Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Terry Dodson
What Went Down: Our story begins with a flashback of Cyclops’ grandfather, Phillip Summers, dogfighting with Nazi planes during World War II. The final panel is a shot of a plane going down in the present. Luckily Adam-X, a Shi’ar mutant also known as X-treme, happens to be passing by in the woods of Northern Alaska. He manages to pull Phillip out of the wreckage before it explodes.
At the mansion’s boathouse, which is the new home of Scott Summers and Jean Grey, Beast is trying to engage Jean in some gossip that really only serves as an advertisement for the Rogue mini-series—out now! Jean seems distracted because she is thinking about her sister that was absorbed by the Phalanx, which we discovered three issues ago even though she wasn’t around. Cyclops shows up, and expresses concern over a phone call he received from his grandmother about his missing grandfather. Beast and Jean agree to go to Alaska with Scott and help search for him.
Back in the Alaska wilderness, Phillip and Adam bond over small talk while Adam sets up a shelter and a fire. Adam shares that his entire family was killed, and it reminds Phillip of his grandson Scott and his friends. In what appears to be a dream, but might be a hallucination, Legion is out in the desert where he sees Destiny and some crystal figures of the X-Men. Destiny tells him to go fulfill his father’s dream. In what I think is a setup for the Rogue mini, Bella Donna is given control of the Assassin’s Guild at the funeral of her father; she also vows revenge against Gambit.
Back in Alaska, a blizzard is brewing outside the shelter. Phillip shares that he wanted to fly his plane one last time, despite the fact that his doctor had just told him that his eyesight was failing. He then pieces together that Adam isn’t from Earth, and asks to be shown the star where he came from. As Phillip freezes to death, Adam uses his mutant power, the power to ignite electrolytes in a person’s blood, to save Phillip. Just then a rescue helicopter discovers the shelter.
Days later at the hospital, Cyclops, Jean, and Mrs. Summers are all amazed that Phillip was able to survive. One of Phillip’s friends explains that there was no way Phillip could have survived on his own, and that bloodstains were found in the area. Jean’s telepathy detects a stranger in Phillip’s room, so she goes up by herself to check who it is. She finds Adam, and Adam asks her to use her powers to share his memories of space flight with Phillip. Adam says that Phillip gave him hope and then disappears.
Cyclops comes in and asks if everything is okay, to which Jean responds that everything is wonderful. It is revealed that Scott and Jean are being observed on a monitor; we only see a red glove belonging to a mystery person and a blue glove and bit of cape that obviously belong to Mr. Sinister.
How It Was: Is this a joke? No…all right then. Because Fabian Nicieza demanded it, a story about Cyclops’ grandfather and Adam-X. This comes off as a really random tangent to the main storyline, unless you understand Nicieza’s thought process on it. You see, initially the writer planned for Adam to be the mysterious third Summers brother—he would have been the illegitimate offspring of Cyclops’ mother Kate and the Shi’ar Emperor D’ken, who presumably would have raped her. That story never materialized, and years and years later Ed Brubaker wrote a story where he created a new character named Vulcan to be the third Summers. So what we end up with is this obscure one-off story that now has no apparent purpose.
This is a pretty contrived story as well. Adam is wandering the Great White North randomly when Phillip Summers decides to take a flight even though he is losing his eyesight. This is especially weird since last issue Adam was interviewing Carter Ryking, who pointed him towards the X-Men. It’s like Nicieza totally forgot writing that part, since Adam doesn’t follow up on any of it, even when he meets the X-Men at the end of this story. Adam himself looks like a wood elf dressed like Fred Durst, but his outfit is a hundred times better than his regular costume, seen on the cover. As for his character, well he is the standard alien outsider trying to discover what it means to be human. While it’s not terrible, it’s certainly territory that has already been thoroughly explored with characters like the Silver Surfer, the Vision, Adam Warlock, regular Warlock, and a wealth of other Marvel Comics heroes. Plus his codename is X-Treme, making for one of the worst super hero names of the 90s, and that is really saying something. Still, the two characters do share some nice moments, although Adam’s return to the hospital at the end is a little cheesy. And Jean’s reaction to a total stranger in her grandfather-in-law’s room is perplexing and silly.
The rest of the issue is standard fare for this period. The Legion Quest storyline gets another foreshadow involving a desert and crystal X-Men statues. In case you’re wondering about the recurring crystal theme, well the events of the next story end up affecting the M’kraan crystal from the Phoenix storyline for some reason. There are also a couple of in-story plugs for the Rogue mini-series, and it is nice to see a time when creators actually cared to incorporate the events of a mini-series into the regular title; you don’t see that too often anymore.
The art is good, although some artistic choices don’t really fit the tone of the story. After Cyclops shares the news that his grandfather is missing, there is a really corny panel where Jean consoles him in a panel shaped like a heart. The flashbacks to World War II do look really great, even though they don’t really belong in an X-Men story. This one is a total misfire. It’s not even about the X-Men, and because of changes in planning it really is of little consequence. Really for completists only.
D+
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