of the 1st story from
X-Men #123

The Amazing Spider-Man is swinging through New York's Greenwich Village when he recognizes Colleen Wing and Scott Summers and briefly stops in to say hello. Scott and Colleen are unaware that they are being watched by one of Arcade's minions, Mr. Chambers, who uses a specially rigged garbage truck to capture them. Overhearing this, Spider-Man recognizes the noise[3] and realizes Arcade must be after his friends and arrives too late to stop the kidnapping. Considering the fact that the Arcade might be after the X-Men, Spider-Man decides to try to get in touch with them.

Nightcrawler, Colossus, and their dates Amanda Sefton and Betsy Wilford are all gassed and taken prisoner by Miss Locke. When Wolverine ends a date with Mariko, he too is captured by Mr. Chambers. Arcade personally takes care of Banshee and Storm by breaking into the X-Mansion and taking them out with tranquilizer darts. When Spider-Man calls into the school, Arcade answers the phone and tells him that he's too late to warn his friends.

When the X-Men come around, they find themselves in uniform and placed in giant glass pinballs. Arcade introduces himself and sends them off through his gigantic pinball machine. After bouncing off a number of electrified bumpers, each ball goes down a separate slot, sending each X-Man into a different room.

Cyclops lands in a room where he has to make a choice between three doors, with only one leading to safety. In order to force him to make a decision, a moving wall threatens to crush him. Colossus ends up in a room where he is confronted by an android disguised as a KGB agent named Alexi Vazhin who begins interrogating him over his loyalty to Russia while powerful hypnotic lights confuse him. Wolverine ends up in a hall of mirrors that create distorted robotic duplicates of him to battle.

Somewhere else in the Murderworld, Nightcrawler is trapped in a room where remote control cars chase after him with cutting buzz saws. Banshee (who is still unable to use his mutant powers) has to make it through a holographic simulation of a World War II battle, where some of the model jets are real. And lastly, Storm finds herself trapped in a dark room that is filling with water. As her claustrophobia sets in, she tries to blast her way through the roof with a lightning bolt onto to have it reflected back at her.

Cyclops decides not to choose any of the doors and instead blasts through one of the walls with his optic blast. This clears a passage into the hall of mirrors and damages the replicating mirrors. After helping Wolverine dispatch of the last of them, the two X-Men head for the exit door only to be attacked by Colossus who has been brainwashed into thinking that he is a Russian loyalist called the Proletarian.

In Arcade's control room, Colleen, Amanda, and Betsy are being restrained in present-shaped harnesses and can only watch helplessly from the control monitor. Arcade howls with laughter, exclaiming that with Colossus under his control, the X-Men are finished.

This story is continued next issue.

Appearing in "He Only Laughs When I Hurt!"

Reprint of the 1st story from
X-Men #124

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

Races and Species:

Realities:

Locations:

Items:

Synopsis for "He Only Laughs When I Hurt!"

Reprint of the 1st story from
X-Men #124

Continued from last issue...

Captured by Arcade, the X-Men are being subjected to a variety of death traps in his lethal amusement park, Murderworld. Cyclops and Wolverine are currently facing off against Colossus, who has been brainwashed into thinking he is a "Proletarian", a Soviet loyalist.

Meanwhile, Arcade cackles with glee in his control room. With him are prisoners Colleen Wing, Amanda Sefton and Betsy Willford. When Colleen demands to know who he is, Arcade relates his origin story: he was an idle rich kid of Beverly Hills until his father cut off his money, prompting him to murder his father. Realizing that he had (in his words) “a knack for killing”, he then used his family fortune to construct Murderworld and hire himself out as an assassin. He recounts how he was previously hired by the Maggia to try and eliminate Spider-Man and Captain Britain, although the two heroes survived his traps.

Meanwhile, the battle between “Proletarian” and Wolverine and Cyclops continues. The brainwashed Colossus manages to knock both of his comrades through different revolving doors. Elsewhere, Storm tries desperately to get out of a room that is rapidly filling with water while struggling to keep her claustrophobia in check. Cyclops ends up landing in the room where Nightcrawler struggles to avoid being cut by a number of bumper cars lined with razor blades. When Cyclops arrives, all the cars pop out at once to strike.

Wolverine ends up in the holographic simulation alongside Banshee. Wolverine's senses allow him to find a wall and he attempts to cut through it. But Arcade, having already anticipated this, has a surprise waiting for the two mutants: robot duplicates of the Hulk and Magneto.

Storm attempts to find an escape underwater. Discarding her cape and boots, she swims down and finds a gated grate that might lead to a way out. Desperately hoping to be able to escape through it before her air runs out, she attempts to overload the room’s circuitry with a torrent of lightning bolts.

Cyclops dispatches the razor-cars with a trick shot and blasts a hole in the wall that leads to an access tunnel. He sends Nightcrawler off on his own to find the control room while he blasts his way into another room, the same room where Wolverine and Banshee are fighting the Hulk and Magneto robots.

Nightcrawler gets the drop on Arcade, Miss Locke and Mr. Chambers. Taking Miss Locke's machine gun, Nightcrawler blasts the controls to Murderworld before being brought down by knockout gas.

Cyclops, Wolverine and Banshee finish off the robots just as a panel in the wall opens, dumping out a flood of water into the room, as well as an unconscious Storm. Cyclops revives Storm just as Colossus enters the room. Still under the influence of his brainwashing, Colossus knocks out Wolverine and Banshee and begins to strangle both Storm and Cyclops. Storm, however, appeals to Colossus’s true nature, making him snap out of his brainwashing.

With the battle lost, Arcade decides to let the X-Men live and pushes a button that ejects the X-Men and their friends out of Murderworld into an abandoned amusement park. Moments later, Nightcrawler, Colleen, Amanda and Betsy are similarly ejected from the deadly theme park. Cyclops finds a note from Arcade pinned to Nightcrawler’s costume, telling the X-Men that they won the first round but he'll get them next time.

Although Wolverine wants to go back, Cyclops advises against it and the team decides to return home to recuperate from their battle.

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