X-Men #70

X-Men #70
Writing: Joe Kelly
Art: Carlos Pacheco

What Went Down:  We open on Iceman using an ice slide to bring Cecilia Reyes and Marrow back to the X-mansion.  Cecilia is terrified by the height and speed, but Marrow goads Iceman into going faster.  When they reach the mansion, they discover that not only has Bastion stolen everything in it, he has used nanotechnology to strip the building of the paint and carpet.  Cecilia runs off, demoralized that she has nothing in her life.

As Cecilia cries to herself, she observes the X-Men bursting through the ceiling because Cyclops has a bomb implanted in him that is going to go off soon.  Of course, all of their medical equipment is gone, so they all start to despair.  Storm is shocked to see Marrow in the mansion. At the same time a giant is carrying a lawyer down the road to the mansion.  Seeing how little hope the X-Men have, Cecilia takes charge of the situation.  After getting a telepathic explanation from Jean, she assigns everyone tasks to do to help Cyclops.

Storm has to get boiling water.  While she generates some rain, Marrow appears to taunt Storm for trying to kill her.  Storm tells her she might want to go back to the sewers.  Cannonball manages to steal some medical supplies, but there’s no scalpel, so Wolverine’s claws have to be used to operate on Scott.  As the surgery/bomb removal begins, the doorbell rings.  Storm finds the Juggernaut, wearing a suit and tie, outside with his lawyer.  It turns out that with Xavier missing, the school and its assets fall to him as Charles’ stepbrother.  Storm slams the door on him and uses her powers to wash out the roads.  Marrow flirts a little with Cannonball while Cecilia continues the operation.

Juggernaut bursts through the door, but he is surprised to see the mansion empty.  He changes into his Juggernaut armor, but the remaining X-Men return just in time to confront him.  Juggernaut taunts the team when he sees that Gambit and Bishop are missing, causing Rogue to lash out.  Maggott decides to take on Juggernaut, but he is easily subdued.  Seeing how pathetic of a state the team is in, Juggernaut decides to leave and come back.

Beast and Joseph show up to help get rid of the bomb.  Wolverine lashes out at Trish Tilby, blaming her story on the Legacy Virus for creating the hysteria that has led to Operation Zero Tolerance and Cyclops’ situation. 

It turns out that this bomb doesn’t explode; it expands and fills a three-mile radius with goo that suffocates and preserves anything in its path.  Marrow gives Cecilia some bones to pry the bomb out and Rogue throws the bomb to one of Maggott’s slugs, who promptly eats it.  Cyclops thanks Cecilia for helping him. 

Later, everyone leaves Cyclops’ room.  Jean explains to Scott that she is worried about how fractured the team is, along with the addition of three strangers.  We end on Marrow carving some menacing threats on the door to the basement.

How It Was: Two double-sized issues in one month!  Brilliant!  I’m just going to go ahead and proclaim that I really love Joe Kelly’s run, especially this issue.  He just has such a great handle on the characters, similar to Lobdell, but he also manages to infuse his characters with a healthy amount of humor and agency.  Even double-sized, this issue has a lot of characters in it, and Kelly balances them all incredibly well, giving each one a moment or two.

Most important of all is that this is the issue where Cecilia demonstrates that she has value beyond whining and absorbing damage.  While her personality could be hard to take in previous issues, coming off as almost selfish, one page into Scott’s operation is all Kelly needs to demonstrate that Cecilia’s abrasive personality is a necessary, and valuable, quality in her field of work.  She takes charge of veteran X-Men in a convincing way, prioritizing her patient over all else.  Marrow also gets some great scenes.  Her playfulness leaves her motivations ambiguous; the reader isn’t quite sure whether Marrow wants to be a hero or stab them all in their sleep.  The tension between Marrow and Storm is well portrayed, and well-earned, setting up a lot of Kelly’s future issue.

Even Maggott is finally more fleshed out.  Yes, his personality has gotten a complete overhaul from his appearances in Uncanny, but in my opinion it’s for the best.  Before Maggott was so generic and uninteresting; now he may be a little goofier and full of himself, but it’s entertaining if you go with it.  And really, who wants to take a hero with giant mutant slugs seriously?

As much as the issue is about the new characters, it’s also about how utterly defeated the old ones are.  Longtime readers have seen the mansion destroyed numerous times by this point in continuity, but having it completely stripped bare is a new and even more unsettling visual.  Yes there is no real reason for it, other than Bastion going out of his way to be a tool, but it presents an interesting obstacle for the mutants to overcome, physically and emotionally.

