Writing: Scott Lobdell and Mark Waid
Art: Adam Kubert and Joe Bennet
What Went Down: The Watcher (yes, again with the Watcher) opens the issue after the final battle, speaking about the end of the Age of Wonders. He also claims that his job is done, but we all know that isn’t true. We cut back to Xavier facing off against Onslaught from the end of X-Men #56. Because he has no powers, Xavier isn’t doing too well. The X-Men show up, knock Onslaught away, and rescue Xavier. Onslaught makes a giant hand out of rock to attack the mutants, then blasts them into submission. Fortunately the combined forces of the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom, and the Hulk show up for the rescue.
The fight begins and Joseph is knocked unconscious by some debris. Xavier crawls to him and gets Joseph behind cover. Inside Onslaught, Franklin and Nate Grey discuss possibly escaping. Outside, Iron Man explains that everyone is equipped with psi-scramblers, even though nobody is seen wearing them. Cyclops claims that the X-Men are protected by Cable and Jean, even though Onslaught is supposed to be more powerful than everyone. Onslaught erects a force shield and creates a…wait for it…second sun in the sky whose gravity threatens to destroy the Earth. In practice, all it does is make the battle really windy.
Nate Grey reflects that a five-year-old kid is braver than he is. He reaches out to Cable since they share a connection as the same person from different dimensions. Cable senses them and concocts a plan to use Joseph, Xavier, and himself to magnify each other’s powers to save Franklin and Nate. Doom gives a long monologue about how it’s up to him to save the day while various secondary characters of the Marvel Universe see the second sun and wonder if the world is going to end.
Here’s how the heroes get through Onslaught’s forcefield. Vision merges with Rogue, which isn’t his power—he’s supposed to just turn intangible. Wolverine pierces the field, with his bone claws mind you, and Namor and Giant-Man hold the hole open for Vision/Rogue to fly through and hit Onslaught, which appears ineffective, but destroys the force field nonetheless.
The Hulk asks Jean to shut off Banner so that he can lose control on Onslaught and go all out. She leaves the memory of Betty Ross, but turns Hulk savage. He and Onslaught beat each other while the forces of nature rip the area around the heroes apart. Hulk hits Onslaught so hard that a huge explosion occurs, destroying Onslaught and separating Banner from the Hulk.
The heroes think they’ve won, but Onslaught has just “evolved” into his final energy form. Without a body to fight, the heroes figure that the energy needs a physical vessel to destroy. Thor flies in first, followed by all the other heroes of the Marvel Universe in varying groups. Inside Onslaught, the area the prisoners are in is starting to break down.
Mr. Fantastic stops Wolverine, Crystal, and Quicksilver from going in the energy. He explains that because Onslaught was unaffected by Rogue’s attack, that mutant genetic patterns give him more power because he began life as a mutant. Of course, then he has to make some plot convenient excuse for the Scarlet Witch related to her powers, but there you have it. Quicksilver is saddened, but relieved that his wife will be spared, but she tells him that Richards said nothing about Inhumans, and runs into the void.
Doom tries to absorb some of Onslaught’s energy to use in a later plot, but Hawkeye and Iron Man stop him and send him into the void with them. Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman are the last non-mutant heroes; they tell Cyclops to attack the energy as soon as they’re in and not to hold back. There is a huge explosion, and Bruce Banner gets sucked into the Void right as it’s happening. Xavier and Joseph are also able to save Nate and Franklin right as the explosion takes place. As the heroes die, Franklin uses his vast, plot convenient powers to create a pocket universe for their spirits to go to, thus creating the Heroes Reborn Universe for the Image relaunch. From the perspective of news reporters outside, the world at large believes that the X-Men betrayed the other heroes and killed them, which causes further hatred towards mutants in future X-Men arcs. Professor X consoles Franklin about the death of his family, and we see a blue ball in the grass that is actually the pocket universe itself. No, really, there is an entire universe in that young boy’s ball.
Professor X asks Nate Grey to take him above the rooftops to survey the damage. Nate is really impressed with the heroes, and wishes he could’ve learned more from them. Going back to Uatu, it turns out he wasn’t just narrating to nobody; he was still talking with Apocalypse. Apocalypse agrees that it is an impressive story, but also realizes with so many heroes dead it is the perfect time to try to conquer the world himself.
