Writing: Scott Lobdell and Ben Raab
Art: Carlos Pacheco
What Went Down: In the middle of downtown Hong Kong, Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung-Fu, and the rest of the X-Men are attacked by a group of technologically enhanced ninjas. Each of the ninjas announces his or her name and power as they fight the heroes. Shang-Chi notes the attraction between Jean and Wolverine and the leadership of Cyclops; he even helps Cyclops out when the girl, Katana, attacks him. Storm deals with a ninja named Fist, and once all the ninjas are dealt with Sebastian Shaw shows up.
Jean overreacts to Shaw’s appearance by crushing him under a car; she realizes that this was a mistake and blames it on her feelings associated with Shaw’s manipulation of the Phoenix into Dark Phoenix. Of course, hitting Shaw with the car allows him to absorb the kinetic energy of the crash, charging him up. Storm and Shaw agree to move the discussion elsewhere, and Shang-Chi notes that Cannonball has disappeared. As for Sam, he has stowed away on a rickshaw, using his blasting power to keep him from weighing the vehicle down.
At the Hong Kong branch of the Hellfire Club, Cyclops comforts Jean, and she mentions something sinister on the horizon. Shaw tries to convince the X-Men that he is trying to close the deal for the Elixir Vitae for the benefit of human and mutant kind. Later in his lab, he receives a disk with data on all the characters who have contracted the Legacy Virus thus far, including Moira MacTaggert, Multiple Man, Illyana Rasputin, and others. The disk comes from Rory Cambell, an assistant of Moira’s who gives Shaw the data in the hope that Shaw can find a cure before Moira dies of the disease.
Shaw leads the X-Men to the Hong Kong branch of Fujikawa Enterprises, a weapons company that used to be merged with Tony Stark. At the same time, Cannonball has infiltrated the lab, but he is stopped by a mysterious bald man. The X-Men and Shang-Chi break into the offices only to find that the mastermind behind this plot is the Kingpin.
How It Was: This issue opens up with some great action. Although these villains are pretty one-dimensional, they have some great designs and Pacheco’s art demonstrates that their powers make them an impressive threat. The art just carries the action phenomenonally.
Poor Shang-Chi still has nothing to do in this story except admire the X-Men and listen to people like Shaw as they continue to bring up his father and the Elixir Vitae. Cannonball gets to go off on a mission, but then gets captured by a powerless super villain, further showing that the X-offices don’t know how to handle the character. And as for the reveal of the Kingpin, I can’t say it’s really that interesting. Sure you don’t see it coming, because at this point it could be anyone in the Marvel Universe, but he’s not really a character that anybody believes could be a threat to the X-Men, and he doesn’t really have anything to do with them.
Really, this issue should be taking more time to acknowledge Sebastian Shaw’s return, since he was supposed to be dead. I guess he made an appearance in X-Man earlier, but he’s a more significant bad guy to the X-Men, and the Kingpin seems redundant in a story with Shaw. After all, how many rich, manipulative villains with vast criminal networks do you need in one story?
The story does feel like it’s building its pace here, even if a lot of the exposition about the Elixir Vitae is repeated from last issue. The action in the beginning is well rendered and the story gets to where it needs to by the end. With all the mentioning of the Legacy Virus and its victims, it would’ve been nice if the subplot had picked up after this story. Instead, it gets forgotten for Operation Zero Tolerance, and it isn’t picked up again for years. Really though, that’s more of a problem with next issue.
B+
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