Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Andy Kubert
What Went Down: This issue is interesting because it is broken up into vignettes based on the characters they explore; there are headings at the top of the page and everything. We begin outside the institute where Scott, Jean, and the Professor are admiring the new sign and reflecting on all of the positive changes going on, such as Generation X and Scott and Jean’s wedding. Inside his lab, the Beast is hard at work studying the Legacy Virus. He discovers that there are three variations of the virus, all though we never find out why this matters. Iceman asks Beast if he wants to go to the pool, but he is turned down.
At the pool, Iceman and Rogue discuss her relationship with Gambit. Bobby plays a trick on her by freezing the pool as she dives in. Rogue gets mad and points out how pathetic he is for not being able to control his powers when he has the option to.
Psylocke and Jean Grey are in the Danger Room sparring on the Astral Plane—where telepaths go to fight. Psylocke apologizes for coming on to Cyclops so hard, explaining it off as an effect of her personality being fused with Kwannon’s. They also bring up Betsy’s new short haircut as an attempt to reassert her independence, and because she also misses the recklessness and wildness that Kwannon’s personality afforded.
After the girls leave, Cyclops sets up a training program for Sabretooth. Creed tries to bait Cyclops, but the X-Man doesn’t get angry. Gambit stops by and lies about Jean asking for Cyclops to move more furniture. After Scott leaves, Gambit turns off the safety parameters on Creed’s exercise.
We then get a weird interlude involving Adam X, a random Shi-ar character also known as X-Treme, talking to Carter Ryking, the villain who was last seen in X-Men #12-13 hassling Xavier about a wacky conspiracy involving both of their fathers, in prison. Adam asks Carter about a man named Milbury, one of Mr. Sinister’s aliases, and Carter tells him to go see Xavier.
In the remains of the war room that was destroyed during the Phalanx story, Xavier and Bishop look through the wreckage. Xavier once again expresses how sad he feels about losing his life’s work, but he has a plan to locate a mutant named Commcast, who receives and stores data transmissions, since he might have access to the lost information. Nothing ever comes of this, but since Xavier is able to rebuild his war room, just assume that he gets all of his files back as well.
The second interlude has Legion—David Haller, who also happens to be Xavier’s son, having a dream where he holds crystal statues of Xavier and Magneto and they crack. When he wakes up, he screams for Destiny—a mutant clairvoyant who died a couple of years prior to this issue.
Back in the Danger Room, Creed busts through the window to the control room. Gambit beats him up a little and threatens him, and Rogue overhears all of this. She tells Gambit that their pasts are equally screwed up, but they both have to accept what they’ve done.
In his lab, Beast explains his findings to Iceman, and then agrees to take a break and get a meal so they can discuss Bobby’s personal problems about his self-image and powers. The issue ends with Scott, Jean, and Xavier once again staring at the new sign and contemplating the changes in their lives and their hope for the future.
How It Was: Another action-free character piece, and for what it’s worth, it slightly edges out Lobdell’s character piece in terms of quality. This issue is a little bit more fun and has a little bit more action than its predecessor of the month. There’s actually a lot of humor in this issue; I still laughed out loud at Rogue’s reaction to Iceman’s prank in the pool after all of these years. Beast’s musings are really well scripted. And Cyclops is used perfectly as a well-meaning, but awkward goof.
The aspect that works most in this issue’s favor is that it manages to explore all of the different ways each of the characters feel sorry for themselves. From Beast’s attempts to find pride and satisfaction in work that results in only worse and worse news, to Gambit and Rogue’s frustrations with their pasts and their relationships, it is remarkable how Nicieza is able to find so much common ground and present it from so many different attitudes, degrees, and perspectives. Nicieza is very effective at summing up where all of the characters are at this point, which is pretty important since we’re about to take another break for the Age of the Apocalypse in a few months.
Of course it isn’t all perfect. Nicieza seems to struggle with a new direction for Psylocke to go in after the resolution to the Kwannon storyline; the best he can come with for now is a new haircut…oooh. But at least her conversation with Jean manages to put the whole Betsy/Kwannon fallout to bed for good. Plus, it isn’t like other writers haven’t struggled to make her interesting. The interlude with Carter Ryking is also a bit of a misfire, as it gives the impression that Nicieza is picking up the Almagordo subplot, but then it isn’t mentioned again for a very, very long time. If you’re curious, Almagordo and Ryking’s fears are eventually resolved in X-Men Legacy #211-212 in 2008.
The art’s pretty good, especially given that once again it is mostly an issue of people talking. There are a couple of confusing sequences with Sabretooth’s fight scene; at one point it looks as if he is being cut up by a bunch of buzzsaws, but then he turns up with no marks at all. The astral plane scene is another shameless attempt to shove an action scene into the issue, but it works well enough. This is a nice issue with perfectly spot-on personalities and voices for all of the characters.
B+
No comments:
Post a Comment