Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Luke Ross
What Went Down: The X-Men are taking part in a friendly game of poker at Warren Worthington’s private loft, including a guest appearance from Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four. Beast is frustrated that Cannonball keeps revealing his cards. The Thing takes off to go save the universe, so Sam takes his spot in the game. Gambit and Storm have a conversation to recap the recent injury to Psylocke in Uncanny #328 and the fate of Sabretooth.
Meanwhile Bishop is describing a flashback/nightmare from the Age of Apocalypse to Cyclops and Jean Grey; in it a shadowy person that appears to be Havok is chasing him. Cyclops tells him that he and Jean have had similar experiences after raising his son Nathan in the future, but Bishop is frustrated by his disorientation. The waitress, Pam, comes to take their order—this is the woman Bishop thought was familiar from way back in Uncanny #299, an issue from almost two and a half years before this one.
It turns out that Bishop is being monitored by the Dark Beast, although the X-office doesn’t want to use that name. After the Age of Apocalypse, Dark Beast was transported twenty years into the X-Men’s past, where he has been experimenting on the Morlocks. In this issue he is meeting with his fellow AoA refugee, the Sugar Man. Both villains have a deal where they share intel, and Sugar Man feels out of the loop. After a standoff at gunpoint from both parties, they agree to calm down.
At the Xavier Institute, Xavier is watching over the mortally injured Psylocke. She wakes up and notes how tired Xavier looks. She assures him that she knew the risks involved and that it is not his fault. Back at the card game, it turns out that Cannonball is a bit of a ringer as he’s won a vast amount of chips. It’s down to Sam and Gambit, so Storm excuses herself to go to the kitchen. Bobby follows to ask Storm to tutor him in his powers since both of their powers involve harnessing the elements. She agrees, but to my knowledge nothing ever comes of this.
In Dark Beast’s lair, McCoy discusses how Bishop is a time anomaly that shouldn’t exist, and that he was the same person as his counterpart in AoA. Dark Beast also mentions that this information might be valuable to Sinister, which scares them both.
During the last hand, Gambit taunts Cannonball with some sleight of hand tricks; this triggers some great realization about the Legacy Virus for Beast, but nothing ever comes of this either. Inside the lair, Dark Beast shows off a creepy brain matter being that filters thought into data. He and Sugar Man decide that they need to kill Bishop so Sinister cannot use him to find out about the Age of Apocalypse. In the card game, Cannonball lays down a full house. Gambit has a royal flush, but he blows up the fifth card, along with the table, even though he has the winning hand. The message seems to be that Gambit doesn’t like to be predictable or wants people to underestimate him or something.
How It Was: This is another story that comes straight out of left field. It feels like Lobdell is treading water until a replacement writer can be found for X-Men, so instead of starting any new threads, he’s sticking to character moments and resolving old plot threads that never went anywhere. And when I say old, I mean practically ancient, totally forgotten threads. We’re reintroduced to Pam, the mysteriously familiar waitress from Uncanny #299. It’s nice that Lobdell is finally resolving this point, but I can’t help but feel that everyone has forgotten about the one panel where Bishop recognizes her from almost three years before.
As for the X-Men, a lot of their arcs are going around in circles. After asking Jean for help with his powers last issue, now Bobby is coming to Storm, which is fine except that once again nothing ever comes of this. Bishop is still haunted by the AoA, and Scott and Jean are still trying to empathize with him, but this doesn’t really work since the couple was never seen going through any of this. At least Lobdell seems to be going someplace with this by setting up Bishop as a potential obstacle for the machinations of the Dark Beast, although once again it is never quite revealed why he is so afraid of Mr. Sinister.
The poker game is an entertaining aside, and it’s a surprise to see Cannonball purposely mess with Beast, but mostly it’s an excuse for exposition about Sabretooth’s escape and the Legacy Virus. Plus, I don’t really understand what the point is of bringing in The Thing for a whopping three pages. The end is kind of perplexing, as I can’t really tell what exactly Lobdell is trying to say about Gambit, other than maybe he likes to be seen as volatile.
This is yet another lukewarm issue of X-Men. I don’t hate it; I’m kind of ambivalent to it all. Sure it’s refreshing to see Cannonball written as confident, but there are so many false starts in this issue that never come to anything that it is hard to care.
C
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