X-Men '96 Annual

X-Men ’96 Annual
Writing: Larry Hama
Art: Roberto Flores and Anthony Castrillo

What Went Down: After the Onslaught crossover, the X-Men have decided to hold a cookout/get together with the members of X-Force and Generation X. The issue starts with them playing a friendly game of baseball. Storm is about to come in for a grand slam when the group spots a Sentinel and attacks it. The Sentinel doesn’t put up much of a fight and slams into some nearby powerlines. The robot claims that it was on its way to warn the heroes; it turns out it was an unarmed surveillance unit that learned to feel because of its advanced computer processor. After Onslaught took over the Sentinels, it broke away and managed to observe Xavier turning himself over to Val Cooper in X-Men #57. It’s about to warn humanity about some great threat before shutting down.

Jubilee stares right into the robot’s eyes as it dies; it tells everyone that it’s afraid. Jubilee feels sad because they killed a sentient being, and it reminds her of the Sentinels that learned to feel in Wolverine #73-74. Cable mentions that it was a robot programmed to hunt mutants, and he and Wolverine break into a fight about how not empathetic Cable is. The fight spreads to the various teammates, but Cyclops breaks it up and tells everyone how important it is that they stay together. Storm brings up honoring Professor X’s teachings, and Caliban makes an awkward speech about Professor X loving all of them.

The next sequence takes place at the pool as Cannonball tries to videotape the various heroes lounging around; most of the X-crew harass him or tell him to blow off. After falling into the pool, Joseph offers to help Cannonball, but the youth acts skittish around him because of his past as Magneto. Later the teams cook up some food and there is a three-page sequence that involves a ping-pong ball landing in potato salad and getting sucked clean…no, really. Domino also tells the girls of Gen-X that they are going to need to grow up fast. The members of X-Force ask Cannonball about Wolverine’s ordeal that resulted in him killing Genesis. Wolverine apologizes to Cable for killing Genesis, who was really his son Tyler, and the two share a beer.

Later all three teams gather for a group photo; Gateway even shows up for the picture. A bunch of energy users are flown up into the air for a fireworks show. Jean and Cable offer to join all the mutants in a superficial telepathic mind-meld to share all the positive feelings between teammates without revealing any personal secrets. Nobody refuses the mind-meld, and the mutants go inside after it’s done.

How It Was: Well the cover promises “sixty-four pages of all-out X-Men action,” and…it’s a complete and utter lie. Really there are like two pages of all out action, and the other sixty-two pages are the various members of the X-Men, X-Force, and Generation X participating in summer activities and talking about any recent storylines that Larry Hama has taken part in, i.e. Onslaught and the Wolverine/Genesis fight. The Sentinel fight is very brief and inconsequential; we never find out what the robot was warning them about (probably something to do with Operation: Zero Tolerance), Jubilee cries over it and brings up a two year old story from Wolverine, and then everyone literally forgets about it like it was nothing. It’s pretty bad when the characters themselves don’t even care enough to follow up on lazy plotting.

The rest of the book is just the various X-characters hanging out and talking, and it gets pretty dull. Granted Hama has a cast of about thirty mutants in this book, and he manages to keep their voices unique and give each of them something to say or do. But most of this is reiterating recent plot points, like that Joseph and Gambit don’t get along, or that everyone is sad that the heroes died during Onslaught.

Wolverine does apologize to Cable for killing his son, so that feels pretty significant, but the rest of this is just fluff. Adequately written fluff mind you, but fluff nonetheless. Then again, it is kind of nice to see the characters get a chance to be less serious, since the last couple of years have been Legacy Virus, Age of Apocalypse, and Xavier going insane. It’s just too much doing nothing, and a lot of it is humor that misfires: like why is Monet so disgusted that the ping-pong ball fell in potato salad? It’s just potato salad; it’s perfectly okay to eat, isn’t it. Plus it always irks me that Excalibur doesn’t get invited since there are a lot of former X-Men on that team; X-Factor makes a little more sense since Sabretooth and Mystique are members of that team, but it’s still a sad state of affairs when you have to pick and choose who you have at your X-Reunion. All in all it has a few moments, but it is really unnecessary unless you’re a huge fan of super heroes having fun in the sun.

