Every few weeks I will goto my local comic shop and dig through the cheap bins. Usually just grabbing various dead universe stuff to complete my collections. Last trip I found a copy of one of my favorite one in done X-men stories.
This annual came out back in 1987. I can clearly remember grabbing a copy off the spinner rack at K&B drugs. I had already been subscribing to Uncanny X-men for a few years by then. But the subscription didnt include the annuals. Underneath that well done cover is a great story written by Chris Claremont,pencils by the great Alan Davis and inks by Paul Neary.
The story starts off with a very drunk Wolverine walking back to the X-mansion. It is odd cause of Wolvie's healing factor it takes a huge amount of booze to get Wolvie drunk. Wolvie is so loud that he wakes up the rest of the people in the mansion. Which causes the X-men,plus Captain Britain,Megan and Psylocke to greet Wolvie at the front door.
While Wolverine goes up to his room we get treated to Captain Britain,Megan and Psylocke talking in the kitchen. Seems Psylocke not so sure she is fitting in with the X-men. But up in Wolvie's room,after a long shower,we find out why Wolverine is drunk. This is the anniversary of Wolvie's wedding to Mariko that didn't happen.
Before we can get more from this very very saddened Wolverine the mansion is attacked. By a being calling himself the Horde. Horde is uber powerful. And over the course of the issue manages to kill/take out all of the X-men besides Wolverine.
At the end we get shown how powerful Wolvie's healing factor actually is. And I was very impressed by this the first time I read it.
As I had said before to me Uncanny X-men peaked with issue 200 and went downhill fast. I have sold off most of my X-men collection. Which at one time went from issue 100 to issue 300. But this annual is one of the few issues from that run that I enjoy enough to own. Sure I got it in one of the many Marvel Essential X-men trades,but that is b/w.
If you enjoy the X-men track down this annual. While there is a few small parts that won't make much sense unless you have read all the issues from this era,outside of those tiny parts the rest of the story is written to be read by people with very little prior knowledge of the X-men.
Uncanny X-men Annual #11 gets a BUY!