Writing: Steve Seagle
Art: Ed Benes
What Went Down: Cecilia Reyes awakens at 5am, preparing to get her job back at the hospital. Storm and Wolverine both stop her to offer her a place on the X-Men and tell her that her gifts are needed, but she is insistent on returning to the hospital. Wolverine gives her a ride on a motorcycle he received from a favor, and Cecilia recaps the OZT plot as they ride.
Cecilia meets with her superior Dr. Gibbons and explains
where she has been for the past few weeks.
Dr. Gibbons tells her he has no problem with mutants, but worries about
a super villain attack at the hospital.
He agrees to let her on in a probationary capacity.
On their plane to Alaska, Scott and Jean meet Staci and
Chris Murphy, who just happen to be their future neighbors as well. Jean is interrupted by a telepathic
disturbance; there is a powerful being in a metal box somewhere on the
plane.
Cecilia’s first surgery is taken away from her when her team
tells the family of her patient that she is a mutant. After leaving, she stumbles upon a gunshot
victim who she saves. At lunch her peers
blame her for the Sentinel attacks and ostracize her. Afterward, a friend comes in to share some
gossip and make Cecilia feel a little better.
Cecilia is then called to the ER because the police have
apprehended the villain Pyro. He’s been
shot and he can’t control his flame powers due to the Legacy Virus. She takes charge of the situation and using
her forcefield powers, she is able to remove the bullets. Later, she insists that Pyro be allowed to
stay in the hospital to recover, even though Dr. Gibbons considers Pyro a
safety risk.
There’s a quick setup for a future issue where a green
person escapes from a box among Ka-Zar’s belongings (Kevin Plundar moved to New
York for his new ongoing series around this time). At the hospital, Cecilia deals with some more
patients before being interrupted by the hero Daredevil. Daredevil has also been shot, and needs her
to look at the infection. Cecilia
insists that he take off his costume, and while she examines him, he talks
about how many people she could help as a super hero. She then checks in on some more patients,
including Pyro. Pyro asks her to loosen
his straps, saying he would never betray someone who helped him. But he does, and then he escapes. Dr. Gibbons fires Cecilia and she returns to
the mansion. Wolverine and Storm greet
her again, telling her how happy they are that she has returned. She makes it to her bedroom and passes out after
the exertion of the day.
How It Was: Of
the new characters, Marrow is the angry one and Maggott is supposed to be a
mystery at this point. This leaves
Cecilia, who up to this point has been abrasive, mean, and seemingly
ungrateful. This is Seagle’s attempt to
shine the spotlight on her, see what makes her tick, and inspire a little
sympathy. This day in the life approach is ambitious, but Seagle tries to make
it work by having the hospital centered firmly in the Marvel Universe, hence
the super heroes and villains.
Depending on your preferences, this issue can come off as a
little preachy; it’s one of those X-Men stories where every human is super
over-the-top racist, not because she’s a threat of any kind, but just because
she’s a mutant. So it’s trying a little
too hard to make us feel bad for Cecilia because she’s a female minority
mutant. What goes a lot farther to make
her relatable is the organization of the story; there are lots of quick cuts to
the dozens of jobs she has during the day, making her impatience and
overconfidence understandable and even admirable in some cases.
The Daredevil scene comes out of nowhere, although I believe
Seagle was writing the title at the time.
It’s weird to see Cecilia boss him around, and the advice he gives her
is a little redundant after her talks with Storm and Wolverine. All of them try to convince Cecilia that
being a super hero is somehow better than being a doctor, which really doesn’t
make sense; they argue that there are lots of doctors in the world, but really
there are lots of heroes as well, and you don’t need eight years of schooling
to be a super hero, just a chip on your shoulder. Plus you would think Daredevil could get help
from the Avengers or something instead of begging for free health care at a
public hospital.
As for the scenes with Pyro…well, you got to feel bad for
Pyro since all his appearances in the 90s feature him on death’s door because
of the Legacy Virus. In the 80s he was
one of the A-list X-Men villains, but by this point every time he shows up, he’s
just coughing and complaining about the pain.
Oddly he mentions trying to get money for a doctor whose work can cure
mutants, but then scoffs when Cecilia suggests going to NYU for research and
treatment. As for the end, you have to
wonder where those guards went, or why they didn’t remove the flamethrower from
his back; however, it does fit with Pyro up to this point. And before you say
it: yes, Scott and Jean do meet their future neighbors on their plane, and yes
there just happens to be an evil force on said plane, and yes all of this is a
lame and all-too-convenient comic book coincidence.
Ed Benes’ fill-in art is actually quite good; the sequence
with Pyro’s operation is impressive looking, even if her forefield is colored
wrong, and I like the use of small panels to convey the hustle of Cecilia’s
work day, as compared to the bigger panels of drawn out and uncomfortable
scenes. The X-office is still looking
for a regular artist and won’t find one until #353. Benes is good though and only gets better;
see Brad Meltzer’s Justice League run at DC.
This is a great glimpse into why Cecilia is the way she
is. It doesn’t make her totally likable,
and some of the racism scenes are heavy-handed, but the struggles do seem
plausible. It’s an interesting
slice-of-life piece, but the tone gets a little wonky when the super hero
elements are introduced. It’s still
worth a look.
B+
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