Saturday, April 13, 2013

X-Men #84

X-Men #84
Writing: Joe Kelly
Art: Adam Kubert

What Went Down:  Reunited, Xavier holds Nina as the prime Cerebro basks among the captured X-Men and Brotherhood members.  Elsewhere, Nightcrawler has picked up Rogue, Colossus, Gambit, and Renee.  Using tracking systems, Kurt is able to find the captured X-Men as well. 

Cerebro explains his origins to Xavier.  Its programming was shunted to a different vessel when Bastion and a Prime Sentinel tried to use it.  After gaining sentience, it analyzed its own existence and realized it needed a dream and purpose.  Creating the false X-Men from its own detailed files, Cerebro wanted to create peace by cataloguing all humans and mutants, imprisoning them forever.  Cerebro wants to use Xavier’s telepathy to catalog the entire planet at one time. 

Xavier argues that he still doesn’t have his powers after Onslaught, but Cerebro knows that Nina can return those powers.  Fortunately the remaining X-Men come to the rescue.  Xavier decides that it is time for Nina to return his powers to him, just as the remaining X-Men are captured.  Using his powers Xavier is able to free the X-Men, so Cerebro activates the Xavier Protocols—the files on the weaknesses of every X-Man.  The X-Men are put through excruciating torments, but it is all revealed to be an illusion from Xavier and Nina.

The X-Men tear apart the Cerebrites, and Xavier uses his powers to show the Prime Cerebro the minds of humanity, not just their genetic codes.  Before it dies, Cerebro apologizes to the X-Men for not seeing how unique and special the world is. 

How It Was:  Well this issue concludes much as you’d expect it: Xavier gets his powers back and Cerebro is vanquished.  The main difference between this issue and the previous ones is that Kelly and Kubert both have the entire team to utilize in the fight, and they find a way to give every character a moment to shine. Interestingly, the Brotherhood is never brought up at any point other than when they are shown as Cerebro’s captives. 

Probably the best moment is the double page spread where the Xavier Protocols are used on the X-Men.  It’s a dark and striking visual that stands up even if the moment itself is revealed to be a hoax.  As with the Machine Man/Bastion story, I am baffled by the idea that telepaths can use their powers on machines to fool them, but whatever.  It’s a standard X-Men solution, and Kelly does try very hard to sell the idea of Cerebro gaining true sentience as a response to Bastion’s attack. 

The imagery in the astral plane makes for another amazing visual, causing me to be more forgiving of the sad, redemptive ending that comes out of nowhere.  It’s hard to feel sympathy towards Cerebro when he’s been such a bland villain…cataloguing people by locking them into eggs.  Still, it’s a good concluding fight and some of Adam Kubert’s strongest work.  Even if the Hunt for Xavier was too long and stretched out, it had its moments.  It’s just a shame that it had to stick so close to its parallel structure, almost devoid of novelty or surprise.  But this is still a solid conclusion.

For Comics Fans

Uncanny X-Men #364

Uncanny X-Men #364
Writing: Steve Seagle
Art: Lenil Francis Yu

What Went Down:  The Prime Cerebro unit is monitoring world events and notes that it is likely that Magneto will be surfacing soon. It orders a self-destruct sequence of its base, which includes the forms of the fake X-Men from Uncanny #360 to hide any evidence. 

At Alcatraz the X-Men and the Brotherhood are trying desperately to defeat the Beta Cerbrite.  Kitty tries to evacuate the Professor, but Post of the Brotherhood refuses to allow it.  The Cerebrite fires a beam at Toad, causing him to disappear, just as Storm did last issue. Nightcrawler and Mimic use Kurt’s teleportation powers to teleport the Cerebro robot away.

Blob and Post won’t let Kitty take the Professor because they see Xavier as their only hope. The X-Men fight the Brotherhood until Cerebro returns.  Exhausted from teleporting the Cerebrite, Nightcrawler returns to the Blackbird and radios the other team of X-Men for help. Of course, they’re busy with their own Cerebrite, so they don’t answer.  Kitty and Marrow try to rescue Xavier, but they manage to phase right where the battle is occurring.  The Cerebrite chases Kitty, and the robot shoots her, making her disappear as well.  It then takes out the remaining members of the Brotherhood.  Xavier explains that they’re not dead, just moved to the main Cerebro; Wolverine decides he and Marrow need to be captured to rescue their allies.  Nightcrawler sees everyone get shot as he brings the Blackbird in to rescue them.  He decides to take the plane to Russia to get reinforcements from the other team.

How It Was:   The opening of this issue feels like somebody remembered that the phantom X-Men from Uncanny #360 were tied to this Cerebro story at the last minute.  So those characters are all conveniently disposed of in three pages.  The rest of this issue is another big fight with a Cerebro robot.  Lenil Francis Yu replaces Bachalo, and boy…their styles couldn’t be farther apart if the editors tried.  Yu specializes in darker tones and more realistic proportions, which works for the most part.  He draws Post like a ghost made out of rocks, and his Marrow is a little too attractive, but overall it looks great.  I love the detail of Kitty, Toad, and Nightcrawler using Marrow’s bone shards to attack the robot since none of them have offensive powers. 

This fight is a lot less interesting, and I think it basically comes down to the fact that all the X-Men and most of the Brotherhood here just don’t have a big variety of offensive powers.  All of them pretty much just hit people, and that’s not as exciting too look at.  Plus the Brotherhood has to have an obligatory disagreement with the X-Men in the middle that makes no sense; if they care about Xavier, as a mentor or asset, why wouldn’t they want the crippled and powerless man out of the way of the huge battle?

Once again we have a Seagle book ending the same way the previous Kelly issue did, this time with the Cerebrite flying away triumphant with its quarry after soundly defeating the X-Men.  And once again the ending is diminished by the fact that we just saw this very thing happen last issue.  It’s a shame that Seagle has to follow up all the Kelly issues with the exact same structures, plus he’s been saddled by a weaker and less visually engaging team.  Even the addition of the Brotherhood can’t make this one stand out.

For X-Fans