X-Force #17

X-Force #17
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Greg Capullo

What Went Down: Because the X-Office thought it would be cool: Stryfe versus Apocalypse. While Stryfe’s motivation remains unknown at this point, most readers assumed he was ticked off at Apocalypse for giving Nathan Summers the virus; later stories would also establish that Stryfe was raised and betrayed by Apocalypse as well. Anyway, the fight is totally one sided since Apocalypse hasn’t finished recharging after being let out too early, so Stryfe stabs him with a knife, but Apocalypse manages to teleport away. The Dark Riders agree to follow Stryfe, since their whole gimmick is that they always follow the strongest.

In his space station, Cable uses his sentient computer named The Professor to explain to Bishop and Wolverine how Cable knows Stryfe and that Stryfe looks exactly like him. Nobody knows why.

At the mansion Stevie Hunter is taking care of injured X-characters from the MLF fight. Havok asks Cannonball to talk to his team, and it is established that Beast is attempting to surgically remove Stryfe’s bullet from Professor X’s head to try to stop the virus from spreading. X-Force appears in their own book for two whole pages where they basically complain about being held prisoner. Siryn and Multiple Man do have a fun scene where they discuss her relationship with one of his multiples; this subplot does actually pop up in later stories, most recently the relaunch of X-Factor.

Cyclops and Jean break out of their cell after Stryfe leaves; apparently Stryfe himself was responsible for keeping their powers in check, not the cell.

Apocalypse’s teleport destination is revealed. It turns out he was heading for the mansion. Archangel attacks, but Apocalypse reveals that he is there to cure Professor X and work with the X-Men.

How It Was: Well Stryfe is really being pushed as a badass at this point. After defeating the Dark Riders single handedly last issue, Stryfe proceeds to beat the tar out of Apocalypse, one of the most powerful X-villains ever. Of course, Apocalypse isn’t at full strength, so conceivably fans would want to see some type of rematch later. In fact, it does eventually happen, much later, in 2009 during the Messiah War crossover, over ten years after the initial story.

So once again we have another totally one-sided fight, making it hard to get excited about. Even harder to get excited about are the five pages of exposition that follow as Cable explains everything about Stryfe to Wolverine and Bishop. It’s definitely a necessary scene since Stryfe hadn’t really existed outside of the New Mutants and X-Force up until this point, yet it’s still really clunky and dull. The only real plot advancement in this issue is the escape of Cyclops and Jean Grey and the arrival of Apocalypse at the mansion.

I’m sure the X-Force staff also endeared their readers by having the eponymous team appear in their own book for a whole two pages. After this issue, Cable and Cannonball are the only two members to participate in the crossover, even the final issue that also happens to be an issue of X-Force. Oh well.

The art is once again very good and fits in perfectly with the styles of all the other X-books, sans X-Factor.

B-

X-Men #15

X-Men #15
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Andy Kubert

What Went Down:  Part 7 of the X-Cutioner’s Song. This issue starts off right where last issue ended: Reaper standing over the fallen Quicksilver and Gambit, about to deliver the killing blow. Fortunately for them, Psylocke and Havok show up and save them. Storm, Polaris, and Rogue are once again chasing Dragoness (even though they took her out in the last issue). Once again, they defeat her. Also, the fight is now taking place indoors, even though the fight was outside in X-Factor.

Cannonball and Boomer chase down brainwashed allies Rusty and Skids to capture. Before being apprehended, Skids breaks Boomer’s jaw, and a humorous scene proceeds with Boomer still talking despite the fact that nobody can understand her.

While fighting the army of MLF henchmen (now wearing armor suits, even though they weren’t last issue), Rogue is blinded by villain Strobe. This takes Rogue out of the crossover, and her blindness persists for a couple of months after the crossover ends. Iceman confronts Archangel about killing Kamikaze, but Warren just brushes it off as an accident. They agree to talk about it later, but to the best of my knowledge they never do.

Over in Canada, Bishop, Cable, and Wolverine are running from Department K airships. After they’re surrounded, Cable teleports them to his space station, Greymalkin.

Outside the mansion, Colossus is feeling sorry about the death of his brother, Mikhail. X-Factor’s Strong Guy brings him some coffee with whisky in it. Inside, the Beast and Moira are still stumped by the disease that Charles is infected with.

Stryfe is overseeing everyone from monitors in his base. Then he goes into Cyclops and Jean Grey’s cell and forces them to eat some brown goop that is supposed to be warm milk supplement. He drops some more hints about raising children, which indicate that he may be Nathan Summers, Cyclops’ lost son from the future.

