Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Brandon Peterson
What Went Down: We open on an awesome page spread of Wolverine’s claws pinning Psylocke’s head to the wall. She is asked whether she is really a spy for Lord Nyorin, an accusation that she refuses to acknowledge. Surprisingly, most of the X-Men believe that Revanche might be telling the truth, despite her having no proof other than her body. Psylocke doesn’t help her case by refusing to be scanned telepathically, although she claims that is because she is tired of being violated after her experiences with Mojo and Slayback; this is also meant to explain her more aggressive attitude in the X-books. Wolverine tells Xavier that neither of the Betsys is lying or telling the whole truth; since Revanche knows Ninja moves that only Psylocke/Kwannon should know, there is reason to doubt her story as well. Xavier decides that the team needs to go to Japan.
Up north in Alaska, Cyclops’ plane arrives at the airport, and his grandparents Phillip and Deborah Summers arrive to pick him up. After arriving at the cabin, Scott announces that he is going to tell his grandparents the truth about the deaths of his wife and child.
Slightly less north, in Seattle, Mesmero is being chased by the Dark Riders. Mesmero is able to hypnotize one of the riders, Psynapse, but he is killed by another member (actually years later he turns up alive, claiming that he hypnotized the Dark Riders to make them think he was dead). The remaining Dark Riders kill Psynapse, believing he is unfit because he is sick. Actually, he is supposed to be another mutant infected with the Legacy Virus.
Jumping around the globe again, this time to Tokyo, Lord Nyorin visits a drunken Shinobi Shaw. Shaw makes a deal that he will petition to reinstate Clan Yashida (the clan formerly run by Wolverine’s deceased girlfriend Mariko) if he receives help killing the X-Men.
Outside the Nyorin Estate, Gambit, Beast, and the two Betsys are sneaking in—Wolverine decided not to go because the memory of Mariko Yashida’s death is too fresh, so he goes off to the Savage Land with Rogue and Jubilee in Wolverine #70-71. The group in Japan is attacked by ninjas, which they easily defeat. Afterwards they discover a painting depicting Psylocke with two swords called “Kwannon in Repose.” Back at Shaw’s Tokyo estate, Shaw learns that Matsuo Tsuryaba has petitioned the Gamemaster to have Psylocke spared. Shaw is angry but agrees there is nothing he can do.
Back at Nyorin’s, Psylocke is getting ready to attack Revanche again when the Silver Samurai sneaks up on the Beast and slashes him in the back. He reveals that he must kill the X-Men for the sake of Clan Yashida.
How It Was: More Betsy Braddock battling. Alliteration aside, this story is amounting to be less than spectacular. Psylocke is really angry, understandably, because none of her friends are taking her side. At the same time, the rest of the X-Men have nothing better to do except for question who is telling the truth and yelling at the two to stop fighting. Even Gambit and Beast seem fed up with this storyline, focused more on getting the job done than uncovering the truth.
The other subplots don’t fair well either. The Cyclops thread is completely standard as all he does is go on to do what he said he was going to last issue. The Dark Riders subplot is actually really interesting, revolving around the Riders testing characters to see if they are worthy and killing the ones who are not. Unfortunately this entire subplot gets dropped after the next four issues and is never brought up again, so the “death” of Mesmero really happens for no reason. Matsuo’s machinations really make no sense in this initial version of the origin of Psylocke/Revanche; the later version clears up this inconsistency, but it is hard to rectify it at this point.
Peterson is filling in on art and it looks decent for the most part. The ninja fighting scenes, as well as the Mesmero chase scene, are all very nicely organized and depicted. However, his Revanche doesn’t look as good as Andy Kubert’s, and once again some of his characters look stiff and robot-like, particularly the panels with the drunken Shinobi Shaw. And there is definitely a problem when Shinobi Shaw is trying to kill Matsuo, and it is impossible to tell one character from the other.
This story continues to chug along at an all right pace. Because most of this story is retconned later, and it was never really that exciting to begin with, it’s hard to recommend this book to anybody other than X-completists.
D+
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