Writing: Larry Hama
Art: Lenil Francis Yu
What Went Down: Bastion shows Jubilee a hologram of the captured X-Men being brought in by OZT soldiers. Jubilee thinks it’s another illusion until she notices Logan reaching for Jean. Jubilee then gets slapped after spitting at Bastion.
Bastion visits the unconscious X-Men, wondering why he
himself hates mutants so much. Then he goes off to gloat to Professor X. Wolverine appears dead, so the soldiers strip
off his restraints and carry him to the furnace to be incinerated. Bastion shows Xavier holograms of the
individual X-Men in their cells, and tells the Professor that Wolverine died in
the crash.
Of course, we all know Wolverine is just healing. He wakes up right as the soldiers activate
the furnace. A flaming Wolverine bursts
out and takes down the soldiers.
Stealing a uniform, Logan then takes out some more soldiers that were
beating up the powerless Cannonball. The
two then free the rest of the X-Men.
With the X-Men free, Bastion puts the base on alert. Jean uses her powers to get past the guards
and trick them into shooting at each other.
The X-Men fight their way to the top of the base, but are unable to
penetrate the front gate. With Prime
Sentinels closing in, the X-Men prepare for a final battle, but they are
rescued by Jubilee, who manages to get past Bastion and reach the door
control. The X-Men escape, bury the
entrance, and comment on how weird it was that someone helped to free them.
How It Was: I
know when I first started reading this series I was pretty down on it, mostly
from the ending, but this is a pretty fantastic issue. Lots of action, overwhelming odds, a team
that is already wearing at the edges; this is what I’ve wanted from Zero
Tolerance since it began. Since this is
the core team of X-Men, it’s odd that this series doesn’t follow the main
thread of the story (defeating Bastion), but the X-Men breaking out makes for
an exciting little sequence.
For a guy who wrote Wolverine for so long, I feel like Larry
Hama is pretty underrated in the canon of Wolverine writers. It is clear he knows his way around these
characters, except for the weak portrayal of Cannonball, but that was a
company-wide problem at the time.
There’s not a lot in the way of plot developments, other than some
foreshadowing of Bastion’s true identity—that gets revealed after the crossover
ends. What’s great is that it’s a
fast-paced action piece, topped off with a fantastic moment for Jubilee as she
finally gets something to do other than be Bastion’s punching bag.
Lenil Yu’s art is really nice here. It’s a shame that a lot of the action
sequences are reserved for the less detailed security camera images, but his
posing and expressions are spot on.
Probably the best layout is either the montage of Wolverine memories
that Jubilee experiences, or maybe the spread of Wolverine jumping out of the
incinerator smoke while on fire and attacking the guards—it’s just a great
angry Logan.
This issue makes the case that Zero Tolerance probably
would’ve worked a lot better as a multi-issue story in a single series as
opposed to hype-fueled crossover spanning all the X-titles. Following the main X-cast has been fun in
X-Men #65 and now this has been enjoyable, and most of the subplots that never
pay out occur in X-Men and Uncanny. I’m
glad I couldn’t remember this because it made for a surprisingly fun read.
B+
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