After this, Stryfe decides that he needs to kill Apocalypse because he has a grudge against him, too; this also lends credence to the Nathan Summers theory since Apocalypse is the one who infected Nathan with the virus that made it necessary for Cyclops to send his son to the future. Stryfe easily defeats the Dark Riders and then breaks into Apocalypse’s chamber. Apocalypse has no idea who Stryfe is, but it is clear that both of them are about to fight before the issue ends.

How It Was: I’ll admit that this issue holds a special place in my heart since it was the first X-Men comic I ever got; special thanks to my mother for purchasing it at the A-Plus gas station back when I was eight years old. This comic is the one responsible for starting me off on a hobby that continues to consume what little money I have. Quite frankly, I still love this comic.

Trying to look objectively at the issue, outside of my own nostalgia, it isn’t particularly significant. It contains fights with not one, but two obscure C-list nineties super villain teams that are both defeated incredibly easily by their opponents. All that really happens is that the MLF are defeated and a couple of X-characters are knocked out of commission for the duration of the story. The pages spent on Cable’s team are a waste; it’s just two pages of filler before Cable decides to Easy Button the team to his base.

The only real tension in this issue comes from the Stryfe sections, and the fact that Professor X is still “dying,” although that hardly counts since everyone knew he was going to make it. Stryfe has a cool design, and I’ve always found him interesting even though most people probably see him as just whiny. I think he’s perfectly justified in feeling betrayed for being sent to a post-apocalyptic future to be raised in hardship, and I like the idea that Cyclops made the wrong call and turned his son into a petty, twisted super villain. Maybe it doesn’t come off as well in this story, but I always thought it had loads of story potential. Of course this was all before the X-offices decided to make Cable the true son of Cyclops, completely negating the purpose of Stryfe and forcing him into triviality.

The continuity between issues of the crossover could have used another editorial once over since many environment and character designs, as well as events, don’t match up with the previous issue. It’s nothing severe; it’s just annoying. Andy Kubert’s art looks really nice, especially his Iceman, Colossus, and Stryfe portrayals. Unfortunately, his penchant for drawing weird giant clouds of dust behind characters is also present: on the first page no less.

It’s really just an okay issue, but I like to think of it as an above average middle chapter. And it was obviously good enough to convince an eight year old kid to spend the next sixteen years of his life buying comics, so bonus points for that.

A-

X-Factor #85

X-Factor #85
Writer: Peter David
Art: Jae Lee

What Went Down: Part 6 of the X-Cutioner’s Song. It’s time for another round of Pointless Fighting Between Heroes. This week, Reason #32—one or more heroes thinks that another hero did something wrong when he didn’t. So right from the start, we know how the Bishop and Wolverine versus Cable fight is going to end; they’ll fight for an issue, then Cable will explain that he was not the one who shot Xavier, and they’ll believe it. And that is exactly what happens. There just isn’t much else to say about this plotline other than it’s a big flashy fight that lasts the whole issue.

For the rest of the issue we have X-Factor and the Gold Team, joined by the recently freed Cannonball and Boomer of X-Force, searching for the Mutant Liberation Front headquarters. Their method of search involves just going up to local townspeople and asking if they know where the MLF is. Surprisingly, this actually works and the townspeople attack the X-Group.

All the way in Switzerland, Apocalypse has stumbled across one of Cable’s safehouses… somehow. He muses that Cable’s guns are of the same technology as the alien spaceship where he received his own technology. He also wonders if Cable was once a member of X-Factor since they used to live on his ship.

During the fight with the random henchmen, the actual MLF shows up. Dragoness gets taken down by Storm, Polaris, and Rogue, which is strange because next issue she gets taken down again by the same three characters.

In a two page sequence that has some great atmosphere, Stryfe torments Cyclops by tricking him into shooting illusions of children and Jean. After Scott goes on a guilt trip, Stryfe knocks him out and taunts him.

In a pretty important scene, Archangel is busy fighting four armed mutant Forearm when MLF member Kamikaze comes up behind him and gets decapitated by his wings. Boomer finds the head and is reasonably grossed out.

In a non-crossover related storyline, the X-Patriots members chloroform one of Multiple Man’s doubles and escape from the hospital. I’m not really sure what happens after this because I never really read X-Factor.

The issue ends with Quicksilver saving Gambit from villain Wildchild and then getting ambushed by Reaper and stabbed in the leg. The reader is left to wonder if Quicksilver and Gambit will die next issue.

