Uncanny X-Men #282

Uncanny X-Men #282
Writing: Whilce Portacio and John Byrne
Art: Whilce Portacio

What Went Down: Forge and Xavier are playing the chess match they started in X-Men #5—even though it hasn’t come out yet in real time, it still occurs first in Marvel time. Forge uses a device to block Professor X’s powers so Xavier can’t cheat, but he still loses anyways. As they discuss a rematch, the Gold Squad shows up with Jean Grey’s body and a Sentinel head that Storm is somehow levitating with her powers—maybe it’s supposed to be wind, but it just looks like blue energy.

Storm is forced to explain that Fitzroy and the Sentinels escaped with the White Queen and the rest of the Hellions, even though nothing like that happened last issue. Xavier uses his powers and discovers that Jean is not dead because her psyche has survived.

Fitzroy surprises Shinobi in his bedroom with Donald Pierce’s head, but don’t worry, Pierce will be back. Fitzroy also shows him the unconscious Emma Frost, who now has Jean Grey’s mind inside of her. The time traveler wants Shinobi’s ring, and ends up cutting off his finger to get it, which seems kind of uncalled for.

Back at the mansion, the X-Men use the Sentinel head to find Fitzroy’s arctic base. Forge and the Professor both decide to accompany the Gold Squad as they rescue Jean/Emma.

Fitzroy’s sidekick Bantam appears for the first time. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t appear again in any of the main X-Men titles, but he does show up in some of the Bishop origin Minis that come up later.

The Blackbird arrives and Xavier comments that it was odd that he didn’t sense Emma Frost’s death. Of course, that’s because she’s not dead.

Strangely, the base contains more Hellion prisoners than actually existing Hellions; I guess Emma had recently expanded her school. Also strange, one of the Sentinels tells Fitzroy that he has detected the X-Men’s plane, and the moron basically ignores it. Instead, he kills Tarot(poor girl died twice in one story) and uses her energy to summon more henchmen from his home time. One of them decides he doesn’t want to be a lackey, so Fitzroy uses him as an example to demonstrate that any portals back to his home time are fatal to the traveler.

Jean attacks Fitzroy using Emma’s body; surprisingly, she has access to her own powers despite being in a different person’s body. The X-Men burst in, and a cool fight ensues. As all of Fitzroy’s henchmen and Sentinels are defeated, he absorbs and kills all of the remaining Hellions and uses their energy to bring even more evil mutants from his time. The Gold Squad is in danger of being overwhelmed until the arrival of Bishop…and of course his teammates Malcolm and Randall.

How It Was: Not outstanding, but next issue gets a lot better. This issue doesn’t start out very strongly, with Storm having to explain what should have happened at the end of last issue, except didn’t. Also, Xavier figures out that Jean is in Emma’s body really quickly, especially considering that later he brings up the fact that nothing like this has ever happened before.

Fitzroy’s also a problem as he is not a very spectacular villain. Having handed two mutant teams their behinds in the previous issue, this issue has him acting like a complete idiot. Despite having an army of the most sophisticated, futuristic Sentinels ever and an unlimited supply of henchmen, he still manages to be beaten really quickly. Why doesn’t he use the unstoppable suit of armor from the previous issue? You can also tell the Upstart concept hasn’t been that thought out yet since Shinobi and Fitzroy’s early hostile relationship bears no resemblance to their cold, professional one in later issues. Also, the significance of the ring is initially made out as the prize of the contest, even though it’s not and gets forgotten about after this story.

The art is pretty nice, except that there is a distinct deficit of background art, so it is difficult to get a sense of space for any of the settings. But the character designs for Fitzroy’s various henchmen are all varied and distinct, so the fight doesn’t get too boring, and I’ve always loved the Sentinels as villains—robots make for great fight scenes because the heroes can go all out on them without the censors getting angry.

Of course the big deal about this issue is the appearance of Bishop, who almost single handedly saves this title from mediocrity. Bishop’s a wonderful character; his appearance opens up a couple of interesting subplots. Plus, one of my favorite conventions of the super hero genre is the apocalyptic future where the heroes have lost, etc. Easily the most successful new X-character of the 90s, later writers struggled with making him relevant after his purpose was resolved, and his timeline was almost definitely averted. Still, in these early issues, he is an exciting contrast to the pacifist X-Men and their hopes and optimism.

C