X-Men #83

X-Men #83

Writing: Joe Kelly

Art: Adam Kubert

What Went Down:  Renee Majcomb holds Nina the young Mannite as the Alpha Cerebro fights the X-Men.  Nina is able to assist by waking up members knocked unconscious. Gambit blows up the floor underneath the villain, buying the team some time to regroup.  In a power plant, the primary Cerebro is busy cataloging humans and locking them in spheres.

Back in Russia, Renee helps Nina explain her background.  Back at the Zero Tolerance base, Nina imprinted Xavier’s mind when she met him, adding his memories to her own telepathic and reality warping powers.  Charles was able to summon Renee to save Nina, and Nina led them to the monks that Charles had spent time with while trying to control his own powers. 

Cerebro attacks again, this time by controlling Colossus.  The Cerebrite is also able to prematurely cause Gambit’s cards to explode and utilize nanotechnology to trap Storm in a box.  The Cerebrite shoots a beam at Storm causing her to disappear. 

After a brief glimpse at the Cerbro battle over in Uncanny, we return to the action with Rogue saving the unconscious Gambit.  Rogue’s glove is torn, so she accidentally gets a glimpse of the green mist lady who saved Gambit in Antarctica.  The Cerebrite knocks out Rogue and takes Nina.

How It Was:  Kelly tries to frame this issue through narration that focuses on the fear that the young Nina must be going through.  This would be a lot more effective if the girl in question wasn’t an all-powerful plot device, or if anybody cared about Nina.  Anyway, here’s an issue long fight scene where half the X-Men fight their rogue computer. 

Actually the fight has some nice moments, like Gambit charging the floor up, and Storm blowing him away at the last second.  It’s a little annoying that Nina can use her powers to wake up X-Men that have been knocked unconscious.  I suppose that one could argue that Cerebro is just as overpowered: he can trigger powers, possess Colossus, and survive lots of different attacks.  But at least Cerebro explains how he makes Gambit’s cards explode or makes a box for Storm to be trapped in. 

There’s not a lot to say about this issue.  It’s a big fight with a lot of complaining from Renee and Nina.  Cerebro gets a chance to use its powers intelligently in taking down the X-Men, although it’s unclear why it only chooses to assimilate Storm instead of the whole team.  Plot convenience I guess.  Solid action.

For X-Fans

Uncanny X-Men #363

Uncanny X-Men #363

Writing: Steve Seagle

Art: Chris Bachalo

What Went Down:  We open on what I think is a number of the creators of this very comic discussing chocolate at Ghiradelli Square when they are interrupted by falling debris from the sky.  It turns out to be another Cerebro unit—this one being the Beta unit.  At Alcatraz the Toad, who now speaks only in rhyme for some reason, takes an apple to a captive Charles Xavier. 

At the Golden Gate Park, the other four X-Men discuss how they are going to proceed.  Nightcrawler gets to show off the cloaking device he installed on the Blackbird.  Because the X-Men only own one portable Cerebro, this team is depending on Wolverine to track Xavier.  As the X-Men strategize, a local couple is attacked by the Beta Cerebrite, which overwhelms and “catalogs” them.

Despite having a futuristic space age cloaking device for their ship, the X-Men have neglected to bring normal clothes to walk the streets of San Francisco in.  Kitty is forced to take coats from a homeless vagrant, but she leaves some money for him. As they walk the streets, Nightcrawler finds a twenty in one of the pockets and buys a necklace for Kitty. 

Wolverine finds a building with Charles’ scent, but all they find is a smashed up wheelchair.  Marrow gets into a confrontation with a punk, but Logan diffuses it.  In a secret base called Area 52, another Cerebro robot sneaks in and retrieves some nanotechnology developed by Bastion.

After failing to find Professor X, Wolverine takes the team to Chinatown where they meet a wise Chinese person named Black Crane, who is from Logan’s past.  Black Crane is able to see that Professor X is at Alcatraz, but another is searching for him.  Outside Kurt gives Kitty the necklace he bought her.

Arriving at Alcatraz, the X-Men are attacked by the new Brotherhood of Mutants.  The X-Men are thrown off because the Brotherhood is utilizing teamwork and tactics that they normally do not display.  The fight is stopped by Professor X, who has been training the Brotherhood to combat Cerebro.  The Brotherhood is also responsible for breaking Xavier out of the Hulkbuster base.  The issue ends with the Beta Cerebro bursting through the wall and attacking. 

How It Was:  Note to publishers: maybe you shouldn’t spoil your one minor twist on the cover.  One could argue that this reveal is spoiled by the first scene with Toad and Xavier, but up to this point Charles is only revealed to be a prisoner.  Not that this is a huge spoiler, it’s just that after months of buildup, one would think that the discovery of Xavier might hold some type of surprise.  Either way it doesn’t really matter since the Xavier training the Brotherhood angle is dropped as quickly as it is introduced. 

As for the rest of the issue, it’s mostly more stretching out the hunt.  The first half of the issue has the X-Men doing such exciting things as shopping in downtown San Francisco, threatening hipsters, and meeting a stereotypically wise elderly Asian man who just tells the where to go.  Why didn’t they talk to this guy months ago? While Seagle is teasing a potential romance between Nightcrawler and Kitty, it’s really subtle and almost completely forgotten after this issue if I remember right.  Other than that, the characters really don’t have much to do except reiterate events of past issues leading up to this point and agonize over not having enough money to shop for jewelry.  This team is so terrible that they don’t even think to bring clothes to change into when they’re visiting downtown San Francisco!  The other team had enough time to put on coats and boots for the snowy mountains…it’s not hard.

After being told by Black Crane to get the story moving, the X-Men fight the Brotherhood for a couple of pages.  Bachalo’s art shows off the scope of the destruction and craziness quite well, but his superdeformed style makes some of the characters look odd.  His Wolverine looks more like Beast, his Blob changes sizes by the panel, and his Marrow has dreadlocks somehow. 

Of course if you read X-Men #82, you already know that the cliffhanger is once again going to be another Cerebro robot, and it’s pretty sad that a six part story has to use the same ending twice in a row.  Yes we’re supposed to glimpse the events from each team’s side, but this is a pretty unoriginal structure they’re using.  The X-Men issues at least had some novel uses of artwork to move the story, as well as the wonderful tension between Gambit and the rest of the team.  Here there is none of that, so all we get is an average story that ends with a very lackluster reunion with Xavier.

For Completists