X-Men #22

X-Men #22
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: Previously in X-Men: when we last left our heroes they were about to engage in combat with the Silver Samurai. In this issue, they do indeed fight the Silver Samurai…for about five pages before beating him. Also, Beast is better now after being cut across the back with a katana blade charged with energy. During the fight, the Samurai stabs the picture of Kwannon, and afterwards Gambit discovers that the picture is actually hiding Nyorin’s diary.

In Tokyo, Shinobi Shaw meets with Matsuo, Nyorin, and the apparent leader of the Japanese underworld Lord Tatsuo. Tatsuo knocks Shinobi on his bottom for being arrogant and overconfident.

Across the pond in Alaska, Cyclops has just finished telling his grandparents about the death of Madelyne Pryor, and how he was forced to send his son Nathan to the future to save him. The grandparents are appropriately dismayed and confused. Scott is in the middle of telling them about Cable when they are interrupted by the Summers’ neighbor Mike Milbury asking to borrow a chainsaw. Super X-Men fans will note that Milbury is an alias often used by X-villain Mr. Sinister; other x-fans will just note the depiction with the red diamond on Mike’s forehead.

Even though she claims to be the original Betsy Braddock, Revanche is the only one capable of reading the Japanese diary of Nyorin. Rather than read the diary out loud, she decides to stab Psylocke with her psychic sword, allowing her to learn the story in the scroll. This version states that Kwannon was supposed to be on a mission when she discovered Betsy Braddock’s unconscious body. When she touched the body, Kwannon and Betsy’s minds merged for a bit. Kwannon than ran off to Matsuo while Betsy was found by Nyorin and aided so that she could bring back the woman he loves, Kwannon. Revanche is still sticking to the story that Psylocke is an impersonator.

The Gamemaster appears to Shinobi and Matsuo to basically explain that he is letting Matsuo kill Psylocke because he feels like it. The two Psylockes prepare to fight each other again, but Lord Nyorin and Silver Samurai interrupt them. Nyorin claims that both women are who they claim to be. Back in Alaska, Mr. Sinister confronts Cyclops outside in an ominous fashion.

How It Was: What a long story this turned out to be. Everything is basically the same as last issue. The two Betsys are threatening to beat each other up, Gambit and Beast somewhat humorously interject, and Cyclops is sad while with his grandparents. The fight between Silver Samurai and the X-Men is a nice distraction for a couple of pages, but ultimately just serves as a distraction to string out the plot. There is no real tension since he is outnumbered and dispatched fairly quickly.

But the major flaw with this story is Nyorin’s diary. First of all it reveals a brief, boring story with no twists that Nyorin couldn’t possibly know anyway; second, in about ten issues this story gets retconned and the diary is written off as a red herring left by Nyorin to confuse the girls. Add to that some meaningless scenes with Shinobi Shaw and the criminals of Tokyo, and you get one dull issue. At least the introduction of Sinister promises something potentially interesting, which it delivers.

Also, what really bothers me is all the characters getting summarily defeated, then showing up later in the same scene perfectly healthy. This happens to both Silver Samurai and Beast, who should both be out of commission for the rest of the story if Nicieza didn’t just have them waking up when they’re needed. Granted Nicieza had a difficult mandate for this story, but that doesn’t excuse this.

D+

X-Men #21

X-Men #21
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+

X-Men #20

X-Men #20
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: Professor X is in his war room watching a reenactment of the events of the last three issues. Jubilee is with him, and he asks how she feels about the deaths of Colossus’ parents. She gives a cynical response and flees to check on Illyana before Xavier can follow up. Xavier checks in with Colossus; at this point everybody thinks Illyana might have strep throat, but really she has been infected with the Legacy Virus. Jubilee once again leaves before her feelings can overwhelm her and bumps into Psylocke who is dressed seductively and looking for Cyclops.

As it happens, Cyclops is down in the garage working on the Blackbird. Psylocke surprises him, and he clumsily slips and stumbles into her, knocking them both to the ground. As he stammers an apology, Psylocke licks some motor oil off of Scott and then kisses him. Cyclops pushes her away just in time to avoid being seen by his girlfriend Jean Grey. Scott leaves in a hurry, making Jean even more suspicious of Betsy.

