Writing: Glenn Herdling and Jeph Loeb
Art: Ian Churchill and Tim Sale
What Went Down: Another annual, whoopee—64 more pages to describe. This exciting issue starts out with some young boys gathered around a campfire. While passing around a skin mag, one of the boys is made fun of for reading what appears to be a New Mutants comic book. Anyways, the boys are then surprised by a hooded creature that turns out to be Caliban, the Morlock and former Horseman of the Apocalypse. The boys run away frightened, and Caliban steals all of their junk food. He needs all of this food because it turns out that he has kidnapped Jubilee and chained her up in the sewer. His plan is to get the X-Men to send Sabretooth down so that Caliban can kill him and take revenge for the Morlock Massacre.
Back at the mansion, the X-Men have discovered Caliban’s ransom note asking for Sabretooth in exchange for Jubilee. Stevie Hunter is there to feel sorry for not being around to stop him, as if it would have mattered or she was still relevant to the X-books. Xavier decides to ask Sabretooth for his assistance, but the villain refuses unless Jean Grey will give him the “glow.”
Back in the sewer, Jubilee tricks Caliban into unchaining her, and she escapes. Because it is dark and there are monster alligators in the sewers, Caliban catches up to and recaptures her. Over with the X-Men, Kitty Pryde has showed up in a special guest appearance from the pages of Excalibur because she has the closest relationship with Caliban. She’s still a little bitter about betraying Colossus’ confidence during the Fatal Attractions storyline, and she seems very sensitive about this plan as well. Jean gives Sabretooth the glow with her powers, but she doesn’t stop and overwhelms him with it. Kitty and Sabretooth, in his restraints, are then sent off to find Caliban.
Caliban re-restrains Jubilee and goes off to “save” Kitty from Sabretooth. Sabretooth starts off his partnership with Kitty by attacking her, but Kitty holds her own. We also learn that one of the panels on her costumes turns out to carry nunchucks, which she uses to beat the tar out of Creed. After threatening to solidify her arm in his brain, Sabretooth agrees to play ball.
Caliban manages to shut the gates and flood the area where the heroes are. Kitty refuses to save just herself, and instead saves Creed as well. But in a radical twist, they are both attacked by a giant sewer squid. No, really. Caliban shows up to save Kitty from the squid, and Jubilee tries to convince Sabretooth to save them all, which he does.
After Sabretooth kills the squid, Kitty uses her powers to free Jubilee from her restraints; Sabretooth takes the opportunity to exploit Pryde’s powers and get himself free as well. Once free he attacks Caliban, but Jubilee and Kitty manage to get the restraints back on. Caliban refuses to accept help from the X-Men, and the narration at the end describes his state as the passing of the Horseman and the birth of the Hound, whatever that means.
What Else Went Down: Bishop is in the middle of an adventure with his former XSE partners Malcolm and Randall. They are um… escaping from somewhere while getting shot at from the air by… someone. Malcolm falls off a platform, but Bishop manages to pull him up. Malcolm thanks him, and then we find out that the whole story was a Danger Room sequence. As Bishop leaves the Danger Room, Jubilee asks him if he wants to go rollerblading. Bishop refuses at first, but then reconsiders after her disappointed reaction. He asks if they can go walking instead, and Jubilee seems very happy.
How It Was: Another year’s worth of stories, another giant annual. The real question is why this story is in Uncanny when it stars one character from Excalibur, and two characters that normally appear in the other X-Men book. Oh well.
Looking at the story, it’s very average…kind of mehhh. There are some good moments; I like the animosity and tension between Kitty and Sabretooth, and Jubilee gets some really good humor in. I’ve never heard of Glenn Herdling, but he does write a really cool Kitty Pryde—with nunchucks. It’s awesome to see that Kitty has progressed from a scared new girl like Jubilee to a badass who can hand Sabretooth his behind with total confidence.
Unfortunately other than the fighting between Creed and Pryde, the only other action in this issue involves the X-Men fighting a giant squid, which is very silly. There are some okay scenes in the beginning with Sabretooth, but they only really establish that Creed is a jerk, which we already know. Caliban is one-dimensional and while his motivation is understandable, his execution leaves a little to be desired as far as being an interesting or fearsome villain. And this may be a nitpick, but I still can’t understand why Stevie Hunter is still appearing in these books. I have no idea what purpose or relevance she has to the team at this point, since she was originally Kitty Pryde’s dancing instructor when Kitty was a child. There’s certainly an opportunity to make her relevant, but her and Kitty never interact with each other at all.
Churchill’s art is really dark and edgy, which is appropriate since most of it takes place in a sewer; plus it’s a Sabretooth story. Churchill shows up years later as the regular artist in the 2000s, so this is a pretty good precursor to that brief run.
As for the back up strip, there is not really anything to it at all. We never even see whom the XSE are supposed to be fighting during their mission, and we really don’t get anything from their interactions that we didn’t get from their first appearance in Uncanny. There’s nothing really substantial at all; if you hadn’t figured out that Bishop was trying to get over his feelings about the future and adjust to the present, then you really haven’t been paying attention. The only thing notable about this story is that its creative team is the same one behind the very successful Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory stories, and they worked together on the show Heroes.
Really, this is a forgettable one-off story that, while consistent, isn’t really anything to write home about. There are some cool moments for Kitty Pryde fans though. The back up story isn’t even worth mentioning again, it’s so inconsequential.
C
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