Generation X #27

Generation X #27
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Chris Bachalo

What Went Down: Let’s catch up with the captive Jubilee in Generation X. Bastion presents a battered visor to Jubilee in hopes of convincing her that Cyclops has been killed. Jubilee refuses to believe him, so Bastion leaves the cell.

Actually, the “cell” that Jubilee is locked in is a holographic projection in the middle of Bastion’s ready room. Because Jubilee has weaker psychic defenses than Professor X, Bastion is trying to make the girl emotional to weaken those defenses and discover the secrets of the X-Men. Daria, Bastion’s assistant, is disturbed by these methods and sympathetic towards Jubilee.

On the display screens, Bastion observes Jubilee’s thoughts. She flashes back to a scene in a funeral parlor just after Illyana Rasputin’s funeral. Cyclops comes over to comfort Jubilee, and explains that Wolverine was so emotional because of the recent death of his girlfriend Mariko, and because it reminded him of his foster daughter Amiko. Jubilee tells Scott that she is surprised to be having a normal conversation with the leader of the X-Men.

In the barn of the Massachusetts Academy (why is there a barn?), Artie and Leech are picking pieces of moss off of each other while Emma Frost tries scanning Banshee’s mind for the whereabouts of their students. Banshee’s cousin Black Tom has just attacked the school and covered it in plant life, so Emma is seeing if Tom mentioned anything to Banshee that might help. Surprisingly, Sean’s mind is on a flashback from Giant-Sized X-Men #1, the issue where he joined the X-Men. This gets Banshee excited as he realizes where the students must be.

Back at Bastion’s base, Jubilee spills the food that Bastion has offered her. He mentions that Bishop did the same thing before he killed him. Jubilee refuses to believe the villain, but she still flashes back to X-Men #8, where Bishop first met her and identified her as the last X-Man (even though the foot note is mislabeled Uncanny #29). Bastion decides to change tactics and shows her a projection of Wolverine being tortured by electricity. This causes Jubilee to despair until the fake Wolverine begs for help, proving to Jubilee that it isn’t real. Jubilee then goes on a rant, kicking Bastion and taunting him. Bastion’s mental defenses fail, showing Daria glimpses of his origin: a mechanical arm being covered in pink synthetic material, and Bastion emerging saying “At last.” Bastion knocks Jubilee over and leaves, frustrated. When Daria apologizes for what she saw, Bastion claims it wasn’t real. Then he tells her that they are going to capture the X-Men in Hong Kong. In her cell, Jubilee smiles despite her bloody nose.

What Else What Down: There is also a one page backup story by Jim Mahfood where Jubilee pretends to be on a cooking show and makes pancakes for Skin and her teammates.

How It Was: It’s pretty impressive that at this point in X-History poor Scott Lobdell was writing both X-Men books and Generation X. Man that guy must have been tired. Regardless, this is a pretty solid issue that shows Jubilee in a great light. Putting the light-hearted girl in an environment of physical and emotional abuse is a great way of creating drama, and Lobdell does a great job of depicting the conflict between Bastion and Jubes. Even though she’s completely trapped and restrained, Jubilee is still able to get the best of Bastion, despite all the technology and resources at his disposal. And the flashbacks Jubilee has of the X-Men are great touches, even though the scene from Illyana’s funeral doesn’t seem in continuity, although I guess the X-Men could’ve had a smaller ceremony before they had the big outdoor one in Uncanny #304.

Since I was never a regular reader of Generation X, I can’t say much for the other subplot scenes. It’s obvious that a lot of chaos is going down since Sean and Emma have lost the students, and nobody even knows that Bastion has Jubilee. But really the focus is squarely on Jubilee here.

Chris Bachalo’s art is pretty phenomenal. It manages to be cartoony and exaggerated while still conveying a wealth of tension and emotion. Whether it’s the page spread of Jubilee staring at the battered visor, or the impassive expression on Bastion’s face, the story flows really well for a narrative contained primarily to a small, dark room. Bachalo’s art does make Jubilee look a little younger than readers are used to seeing her as, but I think this enhances the story and makes you sympathize with her even more; it actually heightens both her innocence and Bastion’s complete lack of humanity.

This is a pretty great issue. It has a narrow focus, which works well to flesh out the two main characters. If you’re going to go to the trouble of reading the Operation Zero Tolerance crossover, you should hunt down this issue because it makes for good set up, and it’s better than ninety percent of the issues in the actual crossover anyways. Lobdell always seems to win when he focuses on characters and emotions, and this is just another example of that phenomenon. As for the backup, it’s really absurd and silly, but the art is fantastic. It’s a very odd tone shift after such a serious and tense story, but maybe the idea was to end the book on a high note; depending on your mood it will either put a smile on your face or leave you scratching your head.

B+

Uncanny X-Men Annual '97

Uncanny X-Men Annual ‘97
Writing: Jorge Gonzalez
Art: Duncan Rouleau

What Went Down: Most of the setup for this story occurs in the Storm mini-series that I’ve not read. Storm, Cyclops, Jean, and Cannonball are in an African Village protecting the Gene Nationals, aka the remnants of the Morlocks, from Humanity’s Last Stand, an anti-mutant group armed with battle suits known as Razors. As the fight goes on, a mutant named Boost notices that Cannonball is wearing out, so he jumps inside Cannonball and uses his powers to enhance Sam’s. Boost’s girlfriend, a mutant lizard woman named Tether, is adamant that they kill the fleeing Razors, but Storm insists that they stay and look after their wounded.