I even really like the stuff with the Juggernaut.  Yes, it’s absurd that Xavier hasn’t willed his assets to any of his students, especially before voluntarily leaving for the government, but this gives us more conflict and tension for the main characters.  Unfortunately as I always say—too bad the stuff with the Juggernaut never really goes anywhere. 

Some minor hang-ups: it is a little convenient that Maggott’s slug could consume a bomb capable of coating three miles of area.  Yes I know Maggott needs something to contribute to his intro, but it is a little forced.  Also, Jubilee, Archangel, and Psylocke have disappeared.  I realize that Kelly already has an overwhelming cast, but it feels strange to have these characters missing, even if Steve Seagle comes up with an excuse for Betsy and Warren later.  It’s just odd that Jubilee would leave before this was resolved, but I understand she would’ve had nothing to contribute to the story.

In the span of this issue, Kelly delivers a fun one-and-done story while also setting up a number of plot threads, most of which will go unfulfilled.  He clearly has a handle on where he wants to go, and all the new characters have unique and compelling voices.  My only regret is that many of these threads go unfurthered and the new characters don’t stay around long enough.  This is the most substantial roster shake up since 1991, and it’s all for the best.  The title has energy and direction that it hasn’t had since Onslaught.

A

Uncanny X-Men #350

Uncanny X-Men #350

Writing: Steve Seagle

Art: Joe Madureira and Andy Smith

What Went Down:  On his way to his trial, Gambit reminisces about meeting Sinister prior to his final job for the villain.  Gambit tells Sinister he’s done working for him, after assembling a group of villains.  Sinister insists he needs one last job and throws Gambit a tiny vial for his payment.  In present day Antarctica, Spat and Grovel are piloting a snowmobile to an unknown location.  The snowmobile is taken over by an unknown source and disappears.

Elsewhere, Beast is cobbling together a transport for the group to go after Gambit with.  Joseph explains that he has used his powers to reconfigure some of the robots’ clothes from the last story, but this might just be an excuse to cover up for the artist drawing the wrong costumes.

In Manhattan, Psylocke has knocked Maggott out and is examining him while Angel fights his two slugs.  Betsy begins to do her shadow teleport because part of Maggott is “missing” and something in him “attracts” her.  Warren and the slugs hurry into the portal to follow her.

In his cell, a mysterious voice chastises Gambit for his crimes.  Gambit assumes it is Sinister.  Meanwhile, the X-Men have pieced together a working transport.  The team pulls over when Joseph starts to feel ill.  Outside, Rogue finds one of Gambit’s playing cards, and Joseph raises a giant citadel from the snow. 

After a one page interlude where Xavier has a nightmare about different teams of X-Men asking where he is, the X-Men journey into the castle.  They split up to look for Gambit, even though Joseph is about to fall over from illness.

Coincidentally, Psylocke has also managed to teleport to the very same citadel; for some reason Angel and Maggott appear in different parts of the building.  Warren discovers a noose, and Maggott runs into Joseph.  Joseph recognizes Maggott, although he doesn’t know from where.  Then Joseph is knocked out by a mystery person, whom Maggott recognizes.  Beast, Trish, Psylocke, and Angel are all captured by the mystery person as well. 

Rogue finds Gambit in a cell.  She tries to convince him to leave, but he refuses.  A person dressed like Erik the Red appears with Spat and Grovel, and they take down Rogue. 

On a plane over Pennsylvania, the other team of X-Men is returning home from New Mexico after surviving Operation Zero Tolerance.  Jean is trying to help Cyclops, who has a bomb in his stomach.  Cannonball contemplates how out of place he feels among such close friends, and Jubilee warns him about thinking too hard.

Erik the Red and his robot assistant Ferris stand before the captured X-Men.  Angel is announced to be Gambit’s defender while the rest of the X-Men make up the jury.  Warren notes that Erik the Red isn’t a person, but a disguise that different characters have used over the years, like Cyclops and a Shi’ar agent.  Some the other X-Men wonder if it might be Joseph, but Erik drags the badly beaten Joseph out for them all to see. 

