Writer: Peter David
Art: Jae Lee
What Went Down: Part 6 of the X-Cutioner’s Song. It’s time for another round of Pointless Fighting Between Heroes. This week, Reason #32—one or more heroes thinks that another hero did something wrong when he didn’t. So right from the start, we know how the Bishop and Wolverine versus Cable fight is going to end; they’ll fight for an issue, then Cable will explain that he was not the one who shot Xavier, and they’ll believe it. And that is exactly what happens. There just isn’t much else to say about this plotline other than it’s a big flashy fight that lasts the whole issue.
For the rest of the issue we have X-Factor and the Gold Team, joined by the recently freed Cannonball and Boomer of X-Force, searching for the Mutant Liberation Front headquarters. Their method of search involves just going up to local townspeople and asking if they know where the MLF is. Surprisingly, this actually works and the townspeople attack the X-Group.
All the way in Switzerland, Apocalypse has stumbled across one of Cable’s safehouses… somehow. He muses that Cable’s guns are of the same technology as the alien spaceship where he received his own technology. He also wonders if Cable was once a member of X-Factor since they used to live on his ship.
During the fight with the random henchmen, the actual MLF shows up. Dragoness gets taken down by Storm, Polaris, and Rogue, which is strange because next issue she gets taken down again by the same three characters.
In a two page sequence that has some great atmosphere, Stryfe torments Cyclops by tricking him into shooting illusions of children and Jean. After Scott goes on a guilt trip, Stryfe knocks him out and taunts him.
In a pretty important scene, Archangel is busy fighting four armed mutant Forearm when MLF member Kamikaze comes up behind him and gets decapitated by his wings. Boomer finds the head and is reasonably grossed out.
In a non-crossover related storyline, the X-Patriots members chloroform one of Multiple Man’s doubles and escape from the hospital. I’m not really sure what happens after this because I never really read X-Factor.
The issue ends with Quicksilver saving Gambit from villain Wildchild and then getting ambushed by Reaper and stabbed in the leg. The reader is left to wonder if Quicksilver and Gambit will die next issue.
How It Was: Because you demanded it, lots and lots of fighting. But it’s all pretty good fighting, if fairly standard. Plus there’s a hero vs. hero fight, so you have to turn off that part of your brain that keeps pointing out that they could easily resolve the conflict by discussing their problems instead of just exchanging quips and threats. Nothing in the whole issue will really surprise you, other than Warren accidentally lobbing off D-list villain Kamikaze’s head. I know what you’re thinking with the name, but they make that joke in the comic, so I’m not going to touch it.
The art still isn’t my favorite, although there are some sequences that I do think work really well in the style. One panel within the Cyclops scene stands out as incredibly unique because only the yellow parts of his uniform are visible. More often than not, the character poses and expressions look very odd and unnatural; a panel with Bishop has him doing a half split/half squat while shooting an energy blast. All in all, it’s one of those styles that you’ll either love or hate.
It’s lots of action with some fairly forgettable villains. It does the job of moving the plot along, although the way it goes about doing it is rather questionable; the crew just happens upon the base and the henchmen of the MLF. This issue definitely suffers from being in the middle act since the plot can’t proceed too far in order to leave something for the end.
C+
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