How It Was: Well it’s finally over, and unlike the majority of this crossover, significant events actually take place. There’s some big action scenes, a surprising detail to characters and relationships, and it really captures the grand scope of the Marvel Universe’s New York. And while there are definitely a lot of issues with the story structure in general, I have to say that there are enough really good moments to outweigh some of them. Quite simply, this absolutely feels like it affects the entirety of the Marvel Universe, and it really does…for the following year. Waid’s script manages to catch most of the character beats that longtime FF and Avengers fans want to see, from Quicksilver’s anguish over Crystal’s death to the forgiveness of Giant-Man and the Wasp. Seeing the Hulk fight Onslaught is pretty awesome, even though he’s only been a presence in his own title and an issue of Cable. Yes, it gets a little schmaltzy and emotional at times, but the heroes are aware that they are literally sacrificing their lives for the world, so it works. Unlike many gratuitous character deaths for shock value in events, this one feels handled with love and respect as the writers go out of their way to show them as noble and heroic as they can.
So as usual, the handling of the characters is fantastic. Where does it go wrong? Well there are far too many characters in this book to be fighting just one villain. Yes Onslaught is supposed to be this cosmic level bad guy, but whereas characters like Dark Phoenix and Galactus have specific abilities and powers, Onslaught’s powers are just made up as the writers go along. Creating a second sun isn’t impressive, it’s just ridiculous, and while it’s handled as serious at the beginning, it really just gets ignored for the remainder of the issue. Then he creates an impenetrable forcefield. Oh wait, the heroes penetrated it, now he’s turned to energy. There is no real logic whatsoever to what Onslaught does; it’s all for the sake of editorially mandated plot convenience. Certain heroes have to end up in Heroes Reborn and others can’t. Thus we get the absurd rule that mutants can’t fight Onslaught, except for Scarlet Witch, and Namor, who the writers and editors forgot is also a mutant. Also, Cannonball, Archangel, and Psylocke are missing for no particularly good reason, but it’s not like their inclusion would have mattered much.
Which brings us to the real problem with this issue, with this whole series in general. It’s an X-Men story where the X-Men have been completely pushed to the side to spotlight the Avengers and Fantastic Four in order to justify a gimmicky relaunch of four of their titles. The X-Men start off the issue on their own, but quickly get overshadowed by the real heroes. Even Xavier and Joseph, who should theoretically have something really significant to contribute since they were the genesis of the villain, get nothing to do except rescue some prisoners. I do like the angle that humans view the X-Men as traitors at the end of the story, but surely the X-Men could just explain the circumstances to people. I guess they were worried that people would learn Xavier was Onslaught, but there probably was a way around it. And what the heck happened to Onslaught’s mutant armies and Sentinels?
The art captures the story quite nicely, but like everything else with Onslaught, inconsistencies abound. The psi-armor that was made such a huge deal out of for issues on end isn’t even drawn on the heroes, and the X-Men decide they don’t even need it. Trish Tilby is drawn completely wrong, and the everyday people of New York are drawn just going about their lives while the battle is raging. Haven’t Sentinels been attacking New York? Wasn’t there a huge EMP that took out all the power in the city? Why is Foggy Nelson just out buying groceries with Karen Page while the writers at the Bugle are just going to work like usual? Shouldn’t they evacuate? I don’t know, maybe I’m just thinking too hard about this.
While I was expecting to hate rereading this issue, I have to say it is more of a mixed bag than pure garbage. Parts of it are very, very stupid, like a little boy creates an entire universe with his imagination and puts it in a blue ball stupid. But there are some undeniably cool parts for the Marvel heroes, even if it does come at the expense of the X-Men. Sure, running into a ball of energy isn’t exactly the most stunning personal sacrifice to be depicted in comics, but this does end up feeling really important. Plus it indirectly leads to the Heroes Return Avengers, which is one of my favorite comic series of all time (Go Buisek and Perez!). It could’ve been a lot worse, I guess, but it kind of, sort of holds up, though not completely.
C+
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