X-Men #58

X-Men #58
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Bernard Chang

What Went Down: Storm is down in the sewer visiting the graves of the Morlocks on the anniversary of the Morlock Massacre. She finds a number of candles laid out and wonders who has done this. She’s surprised to see Gambit paying his respects, especially since he wasn’t an X-Man during the event. Also, there appears to be grass in the sewer where the Morlocks are buried. Gambit mistakes Storm for an attacker and throws some charged cards at her, then apologizes. When asked why he is there, Gambit just tells her that he feels badly for them.

Trish Tilby is interviewing Graydon Creed on her news show. Creed takes time to thank Drake Roberts, really Iceman, for his contributions to the campaign. Trish asks Creed about his hate speech, but he brushes it off as distortion from the liberal media. He frames himself as a champion, when suddenly Iceman’s father stands up in the crowd and calls Creed out for his prejudices. Bobby feels pride that his bigoted father would take the time to stand up for mutants.

At the mansion, Joseph flies through Rogue’s window while she is sleeping. Joseph insists that she come to the sub-basement with him, but she wants to get dressed first. Outside, Bishop and Wolverine are sitting by a fire. Bishop wonders what he should do next since he has fulfilled his ultimate goal of discovering and defeating the X-traitor. Wolverine tells him he just has to live, when they both notice Gambit staring into the distance. Gambit attacks Joseph; Joseph tries to explain that he may’ve found a way to cure Rogue’s powers, but Gambit insists it will just lead to disappointment. The two fight for a couple of pages before Rogue breaks them up and chastises them for acting jealous. Rogue flies away, and Gambit and Joseph make up.

We end on a scene with J. Jonah Jameson’s wife Marla telling him to stop working and go to bed. Outside the office we see that Havok is observing Jameson with intentions to kill him.

How It Was: Well, this is mostly a filler issue. Probably the most significant event is the revelation of Gambit showing his respects for the Morlock Massacre. Since the last anniversary was in Uncanny #325 thirteen months ago, I don’t know how that works in Marvel time. Still this is a pretty big clue that Gambit was somehow involved when he worked for Sinister. While the scene of the graves underground in the sewer is a little absurd, it works really well as a nice visual. And it is nice to see Storm acknowledge her failures with the Morlocks.

The rest isn’t quite as interesting. Iceman is apparently watching to see if Creed does something illegal, but that doesn’t explain why he’s helping Creed. Seriously, Creed calls Bobby his best volunteer, so what is Bobby doing to earn this title? Other than that it’s more of the same from Creed. I have to say that a lot of the dialogue does feel a lot more relevant in post 9/11 America. Seeing a conservative politician justifying racial profiling and speculating on the fears and paranoia of regular Americans, all while blaming the “liberal media” for calling him a fear monger, feels very familiar in a world of Tea Party politics and “Ground Zero” Mosque distortion. Having Mr. Drake come to the defense of mutants is okay, and he draws some good parallels, but it comes completely out of nowhere. I mean Bobby’s dad hasn’t been in the book since Uncanny X-Men #319; we’re at Uncanny #339 at this point, and that isn’t even including the Age of Apocalypse issues. So we’re picking up on a two-year-old side-character arc with absolutely no buildup… fantastic.

The fight between Gambit and Joseph is just weird and poorly handled. It seems obvious that Gambit is jealous, and emotional from visiting the Morlock graves, but he still comes off as a jerk to a guy who didn’t do anything wrong and is trying to help the woman he loves. Gambit’s portrayal towards Joseph is so inconsistent in the X-titles; sometimes he’s telling Joseph to forget the sins of the past and that redemption is possible, while other times he’s just like, “Hey, you were Magneto! Blah, blah, blah!” It’s actually a cool looking fight, but there is no emotional investment since there isn’t any decent motivation behind it.

Bernard Chang fills in this month. His style is a little more cartoony than usual, but it’s okay. He does accidentally draw regular Wolverine when he should be drawing mutated troll-Wolverine, and he insists on putting both Storm and Rogue in midriff tops, which is quite unnecessary. Rogue’s outfit is especially absurd since she insisted on getting dressed and then puts on fewer clothes than she had on in bed, with a half-shirt and short shorts.

The X-Men books have felt like filler since the end of Onslaught, and this continues the trend. Yes, once again the final issue sets up the next issue of Uncanny, but that’s about it. I can’t say that I really care about anything going on at this point, and a lot of the character motivations feel off to me.

