Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Brandon Peterson
What Went Down: First it’s time to catch up with Forge. He’s out in Kuwait exploring the remains of Asteroid M for the U.S., specifically Henry Peter Gyrich. They come across an empty Magneto shaped shell inside the throne room, so Forge logically concludes that the Master of Magnetism is alive and well.
Down at the New York ABC News studio, Professor X is preparing to go on TV in an attempt to cool mutant/human tension after the Acolyte attack on the school last issue. Jean is with him for moral support. The Professor is appearing on TV with Senator Kelly, who is concerned about the threat posed by mutants, and in his first appearance ever, human supremacist Graydon Creed, the leader and face of the hate group known as the Friends of Humanity.
Over in an orphanage, Archangel is spending time with Teddy, the autistic potential mutant from last issue. He carries the sleeping boy to bed, and then meets an open-minded nun who complements him on his bravery and compassion.
During the debate, Xavier and Kelly find that they share similar views, while Creed pretty much embarrasses himself. In an unknown location, the Upstarts are watching the proceedings. Cortez reveals that Creed is a member of the group, and we get to meet the “leader” of the Upstarts’ game, the Gamemaster. The Gamemaster also reveals that he knows that Fitzroy has been grooming another member to join the group, which he allows.
At the X-mansion, Illyana has a bad dream and gives a Valentine to her brother, Colossus; it’s very sweet. Also she has a cough, which will turn out to be significant later.
The Beast is also invited to speak on TV and uses his time to blatantly insult Creed and call him out as a racist. The Gold Team and Charlotte Jones are watching the debate at Harry’s Hideaway. Bishop notices a waitress who looks familiar, which should be impossible since he’s from the future. The subplot gets resolved in three years time, within the other X-Men title, so don’t hold your breath on this one. Storm makes a toast that lets us know Sharon Freidlander died in the last issue. Sadsies.
After the broadcast, Kelly and Xavier exchange complements. One of Kelly’s aides reveals himself telepathically to Jean; the aide is Noah Dubois of Landau, Luckman, and Lake—a group that is central to the Deadpool series years later. Outside, Cyclops meets up with Xavier and Jean and informs them that they found the Acolytes hideout.
How It Was: Well, it’s the central theme of the series being debated for an issue, occasionally interrupted by subplots that are either being initiated or furthered. The debate is actually more interesting than it has any business of being. Xavier’s media canonization after the assassination attempt in X-Cutioner’s Song is an interesting development for the character. Kelly as a moderate with realistic concerns about mutant threats, as opposed to the traditional genocidal zealots, is fairly refreshing. And the appearance of the Beast adds some welcomed humor and breaks up the monotony of the scene. The only misstep is the introduction of Graydon Creed, who is built up as being a charismatic and compelling speaker, but in actuality is just an idiot who bats around unfounded accusations and is made a fool of by the Beast. His central argument always just boils down to “Kill all the mutants!” As far as threats go, Creed doesn’t rate anywhere near human X-opponents such as William Stryker or Bolivar Trask or even Robert Kelly.
There are quite a few additional scenes to cover in this issue. The Colossus and Illyana scene is nice enough, even if it only exists to fill readers in on what happened in X-Men #17-19; however, the setup for the Legacy Virus is nice and subtle. The Upstarts scene is completely forgettable, mostly because the entire Upstarts plotline is about to completely fall out of the X-books after another arc in X-Men and another arc in Uncanny. Even without that fact, the plot is clearly getting too convoluted as more characters are added to the ranks, and the group’s purpose in turn becomes vaguer. As for the Gold Team, their interactions are interesting, if mundane. The thread about Bishop and the waitress gets forgotten for so long, and the actual resolution comes out of nowhere, that it’s best to just forget it until we come back to it later.
Brandon Peterson has a weak day on art for this issue; he seems to struggle with drawing so many panels involving three white men in suits sitting and talking and making it interesting. A lot of the character positions look stiff and unnatural; in one panel it looks like Xavier is doing the robot in his seat. And the Gamemaster makes for a really awful character design before you take into consideration the redundancy of a villain in X-Men who is a bald telepath.
C
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