D

Onslaught: Marvel Universe

Onslaught: Marvel Universe
Writing: Scott Lobdell and Mark Waid
Art: Adam Kubert and Joe Bennet

What Went Down: The Watcher (yes, again with the Watcher) opens the issue after the final battle, speaking about the end of the Age of Wonders. He also claims that his job is done, but we all know that isn’t true. We cut back to Xavier facing off against Onslaught from the end of X-Men #56. Because he has no powers, Xavier isn’t doing too well. The X-Men show up, knock Onslaught away, and rescue Xavier. Onslaught makes a giant hand out of rock to attack the mutants, then blasts them into submission. Fortunately the combined forces of the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom, and the Hulk show up for the rescue.

The fight begins and Joseph is knocked unconscious by some debris. Xavier crawls to him and gets Joseph behind cover. Inside Onslaught, Franklin and Nate Grey discuss possibly escaping. Outside, Iron Man explains that everyone is equipped with psi-scramblers, even though nobody is seen wearing them. Cyclops claims that the X-Men are protected by Cable and Jean, even though Onslaught is supposed to be more powerful than everyone. Onslaught erects a force shield and creates a…wait for it…second sun in the sky whose gravity threatens to destroy the Earth. In practice, all it does is make the battle really windy.

Nate Grey reflects that a five-year-old kid is braver than he is. He reaches out to Cable since they share a connection as the same person from different dimensions. Cable senses them and concocts a plan to use Joseph, Xavier, and himself to magnify each other’s powers to save Franklin and Nate. Doom gives a long monologue about how it’s up to him to save the day while various secondary characters of the Marvel Universe see the second sun and wonder if the world is going to end.

Here’s how the heroes get through Onslaught’s forcefield. Vision merges with Rogue, which isn’t his power—he’s supposed to just turn intangible. Wolverine pierces the field, with his bone claws mind you, and Namor and Giant-Man hold the hole open for Vision/Rogue to fly through and hit Onslaught, which appears ineffective, but destroys the force field nonetheless.

The Hulk asks Jean to shut off Banner so that he can lose control on Onslaught and go all out. She leaves the memory of Betty Ross, but turns Hulk savage. He and Onslaught beat each other while the forces of nature rip the area around the heroes apart. Hulk hits Onslaught so hard that a huge explosion occurs, destroying Onslaught and separating Banner from the Hulk.

The heroes think they’ve won, but Onslaught has just “evolved” into his final energy form. Without a body to fight, the heroes figure that the energy needs a physical vessel to destroy. Thor flies in first, followed by all the other heroes of the Marvel Universe in varying groups. Inside Onslaught, the area the prisoners are in is starting to break down.

Mr. Fantastic stops Wolverine, Crystal, and Quicksilver from going in the energy. He explains that because Onslaught was unaffected by Rogue’s attack, that mutant genetic patterns give him more power because he began life as a mutant. Of course, then he has to make some plot convenient excuse for the Scarlet Witch related to her powers, but there you have it. Quicksilver is saddened, but relieved that his wife will be spared, but she tells him that Richards said nothing about Inhumans, and runs into the void.

Doom tries to absorb some of Onslaught’s energy to use in a later plot, but Hawkeye and Iron Man stop him and send him into the void with them. Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman are the last non-mutant heroes; they tell Cyclops to attack the energy as soon as they’re in and not to hold back. There is a huge explosion, and Bruce Banner gets sucked into the Void right as it’s happening. Xavier and Joseph are also able to save Nate and Franklin right as the explosion takes place. As the heroes die, Franklin uses his vast, plot convenient powers to create a pocket universe for their spirits to go to, thus creating the Heroes Reborn Universe for the Image relaunch. From the perspective of news reporters outside, the world at large believes that the X-Men betrayed the other heroes and killed them, which causes further hatred towards mutants in future X-Men arcs. Professor X consoles Franklin about the death of his family, and we see a blue ball in the grass that is actually the pocket universe itself. No, really, there is an entire universe in that young boy’s ball.

Professor X asks Nate Grey to take him above the rooftops to survey the damage. Nate is really impressed with the heroes, and wishes he could’ve learned more from them. Going back to Uatu, it turns out he wasn’t just narrating to nobody; he was still talking with Apocalypse. Apocalypse agrees that it is an impressive story, but also realizes with so many heroes dead it is the perfect time to try to conquer the world himself.

