Uncanny X-Men & Fantastic Four Annual '98

Uncanny X-Men & Fantastic Four Annual '98
Writing: Joe Casey
Art: Paul Pelletier and Leo Fernandez

What Went Down:  A Stark-Fujikawa scientist named Doctor Beynon has just completed his invention, a miniturizer, with his robot assistant Hadley. Taking a break, Beynon decides to go with a colleague to Reed Richards’ press conference.  Beynon holds utter contempt for Richards, but goes regardless.

At the conference, Richards shows off his newest invention, a miniturizer of his own; Richards’ version is superior because, unlike Beynon, he though it might be more convenient to be able to return items to original size afterwards.  Beynon is escorted away from the conference after trying to confront Mr. Fantastic.  Later he is accused of stealing from Richards, even though he had been working on the invention for months. Losing his job, Beynon vows revenge on Reed Richards. 

At the X-Mansion, Cecilia Reyes is bored, and Beast is trying to entertain her with a game of chess.  He invites her to go to the opera with him, although Cecilia wants him to clarify whether it is a date.  Storm watches amusedly.  Elsewhere, Wolverine is forcing Cannonball to come with him to a poker game. 

Beynon breaks into the Stark offices to recover his invention.  He also discovers some other devices that he plans to use to exact his revenge.  At Pier 4, the FF’s new base, we learn that Reed and Sue just happen to be going to the same opera as Beast and Cecilia.  Meanwhile, the Thing is forcing the Human Torch to cancel his date to play poker with him and Wolverine. 

At the Met, Cecilia feels like everyone is staring at her because she hasn’t been out in public since being outed as a mutant.  Beast insists it’s just her imagination.  At the same time, the paparazzi are overwhelming Reed and Sue.  Back stage at the opera, Beynon has stolen the device that FF villain the Psycho Man uses to control the emotions of people.  He plans to use it during the opera.  Hidden in a closet, Beynon can’t tell if the device is working, but outside the actors and audience alike start going insane, jumping to anger and depression.

At the pier, Cannonball turns out to be really good at poker, even though he insists he doesn’t play.  Hadley, programmed into a Psycho Man robot, attacks the heroes.  Mr. Fantastic triggers the emergency flare before being overwhelmed by emotions.  After taking out the robot, Cannonball and the Torch fly off, while the other two run to their vehicles.

Inside the Met, Sue Richards attacks her husband while Cecilia attacks the Beast.  Wolverine and the Thing learn that both their vehicles have been smashed, so they have to get a taxi.  While in the taxi, the Psycho Man robot reactivates and goes after them.  The Psycho Man’s emotion controller shorts out due to all of the people it was controlling, and Beast and Mr. Fantastic confer to assess the situation.

Ben and Logan are attacked by the robot again and defeat it.  When everyone converges on the opera house, Beast and Reed have already captured Beynon.  While arguing about what to do with the Doctor, Beynon manages to get away, stealing the emotion controller as well. Upon returning to Stark-Fujikawa, Beynon is attacked by the actual Psycho Man.  The X-Men and FF soon show up to fight the villain.  Beynon actually tries to attack the heroes with a pipe.  The scientist tries to use his miniturizer on the FF, but it explodes taking Beynon and the Psycho Man with it.  Reed postulates that both of them have been sent to the microverse.

The issue ends with all the heroes returning to Pier 4 to relax.  Johnny and Sam have fallen asleep at the card table, while Ben and Logan continue to play adamantly. 

How It Was:  Uncanny’s annual teams them up with Marvel’s first family, the Fantastic Four.  In case you’re curious, the FF also had another annual in 1998 where they teamed up with an alternate version of themselves.  And this tale is written by future Uncanny scribe Joe Casey, who I believe was writing Cable at the time.  Anyway, you can see what Casey was going for, teaming the FF with their character equivalents on the X-Men: Beast and Reed are the intellectuals; Johnny and Sam are young, inexperienced, and energy-based fliers; Sue and Cecilia are serious and grounded nurturers who both have forcefields; and Thing and Wolverine are cigar chomping tough guys.