Outside, Jubilee finds Wolverine chopping up trees; he is thinking about all the losses that the X-Men have suffered in the past couple of months. His meditation is interrupted by a strange scent, but he brushes it off as just being Psylocke.

Jean watches Beast and Gambit in the Danger Room and wonders if Beast feels that he has outgrown being an X-Man. Jean then checks on Rogue, who is having her vision tested by Storm; Rogue is now able to see again, but she is sensitive to light.

Cyclops packs a suitcase and decides to visit his grandparents in Alaska to tell them about his former wife Madelyne and his son Nathan, both of whom are dead. Storm cautions Cyclops not to run away from his relationship problems like she did with Forge. Jean watches him leave, then asks the computer to detect Psylocke; the computer has two locations, but Jean ignores the second.

In the Danger Room, Jean asks Psylocke whether she is having an affair with Cyclops. Psylocke answers by stabbing Jean with her psychic knife. According to the narration, this act showed Jean the reason Betsy was behaving this way, and then made her forget it; as ridiculous as this sounds, this point does come back up in later issues.

The former body of Betsy Braddock, Revanche, confronts Psylocke; Psylocke thinks it is a Danger Room program at first, until it calls her Kwannon and attacks her. The rest of the X-Men burst in, and Revanche accuses Psylocke of being an imposter.

How It Was: Well finally we are getting to the bottom of a couple of these mysteries, and finally subplots that have been going on for far too long are being resolved. Rogue gets her sight back, which is welcome indeed, and the Psylocke trying to sleep with Cyclops thread is finally getting put to an end. Unfortunately, we are also getting to the period of X-continuity with Revanche in it, and there are a lot of reasons to be unhappy with that.

During Claremont’s run, Psylocke’s originally British body was switched with a Japanese one after she went through the Siege Perilous, an annoying plot device that randomly manipulates characters for the sake of new story directions; this isn’t the last time the Siege Perilous screws with Psylocke either, but that is another story. Anyways, this is the story that explains what happened to Psylocke, except that in about nine or so issues it gets revised and completely changed around. Psylocke herself is really not interesting from a character standpoint; from the perspective of the artist, she is a lot more interesting. Not only does she not have a fully developed personality like the other members of the group, her powers are redundant on a team that already has two really powerful telepaths. So for nine issues we get stuck with two Psylockes on the X-Men, but the second one, Revanche, doesn’t really have a lot of personality to her, either.

There are, however, quite a few nice character moments. Professor X and Jubilee build on their father/daughter relationship set up in Uncanny #297 as she tries to act mature and hide from her feelings. Jean also has some great moments of confusion and frustration as she finally confronts Psylocke. The stuff with Beast and Cyclops is slightly less compelling. It is also unfortunate that the deaths of Colossus’ parents have been glossed over.

Art is good; the opening flashback to the previous story arc is nice and somber, while the details on the computers are very intricate. Also Revanche’s armor looks really nice and the scenes in the Danger Room with ninjas and robots have a nice sense of motion and action to them. Still, there are those phantom dust clouds as Jubilee roller blades on the metal floor, as well as when Revanche confronts Psylocke in the Danger Room. Either the X-Men need to hire a housekeeper or 1990s Kubert needs to observe what actually happens when people walk in a room. This is a necessary issue, but I can’t really enjoy it knowing that it is the start of one of my least favorite stories.

C+

X-Men Unlimited #1

X-Men Unlimited #1
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Chris Bachalo

Once upon a time the X-Men titles were easily Marvel’s bestselling books. With two ongoing titles selling well, the House of Ideas figured that three ongoing titles would sell even better. So began X-Men Unlimited, a bi-monthly anthology title to add to the exploits of the other two titles. X-Men Unlimited was a place for stories that writers wanted to tell, but might not have space for in the monthly titles. Initially the title was a success because it dealt with stories that were relevant to what was going on in the other titles (such as the revelation that Mystique was Nightcrawler’s mother or Sabretooth joining the X-Men), but eventually the stories started drifting to obscure character spotlights and day in the life stories of the X-Men that really didn’t have any impact on the characters or continuity. I never followed the series per se, but I figured I’d include the first issue since it loosely ties into what I’ve been discussing. Plus it’s good to mention the title since it was important at the time.

