Writing: Mark Waid
Art: Andy Kubert
What Went Down: We open on an average citizen of New York waking up and opening his curtain to reveal a Sentinel staring right at him. It seems that Onslaught has found a way to reprogram the Sentinels to attack New York City, as opposed to just hunting mutants. The combined forces of the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Avengers observe the chaos on a rooftop. Through conversation the characters fill each other in on the fact that Franklin Richards has been abducted, and Magneto has been discovered de-aged and with amnesia. Rogue tries to comfort Joseph, who feels guilty about causing Onslaught, while Gambit wonders if she can trust Joseph. The heroes split up with some of them going off to fight Sentinels while all the genius characters retreat to come up with some weaponry to fight against Onslaught.
In what I think is the Astral Plane, Onslaught is taunting young Franklin with Charlie—the illusion he used to capture the boy. Onslaught wants to use Franklin’s powers to alter reality in some way. Over the ocean, a group of X-Men are returning from Muir Island after having gotten the Xavier Protocols from Moira MacTaggert. The Xavier Protocols are instructions Xavier created that outline the weaknesses of all the X-Men, including Xavier himself. At Four Freedoms Plaza, the science team is examining the armor Mr. Fantastic’s father used to protect himself from Franklin’s powers. On the airplane Cyclops uncovers plans for psionic armor.
Throughout Manhattan we get panels of heroes beating the tar out of Sentinels. Rogue and Joseph are working together when Gambit destroys a Sentinel that was sneaking up on Joseph. Gambit blames Joseph for Onslaught, and the three argue until Iceman defeats another Sentinel behind them. Iceman points towards Central Park, where a huge citadel appears out of thin air, an effect of Franklin’s powers. Onslaught appears at the top with a monologue about the ascension of mutantkind.
The heroes move in to attack, but Onslaught lets out a giant EMP wave that knocks out all of the electricity in the city. It also causes a huge shockwave and takes out some of the heroes like Vision and Iron Man. Another unfortunate side effect is that it shorts out the Xavier Protocols, and causes the plane Cyclops and the rest are in to plummet out of the sky. Joseph raises some debris off the heroes, and everyone stands around looking defeated. The story ends with a page of Ozymandias carving a new sculpture of Onslaught that shows him evolving.
How It Was: This actually isn’t too bad when taken on its own. Waid has a lot of characters to deal with and does a good job of keeping them all from sounding the same. With Rogue’s return to the X-titles, he wastes no time establishing the Gambit/Rogue/Joseph triangle and handles it really well. The script balances the tension and hopelessness of the heroes, while Andy Kubert draws some awesome pictures of heroes beating up Sentinels. Kubert even manages to make the heroes standing around look awesome; I love how he draws the Human Torch, long shots of the city look awesome, and he totally sells the drama of the EMP blast sequence.
Characterization and art aside, this issue still suffers from the same problems all the other ones do. Many events that seem significant end up not mattering by the end of the story. Both the psionic armor and the armor for Franklin’s power wind up being almost inconsequential, although other issues do deal with it. Do you want to know why Onslaught needs Franklin? So do I; I guess he gives the villain an excuse to be able to just do anything, but it’s not very satisfying and it doesn’t feel like it’s building towards anything. He talks about the ascension of mutants, but it’s hard to see how having an army of Sentinels attack Manhattan helps to make mutants more free. But I do love the Sentinels as villains. Also, I love how the story just skips the inevitable plane crash of Cyclops and the others; I guess it’s just assumed they’ll make it because we never see what actually happens.
This is pretty much the best an issue in the Onslaught crossover can get at the end of “Phase 1”. The character work is solid and the art is fantastic. From this point on, with the start of Phase 2, there are only three kinds of Onslaught issues. 1. Random heroes fight Sentinels or random followers of Onslaught for an issue. 2. Random heroes rescue civilians for an issue. 3. Random heroes have an inconsequential fight with Onslaught that doesn’t affect the resolution one bit. It’s definitely not as clear of a direction as Uncanny #335 left us with, and quite frankly it starts to get old after a month of every Marvel book taking place in Onslaught ravaged Manhattan with absolutely no real story progress until the end. Yes characters show up and change, things do happen, but none of it matters until the Marvel Universe one-shot at the end. Still, Waid and Kubert were able get some weight and drama out of this disorganized mess, so that counts for a lot.
B
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