The biggest issue with this issue is the villain, Bradley Beynon.  He is this deluded, unintimidating, and unsympathetic whiner who has a weird fixation on Reed Richards.  He is so incompetent that he can’t figure out the Psycho Man’s emotion controller, even though it is essentially a box with buttons next to labels with emotion names on them.  I think he’s meant to be comedic, but Beynon is so over-the-top delusional that he’s hard to take.  I do like that Beynon has built a robot assistant, Hadley, with a dry, passive aggressive sense of humor.  Hadley gets some great lines, and I will say that it is interesting Beynon would build a helper who doesn’t mind taking him down a peg.

Casey has a great handle on all the heroes.  Thing and Beast’s comments are funny, which is crucial, and there are some great moments, such as Wolverine and Thing in a cab.  I also like the attention to character detail; Beast’s reaction to Psycho Man’s box is to be sad that he hasn’t cured the Legacy Virus, and the Invisible Woman is haunted by her time as the villain Malice and tells Mr. Fantastic that she was a better leader. 

There is an unintentional continuity hitch with Cannonball saying he’s never played poker, even though he has in X-Men #48.  In fact, that story featured the same order of events, where Cannonball insisted he wouldn’t be any good, then proceeded to clean out everybody.  It’s a small detail, so I can forgive it; you could even read into it that Cannonball is some kind of diabolical poker hustler, since I don’t think Wolverine was present at the last game, and the Thing left before Sam could play. 

Apologies for getting caught up in continuity details…it’s probably not that big of a deal.  As for the story, there are some good fights, even if the villains aren’t very interesting.  There is a weird plot hole where Beynon manages to escape and steal the emotion controller in the middle of eight super heroes discussing his fate.  Still, this is mostly a fun, slightly goofy team-up story that again has no real bearing on the bigger picture of the Marvel Universe.  It’s a mediocre story with some fantastic (reference intended) character moments.

B-

X-Men #71

X-Men #71
Writing: Joe Kelly
Art: Carlos Pacheco

What Went Down:  This issue is narrated by Jean Grey.  We open on Jean telekinetically meditating and trying to wipe the mansion of traumatizing telepathic residue, conveniently allowing her to recap the last couple of issues.  Cyclops, newly operated on, yells out in pain, but when Jean recovers, Scott has fallen back asleep.  Both of them are preparing for a vacation to Alaska to help Scott heal.

Downstairs, most of the X-Men are being repulsed by Marrow’s bad manners at the breakfast table.  Beast and Cecilia Reyes analyze one of Marrow’s bone shards, and Cecilia accidentally makes a comment that sounds like a pass at Beast.  Marrow gets angry at the X-Men for judging her and throws her food on the floor.  Jean walks in and Cannonball gets in a fight with Maggott over the language he uses in front of the lady. 

Outside, Wolverine helps Storm dig up her tiara and some golden coins she has hidden for emergencies.  They discuss their guests, especially Marrow, whom neither of them trusts.  Jean tries to sneak up on the pair, but Logan still manages to detect her.  Jean observes that Logan doesn’t want her to leave, even though he’d never admit it.

Cannonball has decided to take Cecilia and Maggott to Westchester, and Jean decides to join them.  Marrow interrupts, noting that she wasn’t invited because of her appearance.  Maggott offers to stay with her, but she rebukes him and storms off after arguing with Storm. 

At the Hellfire Club, Sebastian Shaw is being served tea by his servant Kiko and recalling the events of a recent Cable story.  A mysterious shadowed figure appears, stops time around them, and presents Shaw with a picture of a golden idol that distresses Shaw.  We also see what appears to be crow or raven.

At the mansion, Beast says goodbye to Trish Tilby and Iceman as they drive home together.  Wolverine has a man-to-man talk with Cyclops, expressing his concerns about the new recruits.  He tells Scott that if he leaves, things will be done differently.

While in Westchester, everyone bickers until they notice a news story announcing that the Avengers and the Fantastic Four have returned after “dying” during Onslaught.  Jean allows herself to get lost in the feelings of hope from the crowd of people.  In the attic, Wolverine and Storm discuss how they are going to handle Marrow.  In Cairo, we get a quick set up scene of a man running a package to a mail pile outside a plane.  As soon as he puts the package in, the man starts to bleed to death, but he tells Anansi that he has beaten him.  The package is addressed to Storm.