How It Was: Because you demanded it, lots and lots of fighting. But it’s all pretty good fighting, if fairly standard. Plus there’s a hero vs. hero fight, so you have to turn off that part of your brain that keeps pointing out that they could easily resolve the conflict by discussing their problems instead of just exchanging quips and threats. Nothing in the whole issue will really surprise you, other than Warren accidentally lobbing off D-list villain Kamikaze’s head. I know what you’re thinking with the name, but they make that joke in the comic, so I’m not going to touch it.

The art still isn’t my favorite, although there are some sequences that I do think work really well in the style. One panel within the Cyclops scene stands out as incredibly unique because only the yellow parts of his uniform are visible. More often than not, the character poses and expressions look very odd and unnatural; a panel with Bishop has him doing a half split/half squat while shooting an energy blast. All in all, it’s one of those styles that you’ll either love or hate.

It’s lots of action with some fairly forgettable villains. It does the job of moving the plot along, although the way it goes about doing it is rather questionable; the crew just happens upon the base and the henchmen of the MLF. This issue definitely suffers from being in the middle act since the plot can’t proceed too far in order to leave something for the end.

C+

Uncanny X-Men #295

Uncanny X-Men #295
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Art: Brandon Peterson

What Went Down: Part 5 of The X-Cutioner’s Song. Apocalypse isn’t doing too well since he was brought out of his healing chamber too early, yet despite the pain he is still climbing his way to his old base. When he finally reaches the building, he finds the Gold Team, Beast, and Quicksilver waiting for him with the unconscious Horsemen on the ground; evidently the X-Men beat up the other two Horsemen in between issues.

Back at the mansion, X-Force is being held prisoner down in the Danger Room, and Strong Guy is kicking Jubilee out for getting into an argument with Shatterstar. Polaris is up in the booth feeling sorry for them since they are just kids; Havok comes and comforts her.

Down in the medical lab, Moira is monitoring Charles’ life signs while Psylocke visits. Psylocke’s internal monologue explains that she intends to kill the Professor as an act of mercy to avoid the inevitable violation of his body and mind that is to come, but she is interrupted by a summons to the war room.

The Gold Team has a big fight with Apocalypse. Apparently Beast is all better from being turned into a starving weakling since he participates in the fight.

At Stryfe’s base, Jean Grey is being violated by hundreds of metal hands. She manages to escape, only to be knocked unconscious by Stryfe. Stryfe makes a bunch of vague allusions about abandoned children.

Over at the X-Men’s war room, Val Cooper briefs all of the teams on everything that has happened up until now. I guess the paper Sinister gave her had Stryfe’s picture on it, because Val also briefs them on the villain. Jubilee brings up the fact that Cable and Stryfe might be the same person, which seems to concern everyone.

Bishop and Wolverine managed to sneak out of the mansion to go to Canada. They are laying siege to Department K, a recurring antagonist for Cable, to find any files that might lead them to their prey. Bishop thanks Wolverine for trusting him enough to let him come, but Wolverine tells him he only did it because Bishop has a record, and he didn’t want to get any of the other X-Men in legal trouble.

Elsewhere, Colossus and Archangel have Apocalypse on the ropes, but he manages to reach a machine that repowers him. He decides that there is no honor in killing his enemies while they are unconscious, so he just teleports away.

In the mansion’s study, Havok and Gambit offer Cannonball an opportunity to help them hunt Cable or the bad guys responsible for this story. Sam agrees.

Finally, Cable shows up at Department K. He is happy to see that the facility is already under assault as it will make it easier for him to obtain the files he came for. That is until Bishop and Wolverine run into him, which cues the cliffhanger for next issue’s big fight.

How It Was: Very exciting: that’s one way to put it. The fight against Apocalypse is pretty cool. Because he’s depowered, the X-Men seem like they have a chance, which builds the tension a little bit. And of course, is there anything cooler than Bishop and Wolverine beating the tar out of anonymous solders? I think not. Yes, the toughest two characters from each of the X-Men squads finally get to team up and the results are action packed, although not necessarily epic.

As for the rest, Val’s little exposition sequence in the middle is kind of dry, but entirely necessary for those readers who don’t follow X-Force or Cable. And Psylocke’s attempt to euthanize the Professor just comes off as really weird, although it does set up her attitude for future stories.

This issue also sees the benching of X-Force. Other than Cannonball, Boomer, and Cable, none of the other X-Force members do anything of note for the rest of this story. That’s okay though because this crossover already has more than enough characters in it. Peterson’s art once again is decent, although there are a couple of slip ups. On page 9 Alex is wiping away a tear on Lorna, but her eye is drawn on her forehead to make it fit.

A fun little issue right before the halfway point.

B