Writer: Scott Lobdell
Art: Brandon Peterson
Now back to where we left off in our exploration of the X-World.
What Went Down: Archangel and Beast take it upon themselves to rebuild Harry’s Hideaway after it was destroyed in Uncanny #294. They’re doing it in the middle of the night to avoid attention.
Over on the roof of the mansion, Rogue is contemplating the loss of her vision. Gambit tries to comfort her, but Rogue tells him to go away.
On the ground, Jubilee is spending the clear night roller blading when she discovers Professor X walking around barefoot in the grass. Since he is usually in a wheelchair, this is quite shocking, but it is all explained away as a temporary side effect of Stryfe’s techno-organic virus. Jubilee convinces him to go blading with her.
Back on the roof, Rogue is still overwhelmed by the unfairness of life.
Meanwhile, Jubilee leads the Professor into the swimming pool.
Beast and Archangel take time to reflect on the days of the original X-Men and reminisce. A cop stumbles in on them, but their image inducers activate automatically, so the cop is not frightened.
As the sun starts to rise, Gambit brings Rogue a blanket and tells her that everything is going to be all right. Awwwww.
Jubilee and the Professor dry off and discuss how enjoyable the night was. Xavier leaves to return to his chair before his legs stop working again. As his ability to walk fades, Jubilee runs up to help him back to his chair. Awwww.
How It Was: Since this is the epilogue to a major crossover, everyone gets to take a breather from all of the action. These are the types of issues that Lobdell excels at; he is wonderful at exploring human emotion through the warped sensibilities of three different pairs of characters and their relationships. We get the best friends’ perspective, the romantics’ perspective, and the surrogate father/daughter perspective, and all of them complement each other very well.
The Jubilee/Xavier thread is easily the best since it explores a relationship that has really been underdeveloped up until this point and does so brilliantly. Sure it is kind of random that Stryfe’s disease would cure paralysis for a day, but if you can suspend your disbelief, you’re in for a good issue. There is some resolution to the months of Jean complaining about Xavier not dealing with his paralysis as Xavier finally gets an opportunity to acknowledge how much he has missed his legs. And the part where Jubilee helps him to his chair at the end is very touching indeed.
Beast and Archangel offer a little bit of humor, as well as some meditation on how much the series has changed up to this point. Once again, it’s a little hard to believe that they rebuild an entire bar in one night, but it’s still well written so you can’t fault it too much. The Rogue/Gambit scenes are easily the weakest; how many times have we seen Rogue complain about life and Gambit try to make her feel better? Still they do the job of conveying the slowly blossoming relationship.
Peterson’s art is great; his expressions and backgrounds really bring the story to life and help the reader connect emotionally. Even though there isn’t a second of action, this is still some of the best characterization you can read in a comic book from the 90’s. Even though that isn’t really saying much, you should still check it out.
A
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