🚀 go-pugleaf

	Mr. Sigel is certainly right about the similarities between Jean Grey/
Phoenix and MZB's Sharra, but I question his comment that Sharra is a "wimp"
compared to Phoenix.  The only time we ever see Sharra in the Darkover books is
in her "bound" state, and even in that state she is described as being 
powerful enough to pull one of the moons down out of the sky if the people 
raising the force were mad enough to try it.  This is a "wimp?"  MZB never 
describes what she would be capable of without the restraints imposed by on 
her by Aldones (another diety in the Darkover series), but it seems reasonable
to assume she would be significantly more powerful without them.

	I am also slightly puzzled by his remark about the similarities between
Dorilys in Stormqueen and Ororo.  Their powers are certainly similar, but the
similarity of outlook he mentions escapes me competely.  I would be interested 
in hearing him expand on this.

	Claremont is obviously very fond of introducing the X-Men to things and
people from his favority books.  Darkover is not the only thing which has 
slipped in.  You may remember in the last issue of the New Mutants that Lila
Cheney showed up in her making a reference to having played as backup for a 
rock band called the Nazgul before their lead singer got the top of his head
blown off my an assassin with a high powered rifle at their last concert.  This
is straight out of a book by George R. R. Martin called The Armageddon Rag.  
(which, by the way, is an excellent book and well worth reading).  

	Finally, there is X-Men #204.  Apparently Claremont is planning to have
Nightcrawler visit Ruritania.  For those who don't get the reference, Ruritania
is a ficticious central European country created by Anthony Hope in The Prisoner
of Zenda.  I haven't read the original myself, but judging by the Classics 
Illustrated version which I read years ago, it's pulp melodrama, narrated by an
English Gentleman, and probably pretty heavy going.

	Finally, it's interesting to note the overlap between Darkover fans and
X-Men fans.  I belong to a Boston, MA area Darkover fan group, and we spend at
least as much of our meetings discussing the latest comics as we do Darkover.

					Kathryn Smith
					(...decvax!gsg!kathy)
					General Systems Group, Inc
					Salem, NH  

					Kathryn Smith