Back in Westchester, the group seems more hopeful.  We get another subplot setup of a homeless man getting murdered while Cannonball asks Maggott where his slugs are.  The next day Jean and Scott leave after discussing the future of the team.  In an epilogue, Marrow is carving things in the wall of her room and complaining about the X-Men.  Wolverine appears and tells her that she needs to be taught a lesson.

How It Was:  Even though the last story was kind of a wash, it was still supposed to be a major crossover, meaning that this issue is a quiet, contemplative issue that examines the new status quo.  Basically there are three new potential recruits, all of the X-Men’s nice things are gone, and Cyclops and Jean Grey are taking a break from the team.  And although it’s not much, it’s a solid direction for the book; certainly more than we ever got in the post-Onslaught issues. 

This is a great issue for Jean, who hasn’t had a lot to do recently.  She makes for the perfect narrator since she knows the established characters inside and out, and Kelly’s script really emphasizes this.  From Jean’s confusion over how Logan detected her downwind to her reaction to Storm’s hidden trove, Kelly establishes that Jean is a lynchpin to the X-Men, and he actually manages to make it feel like her leaving affects the team significantly.  In fact all of the characters really come into their own under Kelly’s hand.  Marrow’s rebellious attitude really shines as she riles up everyone else in the group.  She remains sympathetic even though she is purposefully trying to antagonize the team due to the fact that she’s had such a hard life and most of her arguments are actually true.  In another interesting dynamic, it’s clear that Storm and Wolverine aren’t being objective or open to Marrow at all, yet their view also has credence given recent issues with Sabertooth and Onslaught.  Even the flirting between Beast and Cecilia is enjoyable.

The center of the story, the Marvel heroes returning, is handled very nicely.  In what could’ve come off as an in-house ad for the Heroes Return line, Kelly puts the focus on the X-Men’s reaction to learning that Onslaught did not kill the heroes.  The moment of hope at the end makes for a good juxtaposition to the frustration and melancholy that have led up to it thus far. 

So really this issue is just an exercise in great characterization.  Well, the conflict between Cannonball and Maggott feels forced, but other than that everyone else comes off perfectly.  The only other misfire with this issue is the Sebastian Shaw subplot that gets mentioned in a couple of future issues before disappearing forever.  It’s disappointing to see this problem persist with a new creative team, but I guess it can’t be helped.  Overall this is still a fantastic issue.  There is absolutely no action at all, but the characters and interactions are handled so well, you’ll hardly notice.

A

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+

Fantastic Four #416

Fantastic Four #416
Writing: Tom DeFalco
Art: Carlos Pachco

What Went Down: Dr. Doom’s servant begins by explaining to his master the Onslaught storyline up to this point, including the capture of Franklin and the EMP. Doom declares that this situation requires his personal attention.

At Four Freedoms Plaza, a number of heroes are trying to rest in between going out and fighting Sentinels. The Invisible Woman finds some of Franklin’s toys and feels depressed. Ant-Man, who is working for the FF at this point, regains consciousness, but he is too weak from the EMP frying his helmet, and because of it, part of his brain. The Beast also brings up the fact that he was recently rescued over in X-Factor. Mr. Fantastic’s father Nathaniel tells Sue that the FF need to flee or they will die; he knows this because he is a time traveler who has seen the future. Sue refuses without Franklin, and she goes off with her husband to have a talk.

Inside Onslaught, Franklin is using his powers to send projections to warn his family where he is. It is explained that he was tricked into luring Nate Grey into a trap over in Nate’s book X-Man. On the roof of FF Plaza, Hawkeye and Iceman complain about how boring recon is. Inside, Sue and Reed have a conversation about whether they’ve neglected their responsibility to their son by putting him in danger all the time. Mr. Fantastic swears they will figure it out after they defeat Onslaught.

The Thing contemplates how alone he is as he watches the Torch and Lyja talk alone; Ben has a crush on Lyja at this point. Alicia Masters and her father the Puppet Master show up to offer their help against Onslaught. In another room Ant-Man’s daughter Cassie Lang is busy talking with Kristoff Vernard, a twelve-year-old boy who had all of Dr. Doom’s knowledge and memories implanted in him. They discuss a friend of Cassie’s who was being abused, and Cassie says that he finally told a teacher and got help for him and his mother from his abusive father. Kang the Conqueror appears, but Kristoff punches him once and the Conqueror dissolves.

