Writing: Joe Kelly
Art: German Garcia
What Went Down:
Wolverine wakes up asking about Maggott.
Storm and Cannonball tell him that he’s been unconscious due to his
severe injuries and needs rest; Wolverine ignores them and tells them to find
Maggott and save him. In an alley,
Maggott yells at his slugs, thinking them responsible for the Salem Center
murders. He kicks them, but this causes
him pain. At the institute, Cecilia
explains to Beast that the slugs couldn’t be the killers because the wounds on
Wolverine are consistent with a post-mortem autopsy.
We get a quick glimpse of a Russian person strapped to a
table about to be cut up, followed by the X-Men searching for Maggott. Cannonball brushes off Storm due to their
conflict over Marrow, and Rogue explains that she and Marrow aren’t that
different. Wolverine returns to the
N’garai cairn and finds it active; he is also weakened from his injuries. Beast shows up with Cecilia, who is wearing
one of the Wasp’s old costumes that Beast picked out for her after his
adventures with the Avengers in Avengers #1-4 (Continuity, Yea!). The group notices figures coming out of the
cairn.
Maggott is about to turn himself over to some police
officers, but Rogue stops him just in time.
Storm tries to convince Maggott it’s not hopeless, but his slugs run
away, so he jumps off the roof after them.
Instead of landing on the ground, everyone goes through a portal to find
a room of dead bodies.
Cecilia panics seeing the alien monsters. Beast and Logan let her go, but quickly
realize that the attackers can negate their powers with sorcery. Cecilia is about to be eaten by an alien dog,
but Marrow saves her and kills the one Beast is fighting. More monsters show up with Wolverine’s bloody
mask, making them think he is dead.
Maggott materializes in front of some of the monsters. He hopes they’ll kill him, but Wolverine
shows up in tribal garb to save him.
Beast and Marrow are forced to observe the alien trying to pierce
Cecilia’s forcefield. When she calls him
a N’garai, it gets angry and insists that it is called Pilgrimm. Elsewhere Wolverine explains that time works
differently in the N’garai world, and he’s been there for a lot longer than it
would appear.
The Pilgrimm explains to Cecilia that his people, the Ru’Tai,
were the slave caste in the N’garai hierarchy, but Mai’keth the Undying One
freed them and allowed them to ascend.
All of the X-Men converge, and a fight ensues. Pilgrimm recognizes Wolverine as Mai’keth,
the liberator of his people, and Wolverine realizes that his actions are
responsible for giving Pilgrimm his power and killing all the people. The whole team works together to destroy the
Eye of Kierok—the source of Pilgrimm’s power, and Cecilia winds up being the
one to save the day by sitting on it.
The X-Men save the remaining prisoners as the base crumbles; they exit
the portal and wind up in Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, the alien N’garai have surrendered to the police, and
Pilgrimm has escaped in the guise of the Russian he was torturing earlier.
How It Was:
Remember when every 25 issues you were treated to a double-sized
anniversary issue. No…well that’s
probably because nowadays comic books renumber every other year. But in the eighties and nineties this was a
standard tradition, or maybe it was a standard gimmick. So soon after the
double-sized X-Men #70, this could’ve come off as excessive. However this issue does feel like a defining
moment in the overall adventures of the X-Men by presenting a story that allows
the three new members to all step up and take their place on the team. This is a classic X-Men saving the world
tale, which seem to occur less and less as time goes on.
First off, the humor is great in this issue. Whether it’s Wolverine’s take on the classic
“time to make the donuts” line, Marrow’s handling of the alien monsters, or the
Beast’s attempts to provide Cecilia with a super hero uniform, this issue is
just full of smiles. Which isn’t to say
that it’s all laughs; Kelly mixes the jokes with very human moments for the
characters. Beast’s moment where he
thinks he solved the Legacy Virus is a great, out of nowhere touch that shows the
true insecurities behind his jolly demeanor.
Some of it is a little over the top—I can’t see Wolverine feeling so
guilty about being responsible for deaths that he freezes up instead of
flipping out, and Maggott’s desperation seems over done at times. But it’s nice to see something beyond the
goofy Maggott we all know (and some of us love); here he is fragile and vulnerable
which goes a long way in making him sympathetic.
Plus I really enjoy Kelly’s nods to continuity. The macguffin is the Eye of Kierokk, which
ties to the N’garai’s first appearance.
Rogue’s discussion with Storm over Marrow is also really well
handled. This is a double-sized issue that
manages to handle a lot of things, and balances it all mostly well.
There are some pacing issues. The second third of the issue gets bogged
down in mythos and exposition. A lot of
it is confusing—there’s a lot about the differences between the N’garai and
this new type of N’garai that is essentially the same thing. And it’s never really revealed why Pilgrimm
can control Maggott’s slugs or what they were doing at the crime scene. Mostly minor issues.
Garcia’s art is pretty fantastic, and it’s understandable
that Pacheco wouldn’t want to do a second double-sized issue so soon after the
last one. His designs for the N’garai
are pretty awesome, and I just love Marrow’s reactions in this one. Reading this, I was struck by how superior it
was to many team books today. While it
seems like common sense to build up new characters with stories like this, to
show growth and stakes of some kind, I can’t help but notice the trend today of
introducing members to teams and then completely ignoring them for months, or
even years, as they fade to the background.
Kelly and Seagle both should be commended for writing these characters
and trying to invest readers in them by creating significant moments for them.
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