The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #3

Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #3

Writing: Scott Lobdell

Art: Gene Ha

What Went Down: We enter on Jean again instructing a now eight-year-old Nathan on using his powers to conceal his disease.  It is difficult for him, but he manages to do it.  Nathan complains about the fact that the family has to conceal who and what they are, and Jean does her best to console him. 

In the heart of the great city, we see Apocalypse and Ch’Vayre interrupting Stryfe as he tortures humans for fun. Ch’Vayre again brings up how Stryfe is being robbed of a childhood, still somehow oblivious to the idea that Stryfe is to be his master’s vessel, even though Apocalypse tells him again.  Back with our heroes, Scott and Jean meet up with Turrin and some other rebels to plan a raid on one of Apocalypse’s facilities.  Turrin expresses regret that Redd and Slym won’t kill in a war, and Jean pulls Scott aside to tell him that he is neglecting Nathan, just as he did back in his X-Factor days.  Many of the rebels share their distrust of the couple with the group, all while Nathan excitedly observes the meeting in a tree. 

Nathan follows the group secretly as they break into the installation.  A robot rebel named Gyak discovers files that Scott and Jean recognize as the Legacy Virus, although this version is designed to kill humans.  The rebels are suddenly ambushed by prelates; Nathan tries to go down to help, but a voice stops him.  Scott and Jean do a good job of fighting back without their powers, although the rebels lament how the couple always wounds instead of kills.  Stryfe appears and tells the soldiers to ignore Ch’Vayre’s orders and kill all the rebels.  Scott feels there is no choice but to use his optic blasts, revealing himself as a mutant.  Ch’Vayre chides Stryfe for panicking the rebels, while the mystery voice instructs Nathan on using a computer, even though he’s never seen one in his life. 

Stryfe sees the light from Nathan’s location and goes after him while Ch’Vayre recognizes Redd and Slym as the rebels who got away.  Nathan and Stryfe meet and are astonished by their resemblance.  Stryfe begins to kill Nathan, commenting on how he can feel the pain.  The voice instructs Nate to fight back, and he knocks Stryfe unconscious.  However, the strain compromises his body’s control of the tech virus. 

The prelates are confused as to why mutants are helping the resistance.  As the facility blows up, Turrin saves Scott while Jean saves Nathan.  We learn that Nathan programmed the self-destruct, and that the voice’s name was Rachel.  Later Scott visits the comatose body of Rachel and thanks her for the help.  We end on Ch’Vayre contemplating how Apocalypse and Stryfe betray the idea of survival of the fittest. 

How It Was:  Issue three of this series continues to depict events without any real feeling or understanding of their significance.  The entire raid has some decent action, but there’s never a point where it feels like it matters to the big picture—the battle against Apocalypse.  Even worse, all the rebels come off as ungrateful and self-serving jerks, complaining about Scott and Jean even though they themselves never seem to contribute to the rebellion in any meaningful way.  We’re introduced to a half dozen new characters, and they’re all either whiney or completely void of personality.  It’s also at this point that I’m starting to see just how incidental Scott and Jean are to this story.  Really we’re just waiting for Nathan to age old enough to be left on his own, and in the meantime Cyclops and Jean are left padding time with adventures that don’t seem to affect Apocalypse one way or the other.  After all, both the rebels and Ch’Vayre decide blowing up the lab is a good idea, so it’s obvious that neither side really cares all that much about its strategic value.

Speaking of Ch’Vayre, the interesting aspects about him have waned.  While it was nice to see him as an outsider and true-believer in the philosophies of Apocalypse last issue, now he’s devolved into this nervous mother figure worrying about and scolding Stryfe.  His compassion for the boy wouldn’t be so bad if Stryfe wasn’t such a spoiled and remorseless brat with absolutely no redeeming value.  The audience wants the sadistic Stryfe to suffer; aligning Ch’Vayre’s sympathies to Stryfe makes him almost as unlikeable.

Lobdell does get some pretty good material out of the conflicted Jean and her knowledge of young Nathan’s fate and the life she is condemning him to.  But other than that, nothing really stands out.  For such a long and padded series, it seems strange that we would have to receive exposition that Scott is neglecting Nathan as opposed to actually seeing an example of it.  All in all this issue is more of the same as last.  We’re teased with reveals that in hindsight never pan out to anything meaningful, such as the Legacy Virus, and the battle driving the plot never seems impacted one way or the other.

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