The Thing and Alicia talk, and he explains that recently he’s been utilizing a machine to change back and forth into a normal human. The couple is attacked by the Psycho-Man. Meanwhile Lyja explains that she has been posing as another woman to date Johnny without him knowing, but they are interrupted by Paibok and the Super-Skrull. Fortunately for them, the Inhumans show up to help in defeating the aliens. In another hall, Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman fight Wizard, Mad Thinker, and Devos the Devastator. Namor the Sub-Mariner turns up to help.

Nathaniel Richards is being attacked by the Red Ghost, but he is saved by the Black Panther and members of the Fantastic Force. Reed realizes what is happening—these enemies are really projections from Franklin warped by Onslaught, and he goes off to build a machine that can stop it (just like every other FF story you’ve ever read). She-Hulk appears to help out the Thing against Tyros the Terrible. Reed’s machine needs a power source, so the Thing pulls the power source from the machine that lets him turn back into a human.

Outside the Torch is fighting Annihilus and the Dragon Man, but Doctor Doom shows up to save him. Johnny thinks Doom is another adversary to fight at first. The Invisible Woman is attacked by her Malice persona, but Agatha Harkness appears to rescue her. Reed flips the switch on his machine and all the villains disintegrate. Sue tells Reed that Harkness claims Franklin is still alive, and everybody gets excited. Johnny shows up and tells everyone that Doom is now on their side. The team does the traditional hands in the middle pose, and the series ends on a spread of the FF and all their allies, old and new, ready for action.

How It Was: Groan…yet another double-sized issue. Yet this one doesn’t feel as extraneous since this is supposed to be the formal end to Marvel’s oldest and longest running comic (at the time). Poor Tom DeFalco had obviously been doing a fine job of setting up different subplots for his characters that all had to be hurriedly rushed to completion in time for the end of Onslaught. Cassie Lang’s friend who was being abused by his father is all wrapped up with two panels of exposition, the Torch just forgives Lyja for impersonating another woman because there isn’t any time for a different resolution, and Alicia Masters is wheeled out randomly to bring some closure to the ongoing ordeal of the Thing’s loneliness. This all feels really, really rushed. I will admit though that I do love the part where the Thing tears the power source out of his changing machine, not just because I feel the machine lessens the inherent drama of a great tragic character, but also because it’s just a really great example of Ben Grimm stepping up and being a hero.

As for the plot, well… this has absolutely nothing to do with Onsluaght, and it doesn’t really fit the tone of the other crossover books. Instead DeFalco seems more interested in giving the Fantastic Four a proper sendoff by going through a number of past villains and having a bunch of allies show up for absolutely no reason at all. And really, without Dr. Doom or Galactus as potential adversaries, this book is limited to some pretty weak villains, even before you add in the part about dissolving with one punch. Tyros the Terrible? Devos the Devastator? These really aren’t the strongest characters from Marvel’s back catalog. And the Inhumans show up completely out of nowhere. Some of the appearances are kind of neat, but there are just so many that none of them feel significant in any way. And of course it has to end with Reed flipping the Deus Machina switch to save the day, although this comes off more as an homage to tradition, rather than purposefully stale writing.

The other major problem with the plot only matters if you read Avengers #400, which came out two months prior to this issue. In it Loki uses magic to attack a team of past and present Avengers characters with artificial avatars of villains from throughout the team’s history. Does that sound in any way familiar? Now I’m not accusing DeFalco of blatant plagiarism, after all I’ve read similarly structured stories in Spider-Man and the X-Men, but it still isn’t a really a stupendous issue. Plus all the Avengers and X-Men are completely ignored for the sake of giving the FF a proper sendoff; Iceman and Hawkeye are shown observing the villains approaching, then they are never seen again for the entire double-sized issue.

Pacheco is perfect for drawing this kind of issue with lots and lots of different characters. If you want to see how good he gets at drawing giant epic scale battles, go buy Avengers Forever. Still, his Onslaught looks even more out of place now that he isn’t drawing the “evolved” version of the bad guy, although he’s not really in the issue long enough to care. The art definitely elevates the story above the shallow plot structure and hurried subplot wrap-ups that DeFalco is editorially forced to endure. It’s not an ideal ending for the team, especially in the middle of a larger storyline, but I guess it gets the job done.

