Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: John Romita Jr.
What Went Down: The opening splash involves Banshee and Cyclops responding to an intruder alert, which is postponing their journey to Cyclops’ bachelor party. They enter the Danger Room to discover a program replaying Cyclops’ past with X-Factor, specifically the scene when he had to give up his son Nathan to the Askani so he could be cured of a techno-organic virus in the future. Cyclops shuts down the Danger Room with an optic blast. It turns out that Cable is the one responsible for programming the scene to play; Cable is curious about an invitation to Cyclops’ wedding, so Cyclops asks Banshee to leave so he can have a long talk with his son.
At the party, all of the X-Men, plus Nightcrawler, are waiting for Cyclops’ arrival. Bishop doesn’t understand the purpose of marriage, leading to a lecture on relations in the future, leading to all of the heroes begging him to shut up.
Following Cable’s bodyslide signal, the X-Cutioner teleports into another part of the mansion. Meanwhile, Cable is convinced that Cyclops abandoned him. Cyclops is angered by these accusations, so he brings up another simulation that shows him breaking down and questioning his decision. Cyclops tells Cable how much he regrets not being able to raise him, and Cable tells him that it is okay because there were two people who helped bring him up. These two people turn out to be a time displaced Cyclops and Jean Grey, but this occurs after their wedding in their own mini-series. At the party, Gambit is attempting to stir up animosity against Sabretooth. Back at the mansion, Sabretooth smells an intruder from his cell, and he calls Cyclops and Cable to let them know.
It turns out that the X-Cutioner’s master plan is to kill Emma Frost because he thinks she is responsible for the deaths of the Hellions, and killing evil mutants is his gimmick. Cyclops and Cable defeat him pretty easily. Cable says he’ll attend the wedding and teleports Scott to his bachelor party.
How It Was: This month’s Uncanny dives headfirst into the quagmire that is X-continuity, and the results are pretty good. Up to this point Cable and Cyclops’ relationship hadn’t really been addressed, due to the fact that it is a weird mixture of time travel and soap opera. Lobdell finds a good balance by approaching Cable as an abandoned son and ignoring the absurd fact that Cable is now older than his father. By having Cyclops reconcile with his son, we also get some scenes that build on the original X-Factor stories that really underplayed Scott’s initial reactions.
The bachelor party scenes are okay, but really they’re just reiterating points that have already been addressed in other issues; Gambit doesn’t like Sabretooth, Archangel is somewhat jealous of Cyclops, Bishop talks too much about the future. The villain of the issue is also kind of underwhelming; X-Cutioner’s only real purpose is to remind us that Emma Frost is still around and establish that she’s been in the mansion for the past two years so Lobdell can dust her off and use her in the next couple of issues. Plus it feels like the villain could have found a stronger motivation to kill her since Emma used to be a pretty major villain in her day.
The art is not really representative of Romita’s best work. While the majority of it is good, there are some scratchy looking panels, especially the X-Factor flashback with baby Nate. His Cable sometimes has shoulders that are too wide (although he is definitely not the only artist to have this problem), and I’ve always felt that he draws Sabretooth too skinny. Consequently it’s not an amazing issue, but it does have some pretty good character moments for Cyke and Cable to recommend.
B
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