Gambit tells the first part of his story; he admits to working for Sinister and not telling the team.  Naturally the team is less than thrilled by this.  All of a sudden Psylocke recalls some memories of Gambit’s that she had gleamed from his mind waaaayy back in Uncanny X-Men #324, but conveniently forgotten about until this very moment.  She tells the X-Men that Gambit assembled Mr. Sinister’s Marauders right before the Morlock Massacre.  Archangel is angered by this because he lost his wings during that event.

Then Erik commands Rogue to kiss Gambit and reveal the rest of his secrets.  Rogue doesn’t want to, but she is forced.  Gambit showed the Marauders the way to the Morlock tunnels, not realizing that they were going to kill all the Morlocks.  Once he figured out their goal, Gambit tried to stop them, but he was wounded by Sabretooth.  Injured, he managed to save one Morlock child, who later turns out to be Marrow. 

After kissing Gambit, Rogue absorbs his powers and is able to free herself and the other X-Men.  They beat on Erik the Red until he retreats, collapsing the hideout in the process.  Rogue grabs Gambit while the other X-Men escape through Psylocke’s teleportation.  Gambit thinks that Rogue has decided to forgive him, but instead she is disgusted by what she has learned.  She decides to leave him stranded in Antarctica because she can’t stand to be around him.

In an escape craft, the robot Ferris attends to Erik the Red.  Erik removes his disguise, revealing himself to be Magneto, the Master of Magnetism. 

How It Was: Finally, we come to it.  Gambit’s big secret revealed.  Was it worth the wait?  Well, that’s hard to say, but at least it’s over and done.  There are quite a few surprises in this book, such as the real Magneto, but the execution leaves a little to be desired.

The fact is that there are some wonky plot mechanics going on here.  Psylocke’s weird teleporting power ends up sending her, Maggott, and Archangel to the citadel for absolutely no reason other than plot convenience.  Yes he was looking for Magneto, but he hadn’t found him yet.  Psylocke’s interest in Maggott is completely forgotten after this issue, so it reads especially strange here.  Psylocke sticks out again when testifying against Gambit.  How could she forget all of this information until this issue, twenth-six issues from the original mind scan?  It’s just such a convoluted way of getting to the point, and there had to have been a simpler way to tell this story, although Steve Seagle did okay with what he inherited.

On top of Psylocke’s strange plot contrived moments, the rest of the X-Men serve no purpose here.  This story could’ve easily been Joseph, Rogue, and Gambit and probably been a lot better for it.  Also, Magneto’s purpose here never plays into any larger stories at all; later he just makes a throwaway comment about how he was trying to sew dissention among the X-Men.  At least Spat and Grovel make their last appearance (as far as I know).

This issue still has some moments.  I like Erik the Red’s grandiose entrance, and I chuckled every time he repeated for the group to be silent. Plus Magneto’s robot is named Ferris (Get it, ferrous.  Ha!). The flashback with Gambit trying to stop the Marauders is a nice little moment, especially since Gambit’s been so moody for the last year or so of issues.

The big moment of the issue, what will make or break it for the reader, is your reaction to Gambit being left behind in Antarctica.  I’m conflicted.  On the one hand it works so well thematically with Rogue doing everything to convince Remy she can forgive him and ultimately not being able to.  Yes it’s a little contradictory since Rogue was a villain before and ruined her fair share of lives, but it’s easy to see why Rogue is upset and why she would feel utterly betrayed, given the circumstances of their recent bit of intimacy.  But then there is the fact that she just leaves him alone, shirtless even, in the middle of Antarctica, where he would surely die.  That’s a really steep punishment, especially coming from an X-Man because they don’t even kill their enemies.  I tend to lean more toward the camp that enjoys the scene.  It’s melodrama, but it builds on the (very few) good parts that have been in previous issues, and it opens up some interesting story potential for Rogue.  Yes, it’s strange that she tries to kill him by stranding him, but that gets written away later, you’ll see.

Joe Mad turns in his last regular art duties, and unfortunately he was unable to finish the whole book.  Yes, it is a double page anniversary issue, but it’s still disappointing.  Paul Smith’s filler is perfectly fine, but it doesn’t match Madureira’s style whatsoever.  Plus, for a double-sized issue, not a lot happens until the very end.  There’s almost no action, and most of the exposition is recapping all the events up until now for potential new readers.  Yes this story is drawn out, and most of the threads are never picked up again, but I once again find myself enjoying the Gambit and Rogue emotional roller coaster.  It’s just too bad more didn’t come from the events of this issue. 

C+