C-

X-Men #55

X-Men #55
Writing: Mark Waid
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: We open on an average citizen of New York waking up and opening his curtain to reveal a Sentinel staring right at him. It seems that Onslaught has found a way to reprogram the Sentinels to attack New York City, as opposed to just hunting mutants. The combined forces of the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Avengers observe the chaos on a rooftop. Through conversation the characters fill each other in on the fact that Franklin Richards has been abducted, and Magneto has been discovered de-aged and with amnesia. Rogue tries to comfort Joseph, who feels guilty about causing Onslaught, while Gambit wonders if she can trust Joseph. The heroes split up with some of them going off to fight Sentinels while all the genius characters retreat to come up with some weaponry to fight against Onslaught.

In what I think is the Astral Plane, Onslaught is taunting young Franklin with Charlie—the illusion he used to capture the boy. Onslaught wants to use Franklin’s powers to alter reality in some way. Over the ocean, a group of X-Men are returning from Muir Island after having gotten the Xavier Protocols from Moira MacTaggert. The Xavier Protocols are instructions Xavier created that outline the weaknesses of all the X-Men, including Xavier himself. At Four Freedoms Plaza, the science team is examining the armor Mr. Fantastic’s father used to protect himself from Franklin’s powers. On the airplane Cyclops uncovers plans for psionic armor.

Throughout Manhattan we get panels of heroes beating the tar out of Sentinels. Rogue and Joseph are working together when Gambit destroys a Sentinel that was sneaking up on Joseph. Gambit blames Joseph for Onslaught, and the three argue until Iceman defeats another Sentinel behind them. Iceman points towards Central Park, where a huge citadel appears out of thin air, an effect of Franklin’s powers. Onslaught appears at the top with a monologue about the ascension of mutantkind.

The heroes move in to attack, but Onslaught lets out a giant EMP wave that knocks out all of the electricity in the city. It also causes a huge shockwave and takes out some of the heroes like Vision and Iron Man. Another unfortunate side effect is that it shorts out the Xavier Protocols, and causes the plane Cyclops and the rest are in to plummet out of the sky. Joseph raises some debris off the heroes, and everyone stands around looking defeated. The story ends with a page of Ozymandias carving a new sculpture of Onslaught that shows him evolving.

How It Was: This actually isn’t too bad when taken on its own. Waid has a lot of characters to deal with and does a good job of keeping them all from sounding the same. With Rogue’s return to the X-titles, he wastes no time establishing the Gambit/Rogue/Joseph triangle and handles it really well. The script balances the tension and hopelessness of the heroes, while Andy Kubert draws some awesome pictures of heroes beating up Sentinels. Kubert even manages to make the heroes standing around look awesome; I love how he draws the Human Torch, long shots of the city look awesome, and he totally sells the drama of the EMP blast sequence.

Characterization and art aside, this issue still suffers from the same problems all the other ones do. Many events that seem significant end up not mattering by the end of the story. Both the psionic armor and the armor for Franklin’s power wind up being almost inconsequential, although other issues do deal with it. Do you want to know why Onslaught needs Franklin? So do I; I guess he gives the villain an excuse to be able to just do anything, but it’s not very satisfying and it doesn’t feel like it’s building towards anything. He talks about the ascension of mutants, but it’s hard to see how having an army of Sentinels attack Manhattan helps to make mutants more free. But I do love the Sentinels as villains. Also, I love how the story just skips the inevitable plane crash of Cyclops and the others; I guess it’s just assumed they’ll make it because we never see what actually happens.

This is pretty much the best an issue in the Onslaught crossover can get at the end of “Phase 1”. The character work is solid and the art is fantastic. From this point on, with the start of Phase 2, there are only three kinds of Onslaught issues. 1. Random heroes fight Sentinels or random followers of Onslaught for an issue. 2. Random heroes rescue civilians for an issue. 3. Random heroes have an inconsequential fight with Onslaught that doesn’t affect the resolution one bit. It’s definitely not as clear of a direction as Uncanny #335 left us with, and quite frankly it starts to get old after a month of every Marvel book taking place in Onslaught ravaged Manhattan with absolutely no real story progress until the end. Yes characters show up and change, things do happen, but none of it matters until the Marvel Universe one-shot at the end. Still, Waid and Kubert were able get some weight and drama out of this disorganized mess, so that counts for a lot.

