Writing: Steve Seagle
Art: Chris Bachalo
What Went Down:
Rogue has a dream where she absorbs Wolverine’s abilities and he is
forced to kill her. Interestingly, in
the dream she mentions discovering that Wolverine has a son, although there’s
no way this could’ve been foreshadowing for Daken a decade later. When she wakes up, she talks with Storm about
her dream, Gambit, and her frustrations with her powers. Now that she’s had sex with Gambit, she is
craving the touch of others. This is
also the first time it is suggested that Rogue left Gambit in Antarctica
because she had absorbed his feelings, and that it was actually what he
wanted. Storm comforts her and tells her
to move on, then invites her to the pond even though it is the middle of
winter. Storm is using her powers to
turn the winter weather into spring.
On top of a roof in the city, Archangel is brooding. Psylocke shows up, and Warren discusses how
he feels torn between his duty to his personal life and that of the X-Men. Psylocke jumps off the roof, forcing Warren
to catch her in a panic. Betsy sees this
as proof that he wants a life with her more, but this stunt angers Archangel
and he flies off.
At the mansion, Jubilee and Iceman are both up for a visit
to enjoy the warm weather. Rogue freaks
out when she sees Wolverine and runs off to find Joseph. Wolverine detects an intruder and goes off to
deal with it. While he runs, he thinks
of how stupid he was to let Marrow get to him in X-Men #72.
The intruder turns out to be Margaret Stone, a state
inspector for the Board of Education.
Xavier’s is past due for a report of some kind. We then go up in space to Bishop dreaming
about witnessing the X-Men dying. He
wakes up to Deathbird, who tells him that he is unable to move, but that she
will do anything for him. At Xavier’s,
Joseph is watching a news program about a Dr. Agee, who has discovered a cure
for being a mutant. Rogue meets up with Joseph
to suggest touching him to absorb his memories and possibly find out who he
is. Joseph sees right through this as a
weak attempt to touch him.
Rogue runs out crying, bumping into Wolverine and the
inspector. They discover Joseph next to
a smashed TV while Joseph has some kind of attack, yelling, “He is near.” Since he did this last in #350, we’re led to
believe that Magneto is somewhere around, but we never find out if he is or
not. Anyways, the inspector runs of in a
huff, claiming she’ll be back.
Oddly, instead of helping Joseph, Wolverine just goes down
to the pond where the other X-Men are playing.
Wolverine gets angry at Iceman for a thrown snowball and tackles him
into the water. Marrow calls down from a
tree, taunting him about his anger patterns.
Wolverine walks off mad. After
cutting his leg on something in the water, Iceman discovers the original
Blackbird, hidden there by Forge.
As Wolverine tries to relax, two hands grab him and absorb
his power. The X-Men go after his yell,
and discover Rogue standing over him.
Storm tells Rogue to step away, which hurts Rogue and makes her run away. We then learn that it was really Sauron who
took down Wolverine, and he’s after the rest of the X-Men.
In the epilogue, Jean and Scott arrive at their house, but
the driveway is snowed in. Because Scott
is injured, Jean uses her telekinesis, even though the snow should be too heavy
for her to move. The pattern the snow is
moved in just happens to look like the Phoenix symbol.
How It Was:
After a couple of quiet one-shot stories, it’s obvious that Seagle is
trying to get back to X-Men storytelling as usual. And he picks some good threads to follow up
on. Obviously Rogue should have some
severe emotional fallout from her experiences in Antarctica, so it’s nice to
see this continued. I like the idea that
having physical intimacy one time in Rogue’s case is worse than never having it
all, and I can totally buy that this is the straw that would cause her to want
to get rid of her powers. The focus on
Wolverine is a little random, but makes for some great imagery of her getting
stabbed up in the dream.
Archangel’s scenes are a misfire, as I can’t really believe
that any readers would be interested in Warren feeling sorry for himself. Psylocke’s behavior makes her equally
unrelatable and unsympathetic, and it’s clear that like so many other writers, Seagle’s
not quite sure what to do with them.
It’s odd that Seagle chose to bring in Iceman and Jubilee to
guest star, especially since there were already a lot of characters running
around this book. They are basically
there to have the fun that all the other characters are too old to be
having. After all, it’s hard to picture
Storm and Wolverine jumping off of tire swings.
This issue does take some weird missteps. The Education Inspector had so much
potential, but she leaves before anything too out-of-hand occurs. The real slip-up for me is Wolverine’s
treatment of Joseph. Joseph has this
weird seizure and next issue we find out that he’s stopped breathing, and
Wolverine just walked off and ignored it.
The inspector asks if he’s okay, but doesn’t do anything about it. Sure Wolverine doesn’t really like Joseph,
but he doesn’t want him dead. It just
doesn’t feel right or make much sense at all.
And for that matter, are we supposed to take this as Magneto being near
the mansion? It would be nice to know,
but unfortunately we never will.
Bishop’s ‘lost in space’ schtick is another odd choice. It’s nice that Seagle is finally giving him
something to do, but it just feels so far removed from everything else that it
might as well not be here. On the other
hand, I do like the touch of ‘Misery’ that Seagle has added with Deathbird
being in love with Bishop, but unable to express it without holding him against
his will and lying to him.
Chris Bachalo takes over as regular artist, and he’s a
pretty good choice. His characters have
the same cartoony proportions of Madureira’s art, but with a slightly less
Manga lean to it. Sure Wolverine still
looks a little too much like the Beast, but it’s not quite as exaggerated. In more hectic scenes, it can be difficult to
follow what’s going on in Bachalo’s work, but overall it’s still really
good.
As for Sauron, all I can say is that it feels like it’s been
years since the X-Men fought an actual super villain. Between OZT and Graydon Creed and everything
in between, I can’t really tell how long it’s been since the X-Men have fought
someone from their regular rogues gallery.
There are some excellent scenes with Rogue dealing with her powers, but
it’s weighed down a bit. Poor Joseph
gets completely shortchanged, and some of the other bits just feel out of
place, mostly due to never being followed up on.
B-
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