Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Carlos Pacheco and Salvador Larroca
What Went Down: The issue begins long after the end
of the last one, with Iceman, Marrow, and Cecilia riding an ice slide over the
ocean towards Connecticut, the location of Charlotte’s kidnapped son
Timmy. The two girls are still
bickering, but they both agree that Sabra might not be trustworthy.
We then get a flashback to Sabra saving the group from the
army last issue by dropping a building on them.
Sabra introduces herself to the mutants and tells them that she just so
happens to have discovered the location of Charlotte Jones’ son. After the flashback, Sabra lands on the ice
slide. She explains that she lost her
son in a conflict, and doesn’t want it to happen to anybody else. Marrow decides to jump in the water, to the
confusion of everyone else. She surfaces
with a dead Prime Sentinel, impaled on her bones.
In Washington, the Senator has just finished an amazing
(off-panel) speech to the Senate to change their minds about Operation Zero
Tolerance. Henry Gyrich talks to the
senator about how he respects the man, even though he is probably destroying
his career.
After reaching a Connecticut beach house, they are ambushed
yet again by another group of Prime Sentinels, this time accompanied by
Bastion. Iceman pleas for Bastion to release the boy, which he says he will
do. Bastion introduces the old woman
from last issue as the closest thing he has to a mother. He then somehow uses Cecilia’s powers against
her. His mother tells him that he has
become a monster.
Marrow decides that the best course of action is to kill
Bastion’s mother since she is important to him.
Iceman stops her and freezes everyone; he then attacks Bastion on his
own. As they fight, Iceman gives a long
speech about tolerance and letting go of anger; a lot of it has to do with his
experiences helping to rehabilitate his father.
Iceman has Bastion on the ropes but refuses to kill him. The Prime Sentinels catch up and neutralize
Bobby’s powers.
Iceman accuses Bastion of having no humanity, giving the
villain pause. He begins to give an
order to his Sentinels, but he is interrupted by SHIELD agents arriving to
arrest Bastion and all of OZT. It seems
that the Senator’s plea was successful.
Later, Iceman finds out that the rest of the X-Men escaped from Bastion as
well. Marrow asks Iceman why they didn’t
kill him, and he responds that it would have made them like Bastion.
How It Was: Up
to this issue, I feel I’ve been pretty charitable with this story. It was far from perfect, but it had some good
character moments and it was Lobdell’s last story on X-Men. Unfortunately this issue just goes too far
off the beaten trail for me to enjoy it.
First, Sabra is a huge letdown, in more ways than one. She’s just used as a plot device to tell the
characters where they need to go, and to conveniently get the heroes out of the
ambush cliffhanger from last issue.
After explaining the aspects of her past that the audience already knew
from past issues, she does absolutely nothing else in this issue. I The threat to Timmy doesn’t feel very
immediate, and the fact that we don’t really know the character at all lessens
the stakes even more.
But the real disappointment is how the entire story ends;
SHIELD shows up to arrest the bad guys, and you realize the heroes didn’t do
anything to bring about the resolution.
Senator Kelly’s amazing speech (that we don’t get to see) was so
riveting that it got one of the fastest proclamations out of the Senate
ever. Of course, the reason we don’t get
to see the speech is because Iceman pretty much covers everything in his own
long speech as he beats on Bastion. This
is the guy who violated the X-Men’s home, who captured the most powerful X-Men,
and imprisoned/tortured their leader Professor X, and the X-Men don’t even get
the satisfaction of defeating him themselves.
Instead some generic soldiers show up and announce the story is
over. It’s possibly the most
disappointing story ending ever.
There’s still some nice character moments; Marrow’s
fish-out-of-water routine is fun to watch as she tries to understand what
Connecticut is and kills a Prime Sentinel with her bear hands. But half way through, all three girls get pushed
to the side with nothing else to contribute.
And the issue doesn’t even explain who or what Bastion is (this is
actually revealed in two obscure 1998 annuals unconnected to the X-Men). So no fulfillment and no answers; it just
ends. Iceman’s speech is really long and
dense, but it is pretty true to the character.
It’s just weird how he has to give up at the end of the fight, leaving
it unfinished. The story tries to make
it seem like Iceman might’ve swayed Bastion with his words, but nothing
interesting is ever done with this idea.
I want to make it cleat that this is by no means the worst
issue of X-Men ever. It is probably the
most disappointing though as far as wasted potential. With this issue, Zero Tolerance goes from
one of the X-Men’s greatest threats to a minor inconvenience with no
consequences to the characters whatsoever, other than the discovery of a couple
new X-Men to join the team. It’s just a
shame that they don’t do anything substantial at all.
D+