How It Was: Well it’s finally over, and unlike the majority of this crossover, significant events actually take place. There’s some big action scenes, a surprising detail to characters and relationships, and it really captures the grand scope of the Marvel Universe’s New York. And while there are definitely a lot of issues with the story structure in general, I have to say that there are enough really good moments to outweigh some of them. Quite simply, this absolutely feels like it affects the entirety of the Marvel Universe, and it really does…for the following year. Waid’s script manages to catch most of the character beats that longtime FF and Avengers fans want to see, from Quicksilver’s anguish over Crystal’s death to the forgiveness of Giant-Man and the Wasp. Seeing the Hulk fight Onslaught is pretty awesome, even though he’s only been a presence in his own title and an issue of Cable. Yes, it gets a little schmaltzy and emotional at times, but the heroes are aware that they are literally sacrificing their lives for the world, so it works. Unlike many gratuitous character deaths for shock value in events, this one feels handled with love and respect as the writers go out of their way to show them as noble and heroic as they can.

So as usual, the handling of the characters is fantastic. Where does it go wrong? Well there are far too many characters in this book to be fighting just one villain. Yes Onslaught is supposed to be this cosmic level bad guy, but whereas characters like Dark Phoenix and Galactus have specific abilities and powers, Onslaught’s powers are just made up as the writers go along. Creating a second sun isn’t impressive, it’s just ridiculous, and while it’s handled as serious at the beginning, it really just gets ignored for the remainder of the issue. Then he creates an impenetrable forcefield. Oh wait, the heroes penetrated it, now he’s turned to energy. There is no real logic whatsoever to what Onslaught does; it’s all for the sake of editorially mandated plot convenience. Certain heroes have to end up in Heroes Reborn and others can’t. Thus we get the absurd rule that mutants can’t fight Onslaught, except for Scarlet Witch, and Namor, who the writers and editors forgot is also a mutant. Also, Cannonball, Archangel, and Psylocke are missing for no particularly good reason, but it’s not like their inclusion would have mattered much.

Which brings us to the real problem with this issue, with this whole series in general. It’s an X-Men story where the X-Men have been completely pushed to the side to spotlight the Avengers and Fantastic Four in order to justify a gimmicky relaunch of four of their titles. The X-Men start off the issue on their own, but quickly get overshadowed by the real heroes. Even Xavier and Joseph, who should theoretically have something really significant to contribute since they were the genesis of the villain, get nothing to do except rescue some prisoners. I do like the angle that humans view the X-Men as traitors at the end of the story, but surely the X-Men could just explain the circumstances to people. I guess they were worried that people would learn Xavier was Onslaught, but there probably was a way around it. And what the heck happened to Onslaught’s mutant armies and Sentinels?

The art captures the story quite nicely, but like everything else with Onslaught, inconsistencies abound. The psi-armor that was made such a huge deal out of for issues on end isn’t even drawn on the heroes, and the X-Men decide they don’t even need it. Trish Tilby is drawn completely wrong, and the everyday people of New York are drawn just going about their lives while the battle is raging. Haven’t Sentinels been attacking New York? Wasn’t there a huge EMP that took out all the power in the city? Why is Foggy Nelson just out buying groceries with Karen Page while the writers at the Bugle are just going to work like usual? Shouldn’t they evacuate? I don’t know, maybe I’m just thinking too hard about this.

While I was expecting to hate rereading this issue, I have to say it is more of a mixed bag than pure garbage. Parts of it are very, very stupid, like a little boy creates an entire universe with his imagination and puts it in a blue ball stupid. But there are some undeniably cool parts for the Marvel heroes, even if it does come at the expense of the X-Men. Sure, running into a ball of energy isn’t exactly the most stunning personal sacrifice to be depicted in comics, but this does end up feeling really important. Plus it indirectly leads to the Heroes Return Avengers, which is one of my favorite comic series of all time (Go Buisek and Perez!). It could’ve been a lot worse, I guess, but it kind of, sort of holds up, though not completely.