B

Fantastic Four #415

Fantastic Four #415
Writing: Tom DeFalco
Art: Carlos Pacheco

What Went Down: We enter on Franklin Richards and Charlie—the mental projection Onslaught is using to trick Franklin—in the middle of a gypsy circus. A woman named Magda—most likely Magneto’s former wife and the mother of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch—warns Charles that the child is innocent. The entire circus turns out to be an illusion created by Franklin as a test of his reality manipulating powers. When he hears his family’s ship return, Franklin abandons the illusion and runs to greet them.

At this point in FF continuity you should know that the team is hanging out with a Skrull named Lyja and Mr. Fantastic’s father Nathaniel Richards. Professor X shows up at the FF’s waiting room asking to see Mr. Fantastic while the Avengers are calling on the com line. Scott Lang, the current Ant-Man of the time, answers the call from Bishop, Iceman, and a number of Avengers. They try to warn him that the Professor is a threat, but Onslaught knocks Scott unconscious.

In another room, Xavier insists that Franklin must join his School for Gifted Youngsters. When Reed and Sue refuse, Xavier reveals himself as Onslaught and attacks them. The X-Men/Avengers arrive, and all the heroes split up to locate Franklin, Onslaught, and Scott Lang. Crystal, the Human Torch, and Nathaniel find Scott Lang unconscious, but they are all defeated by Onslaught. Lyja tries tricking Onslaught by taking Franklin’s appearance, but she, the Thing, and Hawkeye are also defeated. Bishop and the Invisible Woman check Franklin’s room; they find Onslaught and appear to defeat him by having Bishop rechannel Sue’s invisible force fields as energy blasts. Xavier appears weakened, but it’s a trick and he takes out the two heroes.

Outside Four Freedoms Plaza, the Watcher and Apocalypse discuss the significance of Franklin and his powers to “rearrange the molecular structure of matter.” Apocalypse notes that this must be hard for Uatu because he actually cares about the Fantastic Four, but he is not allowed to help them.

Franklin is alone eating cookies when Charlie comes to take him. Iceman and Mr. Fantastic attack Onslaught, but the villain makes it so Franklin cannot see any of them. The other heroes recover, and they all attack Onslaught in unison. It looks like they’re going to prevail, but at the last second Onslaught lets loose an energy blast that knocks them all out. He takes Franklin away.

How It Was: Well Onslaught comes to capture Franklin as part of his master plan. What part of that plan? We’ll never know, but basically at this point he is just a plot device that lets the villain do anything and get away with it. Fantastic Four’s biggest problem is that it has too many extraneous characters that serve no other purpose in this entire crossover.  Poor Lyja, Nathaniel Richards, and Scott Lang are left just standing around until the next issue of FF shows up to finish off all their subplots right before the title reboots. I do like the central idea of attacking the team through Franklin, their most innocent and vulnerable member, but surely capturing Franklin has been done to death after four hundred issues; it just doesn’t feel very exciting or original.

There are some major problems with the story structure as well. What possible reason would Onslaught have for pretending to be Charles Xavier when he’s supposed to be so powerful? It’s obvious from the start his ploy isn’t going to work, so really he is just wasting everybody’s time. The gypsy circus also feels like a waste; sure, I guess it’s supposed to be a subtle hint about Magneto’s connection to Onslaught, but it hasn’t really been established that Magneto or Magda were gypsies, only that their children were raised by gypsies. Also, the Avengers lose half their members between calling FF headquarters and showing up there, which is a strange tactic for facing the greatest threat ever to the Marvel Universe. And right after the X-Men and Avengers show up, they decide to split up? It really doesn’t feel like they’re treating this threat seriously if they’re leaving members like Wasp and Giant-Man behind and breaking off into groups of two and three. The fights are okay, but really they all boil down to one of the FF using his or her powers to detect Onslaught, followed by all the heroes getting thrashed. The mislead with Xavier feels forced since they could’ve just tried to knock him out. Even the end is a little bit of a dud when the heroes rally and then they’re all defeated in one panel.

