Writing: Mark Waid and Scott Lobdell
Art: Andy Kubert
What Went Down: A giant Sentinel foot descends on a mother and child, but fortunately Joseph and Rogue show up to save the day. Joseph uses his powers to stop the Sentinel, but it adapts and swats him out of the sky. Rogue tries to help, but it is Dr. Doom who saves them both. Doom addresses Joseph as Magneto, and Joseph relates his impressions of Doom to Captain America. Cap reiterates that Joseph is doing a good job as a hero and tells him that really he should be talking with Xavier.
In Onslaught’s citadel, Onslaught’s forces have captured Nate Grey, the X-Man from the Age of Apocalypse. Nate mentions that he has beaten all of Onslaught’s minions, causing the villain to contemplate their worth. Onslaught explains that Nate’s psionic powers make him stronger and that he will use them to usher in an age of mutant sovereignty.
Xavier talks with Joseph about how they both share some blame in the origin of Onslaught. They have a good talk about the man Magneto used to be, and Xavier sends Joseph to the hero strategy meeting. The Professor claims that he will fight Onslaught in his own way.
Inside Nate’s mind, Onslaught sees images of the Age of Apocalypse. He’s quite disappointed with how a world run by mutants turned out, even though it was really a world run by Apocalypse. Onslaught reconsiders his plans for mutant rule.
Inside the strategy meeting, the heroes are getting ready to attack. Jean telepathically communicates with Cyclops that the Professor has gone off to fight Onslaught himself. Cyclops tells Jean to summon the rest of the X-Men in secret to go after him.
After absorbing Nate Grey’s power, Onslaught throws him in with Franklin Richards. Onslaught senses Xavier and goes to meet him below. Xavier tries to reason with Onslaught, imploring him on behalf of any part of Xavier that might still be in the villain. Onslaught smashes Charles’ hoverchair and announces that he has decided to kill everyone since neither race deserves the planet.
How It Was: This is both the penultimate chapter of the Onslaught crossover (Thank God) and Mark Waid’s swan song on the book (Aw Crud). Waid had been voicing concerns about editorial mandates restricting creative freedom for quite some time. Plus, after having to write the stories that meant his leaving Avengers and Captain America, I don’t think he was a very happy camper, and rightfully so. So, like Fabian Nicieza before him, Waid ends his run on X-Men…after only six issues. In fact, he’s only credited with the script on this one.
So how does this one measure up? More of the same; heroes fighting Sentinels, Onslaught alluding to his master plan to save mutants that makes no sense, and heroes standing around and talking about how awful this all is (the destruction mind you, not the story). Unlike most penultimate issues of stories, this one has absolutely no momentum; it doesn’t really feel like it’s building towards anything special, just the main fight with Onslaught that we’ve been waiting three freaking months for. There’s a lot of talk about the psi-armor being finished, but it was already finished issues ago, so this is mostly padding.
The plot is virtually non-existent. There are some scenes of the captive Nate Grey, captured in his own series, who was needed for Onslaught’s master plan…for some reason? Really we already knew that Onslaught had targeted Nate Grey from the first chapter of this story, so it is mind boggling why the writers waited until now for him to show up because it certainly isn’t a big surprise before the end of the story. Also having Onslaught change motivations at the last minute seems rather silly; he’s been ranting the whole series about how he’s helping mutantkind, even though it’s completely unclear how he’s doing that, and then at the last second he sees the Age of Apocalypse and decides to destroy the planet. No, I’m sorry there is just no logic or sense to back up that plan at all. And Doom shows up out of nowhere, which is kind of neat, but he doesn’t really contribute anything to the overall story; he’s only here to get sucked into the Heroes Reborn world next issue.
So what does work? Well, the dialogue from Waid is spectacular; these are seriously some superb interactions between characters. Whether it’s Joseph and Cap bonding over the sheer absurdity that is Doom’s personality, to Xavier’s thoughtful deconstruction of his friend Magneto, all of the characters ring true in their exchanges. The art is pretty fantastic, even if this is the zillionth Onslaught issue Marvel has put out involving fighting Sentinels. While the characterizations are great, I can’t really understand a lot of the behaviors different characters choose. Xavier’s decision doesn’t make much sense, unless they’re going for an Xavier that feels so guilty that he can’t live with the repercussions of Onslaught, which actually would be an interesting take on the character. And I can’t understand why Cyclops doesn’t just tell all of the heroes that they need to go rescue Xavier. Surely they have a better chance of surviving with more people, and don’t they need that fancy psi-armor? Apparently not as we learn in the conclusion.
While there is some good writing to be found, this story is still poorly organized at this point, which is just about the end. It’s not just that there are too many characters; it’s the fact that nothing compelling has happened in any of the issues to impact the story. Everyone is writing character side stories, which is fine, except that nobody has bothered to write the main story. Thankfully, next month things get back to normal, because while there were some nice moments, this just isn’t that great. Although I will say that this is above average for an issue of Onslaught.
B-
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