C+

Uncanny X-Men #297

Uncanny X-Men #297
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Art: Brandon Peterson

Now back to where we left off in our exploration of the X-World.

What Went Down: Archangel and Beast take it upon themselves to rebuild Harry’s Hideaway after it was destroyed in Uncanny #294. They’re doing it in the middle of the night to avoid attention.

Over on the roof of the mansion, Rogue is contemplating the loss of her vision. Gambit tries to comfort her, but Rogue tells him to go away.

On the ground, Jubilee is spending the clear night roller blading when she discovers Professor X walking around barefoot in the grass. Since he is usually in a wheelchair, this is quite shocking, but it is all explained away as a temporary side effect of Stryfe’s techno-organic virus. Jubilee convinces him to go blading with her.

Back on the roof, Rogue is still overwhelmed by the unfairness of life.

Meanwhile, Jubilee leads the Professor into the swimming pool.

Beast and Archangel take time to reflect on the days of the original X-Men and reminisce. A cop stumbles in on them, but their image inducers activate automatically, so the cop is not frightened.

As the sun starts to rise, Gambit brings Rogue a blanket and tells her that everything is going to be all right. Awwwww.

Jubilee and the Professor dry off and discuss how enjoyable the night was. Xavier leaves to return to his chair before his legs stop working again. As his ability to walk fades, Jubilee runs up to help him back to his chair. Awwww.

How It Was: Since this is the epilogue to a major crossover, everyone gets to take a breather from all of the action. These are the types of issues that Lobdell excels at; he is wonderful at exploring human emotion through the warped sensibilities of three different pairs of characters and their relationships. We get the best friends’ perspective, the romantics’ perspective, and the surrogate father/daughter perspective, and all of them complement each other very well.

The Jubilee/Xavier thread is easily the best since it explores a relationship that has really been underdeveloped up until this point and does so brilliantly. Sure it is kind of random that Stryfe’s disease would cure paralysis for a day, but if you can suspend your disbelief, you’re in for a good issue. There is some resolution to the months of Jean complaining about Xavier not dealing with his paralysis as Xavier finally gets an opportunity to acknowledge how much he has missed his legs. And the part where Jubilee helps him to his chair at the end is very touching indeed.

Beast and Archangel offer a little bit of humor, as well as some meditation on how much the series has changed up to this point. Once again, it’s a little hard to believe that they rebuild an entire bar in one night, but it’s still well written so you can’t fault it too much. The Rogue/Gambit scenes are easily the weakest; how many times have we seen Rogue complain about life and Gambit try to make her feel better? Still they do the job of conveying the slowly blossoming relationship.

Peterson’s art is great; his expressions and backgrounds really bring the story to life and help the reader connect emotionally. Even though there isn’t a second of action, this is still some of the best characterization you can read in a comic book from the 90’s. Even though that isn’t really saying much, you should still check it out.

A

Uncanny X-Men Annual #16

Uncanny X-Men Annual #16
Writing: Fabian Nicieza, Chris Cooper, and Skip Dietz
Art: Jae Lee and Herb Trimpe

What Went Down: We are introduced to the Death Sponsors in their one and only appearance, as far as I know. They are a group fighting for a pirate channel that is seeking to usurp viewers from Mojo’s channel, thus placing them in charge because in that world whoever has the highest ratings controls the world. The team consists of Sweepzweak, Deadair, Lead-In, Cancellator, and Timeslot. Are you laughing yet? Their shadowy boss is Mojo II, and he sends them to Earth to complete one of three tasks in order to gain higher ratings; either find Spiral, Arize, or Longshot. Since Arize is the focus of the crossover, he is their target for this issue.

Cut to the mansion where—surprise, surprise—the Gold Team is in the Danger Room running a simulation; this one involves rescuing innocents from a burning building. Can you tell Nicieza was having trouble filling up pages? At any rate, Colossus is stuck holding up the building while Storm, Iceman, and Archangel are looking for people. This leaves new recruit Bishop to be blindsided by Apocalypse. Rather than allow Colossus to decide between saving him and holding up the building, Bishop brandishes a gun and threatens to kill himself rather than be used as a bargaining chip. Professor X ends the session, and everyone comments on how unpredictable Bishop is.