Carlos Pacheco’s art is great when it comes to the heroes and the fortress itself, but I have to say he draws the weakest looking Onslaught of just about everyone at Marvel. His Onslaught seems small, and he doesn’t draw the face right, going for a red face with white features as opposed to the cooler shadowed face under the helmet that most of the other Marvel artists give him. This issue gets the job done, but it’s not exactly a gripping read. This story just feels rushed and it has too much baggage in the form of characters and plots that have nothing to do with the Onslaught story.

C+

Onslaught: X-Men

Onslaught: X-Men
Writing: Scott Lobdell and Mark Waid
Art: Adam Kubert and Pascual Ferry 

What Went Down: Our prologue begins with a shocking revelation; the video of Jean from Bishop’s timeline, the one that started the whole X-Traitor storyline, is in reference to Professor X turning into Onslaught. Here we get the whole version with the missing sections.

Cutting back to earlier, the story begins with Xavier sitting in his den and throwing a picture of himself and Magneto into a fire. He laments about the failure of his dream before summoning the X-Men to the study. Jean Grey is the only one who knows that Xavier is really Onslaught, but she hasn’t had an opportunity to tell anyone. Dark Beast is still worrying about his infiltration being discovered. Jean recaps all the X-Men’s encounters with Onslaught while Xavier announces that his dream was a mistake.

Jean continues to worry as Charles talks, and she discovers the Cyttorak Gem on his desk; unknown to her, the Juggernaut has been trapped in the gem by Onslaught. Jean continues to probe the Professor’s mind, but Xavier covers her head with a “psychic muzzle.” While the X-Men rush to Jean’s side, Xavier transforms into Onslaught.

Onslaught offers the X-Men an opportunity to join him. When Cyclops brings up the similarities in his tone to Magneto’s, the villain demonstrates his psychic powers on some of the X-Men. Cyclops blasts him, but Onslaught uses his powers to freeze the X-Men in place before disappearing. Gambit frees the X-Men by charging the floor with energy, and Jean fills the team in on what she has learned. Gambit brings up how Bishop has been looking for a traitor in the X-Men, surprising him. The team splits up with one unit going after Cerebro, even though it’s still supposed to be broken, while the other team goes to the ready room.

At the Baxter Building, Franklin—the son of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, is talking to his imaginary friend Charley—who is really Onslaught, while the Fantastic Four eat breakfast. Charley gets mad at Franklin and shatters a glass. The FF think Franklin is responsible, and Mr. Fantastic asks his son to go down to the lab with him.

In the Ready Room, the X-Men discover that Xavier has been researching Franklin Richards as well as Nate Grey. Onslaught mentally controls Cannonball and attacks the rest of the team. At the Avengers Mansion, Nate Grey is trying to convince the Avengers that Xavier has turned evil. They are skeptical, but they agree to check out his claims. Onslaught taunts Bishop for failing to discover that he was the traitor before going off to Cerebro.

In the Cerebro Room, Cyclops is busy disconnecting the computer when Iceman detects Onslaught by measuring the body temperatures in the room. Onslaught turns Cyclops’ powers on Jean, Iceman, and himself. Then he reveals that he has known about the Dark Beast’s presence the entire time and has been helping to hide him from the other telepaths. Dark Beast agrees to join Onslaught; the villain has to siphon some of McCoy’s thoughts to maintain his control of Xavier for some reason.

Later, Onslaught has neutralized Jean’s powers and is attempting to steal the secret to the template of the Phoenix Force from her mind. He takes a break to tell Dark Beast to dispose of the X-Men’s bodies, and Jean takes the opportunity to run away. She escapes to a communications room where she records the message from the prologue.

During the part at the end of the message, the part where it looked like Jean died, it turns out that the flash of light was just the other X-Men coming to the rescue. All the X-Men attack together, seemingly killing Onslaught. Of course, it turns out that the body they killed was really an illusion. Onslaught prepares an energy blast to kill all the X-Men, but Bishop manages to intercept and absorb it. Onslaught and Dark Beast teleport away, leaving the X-Men to ponder what they are going to do. At a secret location, Onslaught manages to activate an army of Sentinels.

