Writing: Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Scott Lobdell, John Byrne
Art: Andy Kubert, Bill Sienkiewicz
What Went Down: The issue opens with Colossus, Archangel, and Iceman of the Gold Team hiding in the shadows of a hall in the mansion. They’ve decided that the X-Men need more fun in their lives, and their best idea of fun for people who fight for their lives on a daily basis is to jump out of the shadows and tackle them. And that is exactly what they do to Cyclops and Beast. After Cyclops scolds everyone, and everyone tells Cyclops to lighten up, Cyclops and Beast go off to debrief the Professor on the Omega Red story (X-Men #4-7).
Meanwhile in the Danger Room, the Professor is testing Bishop with some kind of training sequence. I say some kind because we see Bishop firing his gun at something, but we never see what he is firing at. Cyclops and Beast walk in, and since they already seem to know Bishop then this issue must take place after X-Men #8-9. The Professor tells Bishop to learn as much as he can from Storm, so Bishop asks Storm to take him to New York to learn about the present.
Cut to New Jersey where Opal Tanaka is reading a letter in Japanese. For those of you saying “Who the #@$% is Opal Tanaka?” Opal is Iceman’s girlfriend who appeared as a supporting character in X-Factor. Anyway, Iceman surprises her with flowers, and they leave to go catch up. The letter turns out to be from her cousin, Hiro, and this leads to a plotline in the next issue.
Back at the mansion, Archangel is listening to a message from Charlotte Jones, another X-girlfriend/former X-Factor supporting member. She makes a reference about Warren being her archangel which makes him really angry, so he decides to go outside and fly around while naked.
Meanwhile… again (Hey, if this comic can use it as a transition, why can’t I?), most of the Gold Team, plus Jubilee, Opal, and Forge, are walking around downtown New York. They just happen to run into a mutant named Styglut, who just happens to be the very last of the fugitives from the future that Bishop hasn’t killed yet.
A very large fight ensues between the two, with lots of collateral damage along the way. Storm tries to get Bishop to stop, saying that killing is not the only way. Bishop disagrees, and kills Styglut.
As he’s being restrained by Colossus, Bishop sees the rest of the X-Men helping the bystanders caught in the wake of his battle. Storm drops a lot of guilt on him and tells him that all X-Men must put the lives of civilians before their own. He feels remorse, and swears that he will dedicate himself to the X-Men’s ideals from now on.
Later Bishop spends some more time in the Danger Room shooting at something we again don’t get to see. Then he goes to Storm’s room and gives her his command insignia as a symbol that he still has much to learn.
How It Was: Andy Kubert guest pencils, and he is pretty hit or miss; he later went on to be the regular penciler on X-Men, where his style improved greatly. The scenes with Bishop in the Danger Room are just perplexing since I can’t understand why the artist wouldn’t show us what the character is doing. Also, all the scenes where characters have shadows over them have the shadows depicted as criss-crossing lines, like a checker board, that look just awful. And Storm’s eyes are way too wide and narrow, as are her eye brows. She looks strange the entire issue.
The scene at the beginning with the two teams exists for no other reason except to fill space. I think it’s meant to be silly and heartwarming, but it definitely isn’t. There is an allusion to the Betsy seducing Scott plotline that Jean Grey picks up on, but other than that it’s just plain weird.
As for the good, well the fight between Styglut and Bishop is very entertaining, and has some good writing behind it. Although Storm is meant to be in the right by stressing that killing is wrong, Bishop makes a compelling argument that Styglut is from the future, and as the representative law enforcement from that time, it is his responsibility to hold the bad guy accountable to the rules of that period. It’s no different than a criminal getting extradited to his home country, except that option isn’t available here.
As for Styglut himself, he is totally one dimensional and doesn’t do much to define his personality outside of killing two women. And apparently all criminals in the future are stupid because once again we have an issue of Uncanny where the bad guy shoots Bishop with energy, even though he knows him and his powers. He claims to be trying to overload Bishop, but that seems like a pretty crappy plan.
Unfortunately, the issue ends on a pretty predictable note. Bishop figures out that “Gee, the present sure is different from the time I grew up in.” But I guess it is something that had to be addressed, and this is a convenient means to get it out of the way. A good issue for Bishop, though there is not much for anybody else.
No comments:
Post a Comment