Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Joe Madureira
What Went Down: Gambit is sitting on the mansion’s roof looking sad while he thinks about Rogue and his own past. Storm comes up to talk to him, but Gambit doesn’t feel like sharing. Instead, Gambit asks her about the fight with Marrow, and she avoids sharing her feelings as well. Gambit asks if she thinks people can change, and Storm wonders if the true nature of a person can ever be altered.
Over at the World Health Organization in San Francisco, Beast is giving a lecture on the Legacy Virus to a convention of scientists. Charles Xavier interrupts the lecture, alleging that there have only really been nine recorded cases of the virus and wondering if this virus really deserves to be classified as the enormous threat the media has made it out to be. Beast brings up the potential for an epidemic, but Xavier counters that this could have been a preexisting condition in some mutants. This enrages Renee Majcomb, a political leader in Genosha whose people have been dying of the virus quite regularly. Then they bring out Val Cooper to testify that the Legacy Virus isn’t a medical crisis.
On Muir Island, Moira MacTaggert watches the conference with the rest of Excalibur. In discussion they bring up that Legacy is more of a designer gene, whatever that means. At the Xavier Institute, Boom Boom of X-Force has been helping to take care of Sabretooth during his recuperation from his head wound. While the Danger Room is set to a calming forest setting, it seems that Sabretooth has started hunting the virtual animals, leading Tabitha to believe that Creed might be faking his newfound kindness. After Boomer leaves, Gambit shows up to confront Creed about his past.
Driving home from the conference, Beast ponders the seriousness of the PR stunt he pulled with Xavier; he wonders if they are risking public safety to deflate fear and prejudice. Beast slams on the brakes when he discovers Xavier’s empty hover chair abandoned on the side of the road. He finds Xavier sitting on a rock contemplating his own guilt. Charles shares his concerns about the Legacy Virus and Sabretooth, but Beast insists that Xavier is worrying about nothing.
Gambit uses the Danger Room to show Creed holograms of various people that he murdered; many of them were trying to help him. Sabretooth acts anguished and lashes out at the holograms. Then Gambit shows Sabretooth a hologram of the flashback scene from X-Men #33 where Creed had Gambit’s girlfriend and brother tied up and held off a roof. Gambit replays the scene over and over, and this seems to have an effect on Sabretooth. Storm interrupts and is angry that Gambit is seemingly torturing their prisoner. She locks Creed in a cage in the dark, but Creed repeats something from his memories that shows that he might be faking.
Beast insists that Xavier is not responsible for how Sabretooth is, and that he tried his best. In the end, Xavier realizes he tried his best, but he is still only human.
How It Was: For an issue that is really low on action, this one turns out to be really, really good. Both the A and B storylines tie together really well as they both deal with the themes of deception and redemption, but in totally different ways. This is Lobdell characterization at its best.
Xavier and Beast venture into the murky waters of ethical responsibility and the medical community. Once again Lobdell presents balanced arguments for both sides of the argument. On the one hand, Xavier wants to downplay the severity of the disease to prevent people from getting caught up in fear and prejudice, reflecting the very real world treatment of many AIDS sufferers. At the same time Beast is concerned that they are misleading people by contesting the dangers of the virus. It really makes you stop and think about the ways in which statistics and experts are used in the news today, and the ways in which people try to control the “spin” of certain stories.
The Xavier scenes at the end don’t work quite as well. First, the rock he is sitting on seems impossibly large for a paralyzed man to safely scale, and it is too far away from his chair. Emotionally, it does work quite as well as it should because a lot of it centers on Xavier’s frustrations to cure Sabretooth. Yes there is a lot of discussion of redemption and things being out Xavier’s hands that does tie in well thematically, but the fact is that up to this point we haven’t really seen any scenes of Xavier trying to help Sabretooth in any of the X-books. True this all could’ve been happening off-panel, but it still comes off as a little hard to believe, given how adamant Xavier was about not giving up on Sabretooth at the beginning of the story.
The Gambit story line is phenomenal with Remy taking the opportunity to both get back at Creed for screwing with his relationship with Rogue, while also trying to prove to himself that people can change. It all builds wonderfully off the opening scenes with he and Storm discussing whether people can change; Gambit needs to hear that they can so he won’t be haunted by his past, but Storm needs to think they can’t change so she can justify her killing of Marrow in Uncanny #325. When Gambit is parading out the holograms of Creed’s victims, he’s not just trying to torture Sabretooth, he’s desperately searching for remorse or compassion to show that if Sabretooth can change his nature, so can he. This is some dynamically effective writing. The only real glitch is the end where Storm chastises Gambit for his poor treatment of Sabretooth, and then proceeds to lock the prisoner in a cage that is too small for him and leave him in the dark. I would say that comes off a little bit like hypocrisy.
The art works really well in some parts; the opening sequence with Storm and Gambit sitting outside with lightning flashing in the background looks really great. My only real complaint is that Joe Mad makes Sabretooth’s body look a little too much like the Beast’s, which is especially apparent when Gambit projects the flashback of Creed’s original costume and design. Still, this is a fantastic issue that features a lot of great looks at different character motivations.
A
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