Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Andy Kubert
What Went Down: Gambit is taking Bishop out for a night at an underground gambling establishment that he knows of. Bishop doesn’t take kindly to being frisked at the door, so he beats up the bouncers. It’s quite clear he does not view this as a fun night out.
At the same time, Iceman is helping Jean shop for books for her niece and nephew. Actually he’s using this opportunity to talk about his self-confidence issues with his powers. In an underground base in the mid-west, some soldiers are investigating the disappearance of fifteen scientists while talking to Senator Kelly. All of the computer screens have the words “Onslaught” on them.
At the club, Gambit asks Bishop whether he still thinks Gambit might be the traitor; Bishop admits that he trusts that Gambit’s intentions are pure, although he still thinks Gambit might turn out to be the traitor.
At the gambling tables some of the patrons feel something rubbing against their legs. They pull out guns, look under the tables, and discover the X-Babies. Two of the gamblers threaten to kill the X-Babies, but they defend themselves with their powers. When people try to intervene, Gambit and Bishop take it upon themselves to protect the children.
At the bookstore, Bobby asks Jean to check his mind for signs of Emma Frost. After discussing the progress of her own powers in comparison to Bobby’s, the two are interrupted by the Iceman and Storm X-Babies. In South America outside a barn, a young woman comes across an unconscious Magneto.
After Bishop and Gambit finish off the mob, the children tell them that they are on the run from Gog and Magog. At that moment, the two Mojoworld villains appear from a portal announcing that they are going to cancel the X-Babies.
How It Was: Well Scott Lobdell’s workload doubles as he takes over writing duties for standard X-Men as well as Uncanny. It’s obvious that with this first arc he is trying for a story with a lighter tone, since the last year of X-books has been killer diseases and post-apocalyptic wastelands. The problem is, he goes about doing this with the X-Babies.
Now the X-Babies—miniature child versions of the regular X-Men—began life in a short story by Chris Claremont, who was parodying the way that Marvel was capitalizing on the X-Men’s success with numerous spinoffs. Of course in the eighties there was only like two or three spinoffs and in the nineties there were a lot more.
Anyways, Lobdell’s take on the X-Babies doesn’t seem to be trying to satirize anything. Instead, he’s playing them straight as children with super powers, which is fine, but it isn’t very interesting or funny. All of the jokes revolve around the children adorably begging for help and arguing with each other, or they revolve around X-Baby Cyclops’ lisp, which gets quite old. On top of that, we get a cliffhanger introducing D-list villains Gog and Magog for next issue, so there’s not a whole lot to look forward to with this story.
Iceman is still worrying about how little he’s done with his powers, a plot point that feels like it has been going on for years. The one shining character thread of this comic belongs to Gambit. After being rejected by Rogue for being unable to reveal aspects of his past, it’s interesting to see Gambit gravitate to Bishop, the other X-Man who doesn’t trust him. What we see is Remy hiding behind his scoundrel side while trying to see if he can convince Bishop that he is not a bad guy, in hopes that he might someday be able to do the same for Rogue and the rest of the X-Men. It’s rather touching to see such a subtle and complex reaction as the fallout from the last couple of issues of Gambit dealing with losing Rogue.
The art works really well, especially in terms of selling the seediness of the club that Gambit and Bishop go to. The X-Babies are suitably silly and adorable looking, even if they don’t have a lot to say or do. I would call this a disappointing debut for Lobdell on X-Men, which is unfortunate since he is capable of much better work. It’s hard to tell if he was caught unaware by Fabian Nicieza’s resignation (Nicieza left because he felt there was too much editorial interference), or if this was just a misfire.
D+
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