What Went Down: The story starts in media res with Cyclops crawling out of the wrecked Blackbird in the middle of the Antarctic; he has to keep his eyes closed since he has lost his visor. By mentally calling out, he is able to find Professor X, who in turn is able to find Storm. Storm is upset because the balance of nature has been disrupted.

Elsewhere, the villain of the story, Siena Blaze, is walking back to an outpost provided to her by the Upstarts; she is the mutant Fitzroy wanted to join that was mentioned in Uncanny X-Men #299. Inside there are a number of paid scientists monitoring the results of Siena’s attack. Unfortunately for them, they cannot tell if the X-Men are dead because Siena Blaze’s power disrupts their sensors. The Gamemaster beams down to let her know that they are still alive, and Siena uses her powers to blow up the outpost and kill the scientists. We learn that every time she uses her powers, Siena Blaze risks disrupting the E.M. spectrum and destroying the planet. Obviously, this doesn’t happen in this story.

At the mansion, Bishop and Psylocke are worried about the others. In the downed plane, the events leading up to the crash are mentally replayed by the Professor in a clunky bit of exposition. The X-Men were visiting Ka-Zar, Shanna, and their baby Michael in the Savage Land on a trip to get vibranium to power their cloaking device. On the way home they were shot out of the sky and had to cut the ship in half to save it. Storm tries to control the weather outside, but she is overwhelmed by the unnatural storm. Because her power tries to compensate for climate extremes, Storm’s skin is burning in response to the super blizzard; Xavier uses his powers to help her, despite the concussion he suffered.

Then an awkward scene occurs where Cyclops is physically unable to call Professor X Charles, although I am pretty sure it has already happened before in a previous book. Bishop and Psylocke rush off to Antarctica in the spare jet, but they cannot get past the wall of electro-magnetic flux. Meanwhile, Cyclops is able to make an eyepatch out of a broken piece of ruby quartz.

In the morning, Cyclops and Storm discover that the Professor has taken an ATV outside to search for help. Xavier has discovered a citadel, but his ATV dies before he can reach it. This means that Xavier has no choice but to start crawling in the snow.

Siena Blaze attacks Cyclops and Storm, and the two heroes are too tired to put up a fight. Siena is winning until it is revealed that the fight was an illusion created by Professor X. The X-Men fight back, but instead of surrendering, Siena uses her powers to create a vacuum by destroying a chunk of the E.M. field. Storm uses her power to carry the Blackbird’s escape pod out of range until Bishop and Psylocke can rescue them. Finally safe, Xavier reveals that he was rescued by an unknown individual who carried him to the shelter and provided him with transportation. This individual turns out later to be Magneto, even though the point is almost forgotten about.

How It Was: This story does seem tailor made toward Scott Lobdell’s strengths. Since the story is really the characters against nature, that leaves plenty of room for Lobdell to explore the characters’ reactions and desperation. He does succeed in setting a hopeless tone, even though we all know that these characters are never going to die, and he does a good job of presenting situations and conflicts that feel original. Storm’s reaction to the disruption of the planet, Cyclops’ helplessness and frustration, and Xavier’s candor and self sacrifice all feel genuine to the characters and the situation. On the other hand, Cyclops’ inability to simply call the professor Charles is really silly and not as cute as Lobdell thinks.

If this story was about half as long, and it was just about the X-Men crashing in a blizzard, it would be okay. Unfortunately this issue deals with Siena Blaze, who is a little bit of a mess of a character. Her power is just plain ridiculous because even though it is supposed to potentially destroy the planet, Marvel is never going to let that happen, so why bring it up? Second, her motivations are all very vague and even her reason for being an Upstart is never cleared up. She doesn’t care if her powers destroy the Earth, but she wants to achieve immortality through the Upstarts; how does that make sense? Also, we never learn why Fitzroy wanted her to join, so really it’s best not to think too hard about this character as she never appears in X-Men or Uncanny X-Men, except for an Annual back story that predates this issue.

Bachalo’s art works very well for this issue. His snowy wasteland is very detailed and the sequence where the jet is crashing is particularly excellent. The only part it struggles with is a panel depicting the mansion that looks like it is located in the Savannah. This is a very inauspicious debut for the title. It’s nothing to write home about, but there are a few nice moments in what is essentially a forgettable setup to yet another story that never took place.

C+