X-Men #5

X-Men #5
Writers: Jim Lee and John Byrne
Art: Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Art Thibert, Bob Wiacek, and Joe Rubinstein

What Went Down: Cerebro alerts Forge that the majority of the Blue squad has been captured. Forge complains that the computer’s voice is too emotionless, but that doesn’t really matter to the reader because this is a book. Cyclops enlists Colossus and Psylocke to help in the rescue. Betsy was in the pool, so she is wearing a bikini that is even more shameless than her normal costume. In fact, it’s made even more laughable by the fact that she tries to put a tiny jacket on to cover up.

Everyone, besides Wolverine, who was captured last issue is in the back of a fake ambulance. Gambit manages to get hold of a card and free everyone, but than the truck in front of them explodes. Colossus finds Wolverine’s mask which leads Cyclops to ponder if Wolverine even had his uniform with him (which he did last issue, but he wasn’t wearing his mask).

Cut to Omega Red beating the tar out of Wolverine outdoors in snowy Berlin while being observed by Matsuo, Fenris, and Dr. Cornelius from the Weapon X story. After being knocked out, Wolverine is strapped to a machine and flashes back to his covert operations days with Sabretooth and an unknown agent—back in the present, our villains reveal that they are after a maguffin called the carbonadium synthesizer, which Wolverine is supposed to know about. It's supposed to help Omega Red control his powers better or something.

All the X-Men meet to discuss the plan of action; the Gold Team is dressed up because they are about to go to the Hellfire Club in Uncanny #281, even though that comic came out four months prior. Psylocke vouches for Jubilee to go with the Blue Team, Banshee leaves to go after Moira, Xavier is seen looking at a file labeled Project Xavier which is foreshadowing a much later subplot, and Forge and the Professor begin the chess game that they are seen playing in Uncanny #282.

Maverick shows up in his first appearance; he is also looking for the c-synthesizer, and he is that other agent in the flashbacks. He stages a distraction allowing Wolverine to escape. Logan is seen running from Omega with a non-descript canister—the dialogue makes you think it is the c-synthesizer, but it’s not… honest. Wolvie escapes out a window and disappears; at the same time he is having more flashbacks of his team trying to extract an undercover agent named Janice.

The X-Men track Wolverine and infiltrate the building he was being held in. Meanwhile, Maverick takes Wolverine to a room in the building with a computer. He explains that the X-Men are probably going to die, and then Wolverine passes out.

The issue ends, oddly, with a scene in the Mojoverse. Dazzler has lost her memory and Lila Cheney is trying to help her remember the X-Men. Longshot bursts in and kisses Dazzler, Spiral bursts in and threatens everyone, and Lila teleports everyone away. This is set up for the upcoming story in X-Men #10-11.

How It Was: Lots for you if you are a fan of Wolverine. There is more on the connection between Omega Red and Wolverine, some flashbacks with everyone wearing weird visors on their heads, and the introduction of Maverick, who proves to be a very enduring character with his own ties to the Weapon X program. The scenes where Wolverine is conscious are easily the most interesting of the issue. The only problem is the canister that magically appears in Wolverines hands as he escapes, then disappears after Maverick rescues him, only to be conveniently explained away next issue.

As for the rest…well it’s all pretty much like I said last issue. All of the villains are boring, except Omega Red, and it’s hard to get excited since after this arc most of them just disappear or show up in different capacities which completely ignore this story. They all seem to be alluding to the Upstarts storyline in Uncanny, but none of them ever become a part of that team. Plus, all they’re really after is a standard maguffin to help Omega Red control his powers better, but he seems just fine in later stories without it.

As for the rest of the X-Men, there is some struggling to find something to do with them. The sequence with Cyclops and crew in the beginning is pretty unnecessary since the captured X-Men rescue themselves, and the writing struggles to either find something to do with all of these characters or fill up space. Forge complains about the computer’s voice, the X-Men sit down and explain how they are going to rescue Wolverine instead of just doing it; a lot of this comes off as space filler rather than necessary to the plot.

The art is great, except for the flashbacks. Jim Lee’s pencils are fine, but the costume designs for Team X are a mix between standard black ops soldiers and Robocop, and the art department decided that the flashbacks should be colored in what can only be described as urine yellow and black.

C+