How It Was: Another year, another X-crossover. As we all know from the success of Age of Apocalypse, every good crossover needs a double-sized one-shot with no ads to start it off. And not only is this a crossover across the X-books, we’re going full-on Marvel Universe wide inter-company crossover with this one. As the first issue of the story, this is probably the most that’s going to happen plot-wise until the Onslaught: Marvel Universe one-shot that ends it. I’ll get more into why this whole crossover is a bit of a mess, but let’s look at this issue a little closer.

Well Onslaught finally shows off how powerful he is, and it’s a wonder why he didn’t attack sooner to get it over with. Flashbacks to X-Men #50 and Uncanny #322 and #333 try to make this feel like a resolution to a grander, cohesive story, but really this just starts out of nowhere. The “hints” earlier don’t really point to a particular plan, and as you’ll see later, Onslaught’s agenda is never addressed beyond wanting to destroy the world…because he’s evil. The issue does succeed in giving us the broad, general ideas: Onslaught is Xavier, he’s really powerful, he’s interested in Nate Grey and Franklin Richards because…some reason, and he’s somehow connected to Magneto. That’s not bad for a first issue, except that this is pretty much what every other writer goes off of for his next two issues without really adding all that much to the plot until the end.

This is about what you’d expect from a hero like Professor X turned evil story. Waid and Lobdell take their time going through the beats: the X-Men can’t believe it, Onslaught shows signs that he’s not totally in control, the X-Men come to terms with the fact that they might have to kill him. Nothing is exactly subtle—from the villain’s reaction to Magneto’s name to the way Gambit brings up the X-traitor plot thread that has been rehashed over the last couple of months to the X-Men’s discovery that Onslaught could kill them but chooses not to. Of course later in the story, Xavier and Magneto turn out to play absolutely no part in the resolution of the story, so you could call this a misdirect, but it feels more like improper story planning. With so many at Marvel wanting to recapture the Age of Apocalypse, but on a larger scale, this issue tries to create some structure that really hasn’t been built up to as well as it was in the previous event.

Because Onslaught spawns from Xavier’s mind, he has the power to manipulate his students’ minds, and this leads to some interesting results, like having Cannonball freak out or Cyclops turn his powers on his friends. However, Onslaught develops so many other powers including super strength, energy blasts, EMP blasts, etc. that it starts to make him feel less unique. The X-staff is going for a cosmic-level bad guy ala Dark Phoenix or Thanos, but Onslaught never feels thought out enough to resonate as much with the readers.

It’s good to see the Dark Beast finally get something to do other than complain about life with the X-Men in his head. The X-Men’s confusion is well handled, but this thread leads to one of the other problems with this crossover. In order to have just about every Marvel title “tie in” to the story, sometimes events happened in the completely wrong books. So the Dark Beast/Beast storyline that has been running for months in the X-Men titles gets resolved in X-Factor, the origin of Onslaught happens in Wolverine, and Magneto/Joseph—who has been set up as a future X-Man already in the X-Men titles—gets discovered in Avengers. Again, none of these stories ever really contribute to the overall main plot (which should be combating Onslaught) whatsoever.

Still, I can’t help but notice that most of my criticisms, while originating with this issue, have more to do with the overall structure of the story than the issue itself. I actually quite like this one. The video from Bishop’s future is a nice touch, and a lot of the action is really good. All the X-Men’s reactions feel well done, although Xavier/Onslaught tends to talk a little too much and Jean’s inner ranting about Onslaught goes on for far too long. And of course, I can’t really understand the plan in the middle of the issue to split up when they’re facing the supposedly most powerful enemy they’ve ever faced. The ending struggles a little to involve Bishop, since he really had nothing to do with the resolution of the Traitor storyline. It feels tacked on to make Bishop the hero of the issue since he also won’t do a lot in the fight against Onslaught.

While this issue feels significant to a point, it’s a shame that most of the storylines either shift to unrelated books or disappear completely from the story. Out of the dozens of issues that are going to crossover, only two or three are going to deal directly with fighting Onslaught, so he never really gets developed as a character. There’s an interesting idea here about him being a manifestation of Xavier’s repressed feelings and emotions, but it gets bogged down in connections with Magneto and plot devices that serve no purpose. The traitor thread does get resolved, but this also feels shoe horned in. This is an exciting enough issue that is a little too long for its own good; it does a good job of setting up the main ideas, but the story never really develops any themes or developments beyond these general ideas.

B