Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Joe Madureira
What Went Down: The X-Men appear in a spaceship after being teleported from New York last issue. Gladiator obviously hasn’t planned this mission very well since the ship the X-Men materialize in is out of control, with questionable life support functions. Poor Beast has to figure out how to make the ship work, and eventually gets it to slow down. But once the ship finally compensates for passengers, the X-Men learn that they are heading right for an asteroid field. The X-Men have to choose between staying the course and reaching the star gate, or going around the asteroids and missing it. Joseph volunteers to move the asteroids with his powers, and oddly Gambit is the only one who backs him up on his choice. The X-Men make it to the gate and decide that they’re needed in Shi’ar space, so they take the ship through.
Back at the mansion, Cannonball tells the rest of the X-Men what happened to the X-Men in space. Wolverine is not very happy about it.
On the ship, Joseph thanks Gambit for supporting him, and Gambit alludes that untrustworthy people need to stick together. Beast tries to apologize to Trish for getting her caught up in this deadly mission, but in the long tradition of comic book reporter girlfriends (Lois Lane, Vicki Vale, April O’Neil, Roxanne Simpson, Melita Garner, etc.), Trish is excited for the opportunity to be along for the adventure, as long as she can get a scoop. Oh, and she manages to find some midriff-revealing space battle armor to wear.
In the mansion, Cyclops is attempting to contact the Shi’ar, but fails. Wolverine suggests following them into space, but Storm cautions that with the anti-mutant climate the way it is, the rest of the X-Men are probably needed on Earth.
Back in space, everybody else finds new space armor costumes. Why? Probably to sell action figures. Bishop is contemplating how out of place he feels. Even though he’s been with the X-Men for a while, he doesn’t really consider them true friends. Rogue gives him a pep talk about how it takes time to find a place with people, but the ship coming out of the stargate interrupts them. They come out in front of a devastated flotilla of war ships from the Shi’ar; the computer explains that they are no life signs on any of the ships, but the X-Men go to investigate anyways.
On one of the ships, Rogue and Beast realize that right now it’s Christmas on Earth. Also, someone stole the power core of the ship. Joseph finds that he can’t use his powers on the alien metals, while Gambit thinks about his own dark secrets. Even though the computer said there were no life signs, Bishop discovers a badly injured Deathbird who begs them to save the Shi’ar.
How It Was: Well, this story sure declined in quality fast. For many X-Men readers, adventures in space tend to frustrate them because it is really getting away from the themes of the book. Now I’m not one of those readers, I think some of the best X-Men stories have involved the Shi’ar and the Imperial Guard, but this isn’t one of them. The issue doesn’t even get off to a great start when the X-Men meet their first in a series of unnatural, completely forced conflicts. Why does Gladiator send the X-Men onto a ship that is about to kill them? I don’t know. Why are they going towards an asteroid field? I don’t know. There is no logic behind any of these events and it really hurts the credibility of the story and takes me completely out of it. Plus it’s just not interesting.
While Lobdell tries to take a quiet moment for his characters to reflect, even these bits feel more forced than usual. Bishop’s view of the X-Men as not his real friends seems pretty forced, especially after all the trouble Beast, Gambit, and Storm have been going to in the various X-Books. Yes, as a time traveler in the distant past, Bishop is entitled to feel out of place, but this really feels like Lobdell is ignoring some developments of the character so it feels more natural when he’s written out of the book in a couple of issues. Beast and Trish’s conversation is about what you’d expect, yet Gambit and Joseph’s relationship feels like it’s getting some complexity since you can’t really tell what Remy’s motivations are.
The new costumes are generic looking and completely unnecessary, but what are you going to do? Joe Mad’s art does provide some pretty amazing looking spaceships to see. But there are plenty of sci-fi comics to see spaceships in (heck, Marvel has its own cosmic line of books that are primarily about traveling through outer space). By itself, this feels like a dragged out episode, which doesn’t have any compelling conflicts to drive the story. Instead of spending an issue getting to the abandoned ships, there’s no real reason the issue couldn’t have started there instead. Very disappointing after the last issue.
D+
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