Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Joe Madureira
What Went Down: Franklin Richards is alone inside Onslaught with an unconscious Charles Xavier. He tries to wake the Professor up, but he can’t. Onslaught speaks to the boy and tells him that the boy will help conquer the world.
Apocalypse and Uatu the Watcher are hovering over Manhattan. They observe as people try to rescue each other from elevators and cops fire on Sentinels, all the while commenting on whether Onslaught is the next evolution of mutants. Outside Onslaught’s citadel, the Human Torch and Iceman are hiding behind an ice wall that is protecting them from the citadel’s defenses. Hawkeye joins them and they discuss rescuing young Franklin. Cyclops, Psylocke, Mr. Fantastic, and the Invisible Woman show up to get readings for the science team. Hawkeye asks Psylocke to help him free the wounded in the street (see Incredible Hulk this month) and the Invisible Woman stays behind with Iceman to try to save her son.
Joseph rescues some civilians trapped in a subway. They attack him, but Gambit knocks him out of the way. Gambit tries to explain that Joseph isn’t responsible for this, which impresses Rogue. Joseph goes off to end the threat, and Rogue and Gambit make up for their fight in X-Men #45 and hug it out.
At Four Freedoms Plaza, Vision, Iron Man, and Ant Man (??) were injured in the EMP and are recuperating. Mr. Fantastic uses Jean Grey as a sounding board for his thoughts, and Jean thinks about how inspiring he is since the creation of the FF marked the birth of the modern age of heroes (since Fantastic Four was the first of Marvel Comics’ Silver Age super hero titles). The Thing helps out a wounded Iron Man because Iron Man is determined to help no matter how weak he is.
Outside the citadel, Onslaught is producing energy and talking about how powerful he is becoming. Sue Storm wants to stop him, and Cyclops tries to stop her. She knocks him away, but Cable and Storm show up (after fighting the Hulk in his own title) to tell Sue that Cyclops knows what it’s like to have a son in danger.
Inside Onslaught, Xavier wakes up and comforts Franklin. He tells Franklin to be brave, and Onslaught takes the boy away to use him…for something. Outside, Joseph attacks Onslaught, and the villain opens his armor to reveal a trapped Xavier suffering. A group of heroes attack; Cable uses his powers to psionically enhance Joseph’s magnetic hold on Onslaught. Cyclops sees a crack in the armor and blasts it while the Invisible Woman pulls it open. Xavier notes that this allows himself to exist on the physical and psychic planes at the same time.
Thor bursts through Onslaught and rescues Xavier. Instead of defeating Onslaught, this causes him to laugh and change appearance even further. Apparently Xavier was holding Onslaught back, so now the villain is able to unleash a “psychic maelstrom” to beat back the heroes; essentially this is a big flamey forcefield thing that the heroes can’t penetrate. When asked to search for a sign of Franklin, Xavier informs everyone that he has lost his telepathic powers. In the sky, Uatu and Apocalypse talk about what is to be done next. Uatu shows Apocalypse a hologram of Cable and tells him that he knows what to do.
How It Was: Well first thing first, Joe Mad does not draw very impressive Sentinels, which is a big disappointment. But he does do a good job with all of the different heroes. And man, are there a lot of heroes. Lobdell does a decent job managing all of them, even though all they’re really doing is shuffling around until the final issue. Hawkeye and Psylocke show up just to leave, Iceman and Human Torch don’t do much. Lobdell doesn’t do a lot with the actual X-Men, although he does a good job displaying Sue Storm’s frustration and anguish, and Iron Man and the Thing get a nice little scene. Unfortunately, Lobdell’s handling of Joseph and Gambit is completely inconsistent with Mark Waid’s; while Waid had Gambit attacking Joseph and Joseph defending himself, Lobdell has Gambit acting sympathetic while Joseph blames himself. It’s just another sign of the disorganization of the Marvel Bullpen at this point. And I’d like to know how the Sentinels survived the EMP.
Actually Xavier and Franklin both get a brief chance to shine this issue as well. Lobdell manages to capture the fear and confusion a young boy would be going through, and it’s neat to see Xavier finding strength through the boy. The fight at the end is pretty cool, although it ends almost exactly like X-Men #55 ended, with an immense force from Onslaught pushing back all the heroes, and the heroes feeling hopeless because of it. I personally dislike having Onslaught as a separate entity since it seems like yet another ploy to absolve Xavier of guilt. Plus, you’d think that once Xavier is rescued, he might play a part in defeating what he created, but he doesn’t. At least we have a new plot development for X-Men with the loss of Xavier’s powers.
Once more we have lots of buildup and little payoff. Onslaught “evolves” but nothing changes because of it except for how he’s drawn. And Lobdell makes Apocalypse seem like he’s going to be a major player in the story, when all he’s going to do is show up in the next issue of this story and then disappear. So it still feels like nobody has really thought this through. This is a pretty mediocre Onslaught chapter made worse by the fact that most of the X-Men are pushed to the side by all of the guest heroes in the book. I’d like to say that Xavier’s rescue moves the story along, but really the plot is at the same place it’s been; Onslaught is more powerful than the heroes and the heroes need to figure out a way to stop Onslaught.
C
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