Uncanny X-Men #354

Uncanny X-Men #354
Writing: Steve Seagle

Art: Chris Bachalo

What Went Down:  We open on Rogue running through the woods and crying.  Meanwhile, Sauron is in a big fight with the other X-Men.  Thanks to Wolverine’s absorbed energy, Sauron is able to take down Cannonball.  While chasing Iceman, Sauron remembers the events that led him here.  After fighting Ka-Zar in a one-shot, Sauron hid in the jungle lord’s luggage when he moved to New York.  After absorbing the life force of a random mutant off the street, he was drawn to the mansion because of the heat wave, since pterodactyls are cold-blooded.

Sauron pulls a gun out and shoots Storm.  Iceman knocks it away, but Sauron is able to hypnotize him into thinking Jubilee is a monster.  Maggott jumps on Sauron’s back in his blue super-powered form, but Sauron shakes him off, taking out Cannonball in the process.  In space, Bishop is now able to talk.  He questions Deathbird about not saving the other X-Men, saying he understands.  His internal monologue reveals that he knows Deathbird is insane.  Then their ship is attacked by a giant sphere shaped ship. 

Rogue returns to the mansion to find Joseph lying in a wrecked room.  It’s unknown if Magneto beat him and destroyed the room, or if Joseph just lost control of himself.  Rogue starts CPR, and Marrow walks in on her, commenting that Rogue should know better.  Joseph wakes up, and Rogue runs off again.

Jubilee takes on Sauron by herself.  Impressively, she manages to hold him off for a while, but she’s eventually knocked out.  In Alaska, Cyclops is trying to shoot holes through the middle of snack chips as part of personal training and rehabilitation.  Jean walks in wearing her Phoenix costume.

As Sauron decides which X-Man to absorb first, Wolverine wakes up and the two fight.  Sauron is about to triumph when Jubilee blasts his ears at full power, knocking him out.  We learn that Storm was only grazed by the gun, and Wolverine wants to find Rogue.

Speaking of Rogue, she’s in a taxicab on her way to the Agee Institute to learn about getting her powers removed.  Rogue has a flashback that reveals that she did indeed touch Wolverine while he was unconscious.

How It Was:  I cannot remember the last the time the majority of the X-Men team took on a threat together; it may’ve been Onslaught.  All I know is that most of Lobdell’s run was small pieces that focused on smaller groups of characters, or even solo characters.  Outside of the Sentinels from OZT, this is the first serious threat they’ve faced in a while.  And as unlikely as it is that Sauron could take on six X-Men, Seagle sells it by having the villain dismantle the team quickly.  Pulling a gun is an odd choice for an X-Men villain, but I’ll let it go.  Sauron’s reason for being there, that he was drawn to the warmer climate, is a little harder to swallow, but it’s still a pretty good fight.

I’m confused about the direction of the Joseph thread.  After his seizure was ignored by Wolverine last issue, Rogue finds him unconscious in a demolished room.  Was he attacked by Magneto?  Did he lose control of his powers?  It would be nice if I could tell what the heck was happening here.  Marrow’s undefined status on the team is also confusing.  After X-Men #72 it seemed like Marrow was leaving the team, but she keeps popping up in Uncanny and interacting with the characters. 

Rogue is still the driving force this issue.  She starts out slow this issue; always running off and crying does get a little old after a while.  But the end is so good when it’s revealed that she did touch Wolverine while he was unconscious.  This is a pretty dark place to take the character, but also an intriguing one.  I like the idea of her fighting her own temptations to touch, and not always being able to win.

This is a pretty decent fight, with some great moments from Jubilee.  Characters like Joseph and Iceman do get slighted, but the developments with Rogue are really intriguing.  While Sauron doesn’t have a great reason to be here, he makes for a good random villain of the week.  I’m just happy to see the X-Men being super heroes again.

B

Uncanny X-Men #353

Uncanny X-Men #353
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-