D-

Onslaught: Epilogue

Onslaught: Epilogue
Writing: Larry Hama
Art: Randy Green

What Went Down: After being arrested by Val Cooper, Xavier is secretly taken to the location of Operation Zero Tolerance and held personally under Bastion. He is labeled Prisoner M-13, and Bastion constantly interrogates him for information and mistreats him as well. Henry Peter Gyrich is around, chastising Bastion for mistreating Xavier, who is apparently responsible for Xavier being there. We also learn that the location is an abandoned Hulkbuster Base. Bastion knows that Xavier is, or was, a mutant, but Gyrich doesn’t understand why Bastion thinks this is true.

We see a replay of the interrogation with Bastion losing his patience as Xavier refuses to admit that mutants are less then human. He then strikes the Professor. We also learn about prisoner M-9, also known as Nina the Mannite. She is a non-human little girl who is potentially the next stage of evolution beyond mutants. Bastion brings in a psychologist, Dr. Ingrid Thysson to try to prove that Xavier is a mutant. After introducing herself, Dr. Thysson sees a body bag being disposed of, but she is told not to question it. Thysson comments on how Xavier has obviously been mistreated, as does her associate Daryll Smith, a character from Hama’s Wolverine that is immune to psychics. While watching the monitors, the feed is interrupted by a cartoon called the Rainbow Bears.

In Xavier’s cell Nina teleports in and uses telekinesis to get Charles back in his chair. Bastion and his men barge into his cell, but Nina is already gone. As Bastion freaks out, Daryl tells him to calm down, and Bastion orders him to the brig. The next day Thysson sets out to create a full psych profile on Charles. She straps him in a weird gyroscope and asks him loads of questions. Xavier asks her if she knows the true purpose of this facility, and claims that after he volunteered to help, he was taken away without Cooper’s knowledge. Ingrid discovers Nina’s stuffed rabbit, and Xavier grabs it from her.

Later Gyrich and Bastion are discussing Nina. After learning that Daryl is a psi-anomoly, Bastion tells Gyrich to give him the DX order for Nina. Since the body bag from early had the letters DX on it, that can’t be a good thing. Nina visits Charles again and explains how she can read people, except Bastion. Charles tells her about his own powers, and Nina offers to turn them back on, but he tells her he’s not ready. Xavier wishes for a phone and she makes one appear, which he uses to call Renee Majcomb. Thysson sees the Rainbow Bears back on the monitor and goes to investigate. She barges into the cell, and Nina reveals herself because she senses Thysson is good.

Nina tells her that she read that she was scheduled for DX. To save the girl, Ingrid gives Xavier access to a hover vehicle to distract the guards. Thysson tries to get Nina out, but they are stopped by Darryl Smith. Xavier is recaptured and Thysson is knocked out. Smith delivers the girl in the body bag to Bastion; Bastion claims he takes no pleasure in this. On board the helicopter meant to dispose of the body, the soldier notes that the body bag is empty.

The next day, Thysson tells Xavier that she’s been transferred. She assumes that the little girl mentally controlled them, but a phone appears out of thin air. It seems that Renee has picked up Nina, and that Nina also has the power to appear dead and lifeless. Charles is happy and tells Nina to find more people like herself. Nina ends the issue by telling Renee that one day she is going to turn Charlie back on.

How It Was: Well, let’s get to the huge, gaping problem. This issue is called Onslaught: Epilogue, yet it has absolutely nothing to do with Onslaught whatsoever. In reality, it should’ve been called Operation Zero Tolerance: Prologue, but I guess Marvel was eager to keep cashing in on their super-mega crossover. Really, this is the type of issue that belonged in X-Men Unlimited, and it was most likely editorially mandated. As it is, it offers up an interesting twist on Xavier’s fate, and it offers some cool sequences where the Professor gets to calmly stand up to the bully Bastion. As a Xavier character piece, it’s actually quite good at exploring his feelings of hopelessness and his desires at redemption, all while constantly frustrating Bastion.

But then there’s Nina the Mannite, who is an overly cutesy overpowered plot device. She seems to have about a million powers, from phasing to telepathy to dropping her heartbeat, but for some reason she hasn’t escaped Bastion up to this point. Yeah, she’s a little girl, but she can materialize phones and block security systems, so what the heck is her hold up? Believe it or not Nina actually appears quite a bit later down the line, so you have that to look forward to, don’t you?