Meanwhile Jean is sifting through Arize’s memories, trying to help him remember who he is. Essentially he is responsible for creating any humanoids that are in Mojoworld, and he feels bad that they are all slaves. He also created Longshot, and gave him self-determination. Arize worries that he is responsible for many deaths even though he can’t remember how; the Professor and Jean console him.

For some reason, the Death Sponsors appear in Japan. Shortly after that, they detect Arize and teleport to the mansion. What’s the point? Why to fill up three pages.

Back at the mansion, Bishop questions the Professor about why they are bothering with Arize. The answer is basically: because that’s what heroes do, although Jean makes a weak attempt to frame Arize as a mutant in his world because he is different and an outcast. The alarm goes off and the Gold Team fights the Death Sponsors. The X-Men hold their own until one of the Sponsors activates a power disruptor that turns off all of their powers. Bishop draws his rifle while one of the Death Sponsor’s restores Arize’s memory. As they teleport away with Arize, Bishop shoots the teleporter, which causes them to teleport without Arize because they are all mind linked, for some reason. Bishop even throws in a groan inducing “Hasta la vista, baby.”

After regaining his memory, Arize decides to leave the X-Men to try to help save his world from Mojo. The rest of the Gold Team comment on Bishop and his unpredictability again; they wonder whether or not they can trust him.

What Else Went Down: Archangel is fighting Mandroids at a laboratory of some kind. While rescuing a scientist, he gets shot. As he lays dying, a blue woman named Amalgam appears and talks about how this is the second time she has met Warren.

A flashback occurs to the Morlock tunnels during the Morlock Massacre, after Angel was stabbed in the wings. She offers Warren the chance to give her his powers and memories so that his death will not be in vain. Then she turns into Cyclops and Beast to try to convince him. Warren finally agrees, but as she absorbs his powers, she uses Destiny’s powers to see that he is needed in the future.

Warren then wakes up as Archangel in the present in the infirmary of the mansion. All of the X-Men comment on how happy they are that he survived.

What Else Went Down: Bishop is outside brooding, and Storm decides to make an attempt to get him to open up. Basically Bishop is homesick and feels guilty about letting his companions Malcolm and Randall die. He also brings up a tree that survived in his time as the only remaining marker of the school. The original class of X-Men allegedly planted it, but in the present it doesn’t exist. Storm leaves Bishop to his brooding, and he falls asleep outside. When he wakes up, it is raining and Storm has planted a tree in the spot, giving Bishop hope for the future.

How It Was: A minor, oh so minor improvement over the first part of Shattershot. On the one hand, the Death Sponsors are a lot cooler looking and more imposing than Mojo’s assorted henchmen from the first part. But unfortunately they are stuck with the gimmicky names and barely half a personality to share between the entire group. But the fight is far more entertaining then the previous one, and Nicieza manages to get some tension going towards the end, although he has to have a contrived power neutralizer to get the rest of the team out of the way. And Bishop gets a legitimately cool and redeeming moment, and then ruins it by quoting the Terminator.

But the same problems also crop up in this issue. Once again Nicieza starts with an unnecessary Danger Room sequence for lack of a better idea. Once again there are scenes with the villains that add nothing to the story, such as having them appear in Japan, realize they are in the wrong spot, and leave Japan. And there is Arize, whose origin is given a little more detail, but most of it was easily pieced together from the hints last issue. Plus, if you’ll remember my X-Cutioner’s Song reviews, Jae Lee’s art continues to not impress me. Although I will go as far as to say that the Death Sponsors' designs really benefit from his style, and the fight scenes and dream scenes he draws are pretty dynamic. However, the scenes where everybody is talking just look odd when matched up with the art. Probably the best chapter of Shattershot, but that isn’t saying a lot.

As for the back up stories, neither one really affects the overall narrative of the X-Men or makes a huge impression. The Archangel/Amalgam story is just weird and feels like a part of a bigger story that never got started. Also, if her thing is to take dead people’s powers and memories, why does she use Cyclops and Beast as examples? If she can travel throughout time, why doesn’t she go to Warren’s actual final death? It just doesn’t feel like it was that thought out. As for the Bishop story, it’s kind of mushy and doesn’t really matter at all. Both back up stories are pretty bad for this chapter.

C