Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Whilce Portacio
What Went Down: We begin with Storm and Bishop together in the mansion. They are looking at portraits of the X-Men over the years, and Storm is reiterating how the X-Men strive for peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants. Poor Bishop continues to insist that he understands, but he hasn’t had an opportunity to prove it yet.
Several floors below, Iceman is getting ready for a date with Opal Tanaka and needs help with his bow tie. He asks for help from Forge, who also has no idea. Bobby asks Forge if he wants to talk about his relationship with Storm, but he declines.
Outside Jean Grey and Professor X are having a tender father/daughter type moment where they discuss the reasons they do what they do and the sacrifices that they all have made. Jean Grey tries to bring up the Professor’s paralysis, but he also declines.
Over in Long Island the Drakes, Iceman’s parents, are getting ready to go to dinner and meet Bobby’s girlfriend Opal; Mr. Drake is an incredible racist, and it boggles the mind why Bobby or his mother would agree to this dinner. Hiro, Opal’s cousin/ex-boyfriend I think, is observing the Drakes when a police officer surprises him. The cop tries to arrest Hiro, but Hiro knocks him out instead.
Bobby finally gets help with his tie from Archangel, who is also depressed because he feels that he isn’t good enough to date anybody, what with having blue skin and all. After Bobby leaves, Archangel is surprised by a version of himself from before he was transformed by Apocalypse. After beating up the imposter, the false Angel turns out to be Mystique, who is staying with the X-Men since Wolverine #52. Mystique is suffering from some kind of dementia due to the death of her good friend Destiny and as a result from her constant shape changing.
Mystique claims she was only trying to help Warren by having him confront his depression; Warren flies away angry as Storm chews out Mystique for meddling. Forge comes to Mystique’s defense, although it is unclear whether he actually agrees with her or if he is just doing it because he is mad at Storm. Storm senses that Forge is projecting his emotions about their relationship, and he storms off.
Storm and Forge finally acknowledge their relationship for the first time since the relaunch. Forge accuses Storm of being too afraid to live any role other than that of X-Man, and that she refuses to have a life of her own. Then he asks her to marry him.
At the restaurant, Bobby introduces Opal to his folks; his mother is warm and friendly, while his father is a complete jerk. Right as Bobby is about to confront his father about his behavior, Hiro shows up in the restaurant saying that his family is about to die. Bobby mistakes this as a threat against his family, so Hiro informs him that he is not the one who wants them dead. Just then the Cyburai burst in, pronouncing that Robert Drake’s parents must die.
How It Was: This is somewhat of a landmark issue as far as the creative team goes. It marks the beginning of Whilce Portacio’s last story arc before abandoning Marvel to cofound Image Comics, and it marks the beginning of Scott Lobdell’s run on the book. While not quite as long as Claremont’s, Lobdell wrote Uncanny from this issue to issue #349, as well as X-Men on and off throughout that period. So get used to him because I’m going to be writing a lot about his work for the next couple of months.
As for the issue itself, it is a textbook example of your average Scott Lobdell work; the quiet character scenes at the mansion are very good, and the action scenes are kind of dull and boring. Lobdell does his best work when he’s having characters express feelings and emotion, but when they go to fight actual villains... well I think the use of the Cyburai says it all. More on them next post.
The highlight of the book is Storm and Forge’s relationship. At this point the two characters hadn’t had very many opportunities to interact in any of the books. Rather than just forgetting about the relationship, Lobdell capitalizes on the fact by having Forge question why Storm hasn’t made an attempt to make their relationship a priority. Some people might say that Forge goes a little overboard on her, but I think he’s perfectly in the right. When she answers her duties as an X-Man, it gives him all the justification to lay into her about how she views herself and others. It’s really nice to see a super hero relationship struggle for such a common, normal reason, as opposed to having ex-wives pop up or one of the characters die.
The stuff with Archangel struggling with his identity is also quite good, and Lobdell makes good use of having to be stuck with Mystique in the mansion. The scenes with Iceman and his parents are slightly harder to get through. His father is just so blatantly over the top, I just can’t believe any member of his family would think this was a good idea. I’m not saying it’s completely awful, since most prejudices are narrow-minded, unjustified, and illogical; it’s just that every reader knows that the only place for Bobby’s father to go as a character is to have him realize what a fool he’s been and become more enlightened. And he does…it just takes about six years until it happens.
The arts fine—Storm’s eyes are back to normal…thank goodness. You know the words, so sing along—Portacio draws some beautiful characters, but the majority of his backgrounds are just solid colors. Oh and somebody forgot to color in Storm’s face on a page. This issue’s not bad, just nothing special.
B
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