As for the rest, I like Xavier as Bastion’s prisoner, but the circumstances under his imprisonment are a little iffy. Henry Gyrich, who isn’t supposed to be a bad guy, just one who doesn’t question rules often enough, seems pretty oblivious to the fact that Bastion is mistreating a voluntary prisoner for no particular good reason. Shouldn’t he and Thysson be reporting Bastion, I mean he’s planning on annihilating an entire race? And shouldn’t Renee contact the X-Men to tell them what’s going on? Oh well. While the plot isn’t spectacular and the new characters are less than compelling, Hama does an admirable job with the internal and external struggles of Professor X, even if it is in a story that’s hard to really care about. This story definitely didn’t warrant its own one-shot, but what are you going to do?

D+

X-Men '96 Annual

X-Men ’96 Annual
Writing: Larry Hama
Art: Roberto Flores and Anthony Castrillo

What Went Down: After the Onslaught crossover, the X-Men have decided to hold a cookout/get together with the members of X-Force and Generation X. The issue starts with them playing a friendly game of baseball. Storm is about to come in for a grand slam when the group spots a Sentinel and attacks it. The Sentinel doesn’t put up much of a fight and slams into some nearby powerlines. The robot claims that it was on its way to warn the heroes; it turns out it was an unarmed surveillance unit that learned to feel because of its advanced computer processor. After Onslaught took over the Sentinels, it broke away and managed to observe Xavier turning himself over to Val Cooper in X-Men #57. It’s about to warn humanity about some great threat before shutting down.

Jubilee stares right into the robot’s eyes as it dies; it tells everyone that it’s afraid. Jubilee feels sad because they killed a sentient being, and it reminds her of the Sentinels that learned to feel in Wolverine #73-74. Cable mentions that it was a robot programmed to hunt mutants, and he and Wolverine break into a fight about how not empathetic Cable is. The fight spreads to the various teammates, but Cyclops breaks it up and tells everyone how important it is that they stay together. Storm brings up honoring Professor X’s teachings, and Caliban makes an awkward speech about Professor X loving all of them.

The next sequence takes place at the pool as Cannonball tries to videotape the various heroes lounging around; most of the X-crew harass him or tell him to blow off. After falling into the pool, Joseph offers to help Cannonball, but the youth acts skittish around him because of his past as Magneto. Later the teams cook up some food and there is a three-page sequence that involves a ping-pong ball landing in potato salad and getting sucked clean…no, really. Domino also tells the girls of Gen-X that they are going to need to grow up fast. The members of X-Force ask Cannonball about Wolverine’s ordeal that resulted in him killing Genesis. Wolverine apologizes to Cable for killing Genesis, who was really his son Tyler, and the two share a beer.

Later all three teams gather for a group photo; Gateway even shows up for the picture. A bunch of energy users are flown up into the air for a fireworks show. Jean and Cable offer to join all the mutants in a superficial telepathic mind-meld to share all the positive feelings between teammates without revealing any personal secrets. Nobody refuses the mind-meld, and the mutants go inside after it’s done.

How It Was: Well the cover promises “sixty-four pages of all-out X-Men action,” and…it’s a complete and utter lie. Really there are like two pages of all out action, and the other sixty-two pages are the various members of the X-Men, X-Force, and Generation X participating in summer activities and talking about any recent storylines that Larry Hama has taken part in, i.e. Onslaught and the Wolverine/Genesis fight. The Sentinel fight is very brief and inconsequential; we never find out what the robot was warning them about (probably something to do with Operation: Zero Tolerance), Jubilee cries over it and brings up a two year old story from Wolverine, and then everyone literally forgets about it like it was nothing. It’s pretty bad when the characters themselves don’t even care enough to follow up on lazy plotting.

The rest of the book is just the various X-characters hanging out and talking, and it gets pretty dull. Granted Hama has a cast of about thirty mutants in this book, and he manages to keep their voices unique and give each of them something to say or do. But most of this is reiterating recent plot points, like that Joseph and Gambit don’t get along, or that everyone is sad that the heroes died during Onslaught.

Wolverine does apologize to Cable for killing his son, so that feels pretty significant, but the rest of this is just fluff. Adequately written fluff mind you, but fluff nonetheless. Then again, it is kind of nice to see the characters get a chance to be less serious, since the last couple of years have been Legacy Virus, Age of Apocalypse, and Xavier going insane. It’s just too much doing nothing, and a lot of it is humor that misfires: like why is Monet so disgusted that the ping-pong ball fell in potato salad? It’s just potato salad; it’s perfectly okay to eat, isn’t it. Plus it always irks me that Excalibur doesn’t get invited since there are a lot of former X-Men on that team; X-Factor makes a little more sense since Sabretooth and Mystique are members of that team, but it’s still a sad state of affairs when you have to pick and choose who you have at your X-Reunion. All in all it has a few moments, but it is really unnecessary unless you’re a huge fan of super heroes having fun in the sun.

D