We’re introduced to D’Gard, Storm’s interim leader who is a mutant empath. Since he can sense people’s feelings and emotions, it was decided he would be the best to follow the tribe’s wishes. Also, the reason that Gene Nation is in the middle of an African desert is that Storm deemed it so at the end of her mini-series; she thought it would be best since the Gene Nationals were brought up in the harsh conditions of Mikhail Rasputin’s “king of the hill” style society that they would be better off in a harsh African desert upon rescuing.

Tether accuses Storm of being a woeful leader, and she has a point since the village’s transmission tower has been down for over a month due to attacks from HLS, and Storm didn’t happen to notice until now. Storm makes an excuse that the X-Men have been busy and apologizes, but that is somehow not good enough for Tether. Storm explains that she exiled the mutants in Africa in the hopes that they would escape the bigotry that plagues the civilized world.

As night falls on the village, the X-Men prepare to sleep when Havok and his Brotherhood show up, consisting of the Dark Beast and Fatale. Cyclops immediately confronts his brother, asking what he is doing with the evil McCoy; Havok counters that the X-Men allowed Sabretooth to join and brings up Onslaught as well. Scott is still mad that Havok threw him out of a plane in Uncanny #339.

Havok offers the Gene Nationals a warning and protection. Dark Beast contemplates his inevitable betrayal of Havok while the members of Gene Nation consider Havok’s offer. Storm decides to set up a temporary truce between the two mutant teams.

At the base of Humanity’s Last Stand, we get to see the conflict from their perspective. They blame Gene Nation for the death of Graydon Creed and the series of murders that members of Gene Nation committed back in Uncanny #323. One of the Razor pilots even had a sister that died in the nightclub.

The battle begins; Beast breaks off with Jean Grey to find a more technical solution to their problem, while Cannonball saves Fatale. Some Razors cause a rockslide that buries a number of mutants, so Storm leads a group in rescuing them. D’gard can sense her fear from claustrophobia, and is impressed that she is able to conquer it to help their people. A group of four Razors breaks off to attack the shelters of the injured mutants; Cannonball and Boost try to stop them, but they are too late. Havok uses this as proof that tougher methods are needed to deal with the humans.

Nearby, Jean is using a teke shield to protect Evil Beast as he finds the emergency safeguards in one of the downed Razors. Using this, he is able to trigger the emergency protocols in all of the other suits, causing them to disengage. Storm uses the mutant Boost to amplify her powers and create an enormous sandstorm to wipe out all the retreating battlesuits.

After the battle, all the humans are taken prisoner. Tether and some of the others want to execute the humans who killed the injured mutants. Havok steps up to do it, but Cyclops confronts him and they get into a fight. Cyclops brings up how Havok almost killed him, and Alex brushes it off as “not being in his right mind” at the time. The brothers get into a fistfight, so Dark Beast takes the opportunity to construct a huge gun and execute all of the humans himself. Only he actually has Fatale teleport them all away at the last second so it would look like Beast killed them all. He is excited to have more guinea pigs for his experiments. Havok is as surprised as Cyclops that this occurs.

Boost and Tether decide to leave Africa with the Brotherhood, only they make it clear that they’re not joining, they just need Fatale to help them teleport away. D’gard announces that Storm no longer has claim to leadership, and that he will be the new leader of Gene Nation. Storm is saddened, but agrees it is for the best. Jean comforts Storm as they prepare to leave.

How It Was: This is surprisingly good for an annual, especially for this period in X-History. Not only does the story have actual stakes, but it also picks up on story details in other X-books (X-Factor, the Storm mini-series, last year’s annuals) to give a sense of cohesion in the wider X-Universe. I’ve never heard of Jorge Gonzalez before, but he has a fantastic handle on the characters, and he creates some better than average minor characters in Boost and Tether.

What Gonzalez does that makes the story work perfectly is that he presents the conflict from all sides, and neither side has the perfect answer. Storm wants to protect the village, but due to her commitments to the X-Men, and her terrible shortsightedness, she doesn’t have a practical answer. Havok thinks they should take the battle to HLS, but that will just escalate things. Tether and Boost, as the POV characters for the Gene Nation, represent how conflicted the group is about its purpose and identity, as well as seeing their reactions to various attrocities. Even the humans get a page to justify their motives, by using the events of Uncanny #323 as a validation for why they blame the mutants, since those terrorists did identify themselves as Gene Nation. D’gard offers a great point of view as well, as he is constantly analyzing the situation, trying to find a resolution that will work best for everybody. It’s all very well handled.

I only have two complaints. One is a minor nerdy nitpick: this is the team that regularly appears in X-Men during this time, and they’re in an Uncanny X-Men Annual. That just bothers me a little. The second is that Rouleau’s art isn’t really working for me. It’s so super exaggerated with lots of weird proportions and poses. It does have its moments, but more often than not it just looks odd to me. More importantly, there are moments, such as the landslide, where the frame is focused on Storm fighting bad guys when it should be focused on…well, the landslide. There are one or two other moments as well where the frame is of a character saying “Hey look at that thing over there,” when really the panel should just be showing the event. Plus we never get a feel for the scale of the battle, since the art pretty much focuses on the characters we’re familiar with. That’s an understandable decision, but it would be nice to have a few more establishing shots just to show off what a huge war this is supposed to be.

Overall, this is a pleasant surprise that feels less like filler than the actual stories running in X-Men and Uncanny around the same time. It’s the X-Men actually fighting for something, dealing with the themes of the series, and not always winning in the end. I would have loved to see this as a three or four issue arc as opposed to the Uncanny space farce, the X-Men meeting Shang-Chi in Hong Kong, or the entirety of Operation Zero Tolerance. Still, at least we got this much, and it works as a great one and done story as well as a great epilogue to the Storm mini.

A