Writing: Mike
Higgins & Karl Bollers
Art: Martin
Egeland
What Went Down: Cable and Bastion/Nimrod engage in battle as
we get a close up of Machine Man’s systems repairing themselves from Bastion’s
attack last issue. Bastion is able to
use all the machinery in the lab to attack Cable as he interfaces with the
computers.
Back on the Helicarrier, G.W. Bridge, then head of
SHIELD, worrying about the mission and arguing with a General Kragg, whose
daughter was part of the failed mission to the Prospero clinic. Back at said clinic, Bastion/Nimrod attacks
Cable with more turrets while he begins to convey his origin to Cable. Helpfully, Bastion has decided to project his
memories onto video screens while he narrates, even though Cable is busy
fighting for his life. Bastion not only
mentions every appearance of Nimrod from Uncanny, as well as the Siege
Perilous, but he incorporates every Sentinel appearance since the original team
fought them in the sixties into his exposition.
Cable uses his telekinesis to blow a hole in the floor and escape the
lasers.
As Cable catches his breath, and Bastion continues with
his very long origin, X-51 reactivates.
Cable contacts Bridge, telling him the squad is gone, but Bastion is
there. Cable says he can handle it
before being cut off by another attack from X-51. Bastion continues his origin, explaining that
he is a combination of Master Mold and Nimrod magically fused through the Siege
Perilous, a mystical plot device from the late eighties. Upon leaving the portal, he was the entity
know as Bastion, and he was found and raised by Rose. Although brought up to be caring, he could
not ignore the state of the world and blamed mutants for the world’s problems.
As Cable and Machine Man continue to fight, Bastion shows
the beginnings of his clinic and the origins of Operation Zero Tolerance, as
well as the building of a new Master Mold.
On the Helicarrier, Bridge argues with a shadowy committee of superiors
over what to do about the clinic; they don’t trust Cable and Machine Man to
finish the job. The committee wants him
to send an air strike.
Bastion finishes his diatribe, describing his defeat and
the subsequent experiments on his body.
At the same time General Kragg tries to convince Bridge to launch the
air strike. Bastion has decided to use
X-51 as the storehouse for his mind, but Cable uses his telepathic bond to
break Machine Man from the villain’s control.
After being flooded with his own memories of his father and creator,
Machine Man regains control and helps destroy the lab. X-51 then takes control of the turrets and
turns them on Bastion. They set the
clinic to explode, after Cable fails to find any other traces of humanity in
the test subjects. The lab blows before
the air strike reaches the location, and the two heroes shake hands and
complement each other.
How It Was: That’s right, in 1998 we had an annual
starring two obscure robot characters, neither of whom had their own
series. The first thing that jumps out
in this book is the drastic shift in art styles. Mark Egeland’s style is cartoonier, but it’s
also cleaner than Leonardi and there’s quite a bit more detail put in. You can just tell from the smoke coming off
X-51’s chassis, or the two page splash on page 2 and 3, that there is just more
to the layouts and backgrounds in this book.
Unfortunately, aside from some gratuitous action at the beginning and
the end, the rest of this issue is a slog.
We spend the majority of this double-sized issue with
Cable running through corridors while Bastion projects his history onto screens
for us to see and explains his origin.
For those who don’t know, Bastion is Master Mold and Nimrod magically
combined through the mystical plot-device the Siege Perilous. You’ll note that it took me exactly one
sentence to explain that. Higgins and
Bollers instead decide to recap and show every single Sentinel appearance since
the original X-Men team, including appearances in non-X-books like the
Defenders. This does absolutely nothing
for the story except for padding it out to unconscionable levels while Machine
Man is allowed to repair.
There’s also a subplot with GW Bridge being pressured to
bomb the lab to the ground to prevent Bastion from rising to power again. It adds a little tension, but it’s just been
so done to death (most recently in Marvel’s
The Avengers). As for Bastion, he is
so boring this issue. He is supposed to
be connected to the entire lab, but he can barely manage to keep track of
Cable. He just keeps droning on and on
about Sentinel appearances that nothing to do with him, and then explaining the
beginnings of all the plot details we already knew about him. And poor Cable has absolutely nothing to do
other than use his telepathic powers to free Machine Man from Bastion’s
influence.
Machine Man does get a few nice parts where he reflects
how easy it would have been for him to turn out like Bastion, but other than
that there’s not much to this issue.
This book is so full of filler that it really takes away from an
experience that should be rather interesting—this whole debate over nature
versus nurture and its effects on artificial beings. Instead we just get a story that’s more
interested in calling back to lots of better issues of Marvel comics.
Completionists Only
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