Uncanny X-Men Annual '97

Uncanny X-Men Annual ‘97
Writing: Jorge Gonzalez
Art: Duncan Rouleau

What Went Down: Most of the setup for this story occurs in the Storm mini-series that I’ve not read. Storm, Cyclops, Jean, and Cannonball are in an African Village protecting the Gene Nationals, aka the remnants of the Morlocks, from Humanity’s Last Stand, an anti-mutant group armed with battle suits known as Razors. As the fight goes on, a mutant named Boost notices that Cannonball is wearing out, so he jumps inside Cannonball and uses his powers to enhance Sam’s. Boost’s girlfriend, a mutant lizard woman named Tether, is adamant that they kill the fleeing Razors, but Storm insists that they stay and look after their wounded.

We’re introduced to D’Gard, Storm’s interim leader who is a mutant empath. Since he can sense people’s feelings and emotions, it was decided he would be the best to follow the tribe’s wishes. Also, the reason that Gene Nation is in the middle of an African desert is that Storm deemed it so at the end of her mini-series; she thought it would be best since the Gene Nationals were brought up in the harsh conditions of Mikhail Rasputin’s “king of the hill” style society that they would be better off in a harsh African desert upon rescuing.

Tether accuses Storm of being a woeful leader, and she has a point since the village’s transmission tower has been down for over a month due to attacks from HLS, and Storm didn’t happen to notice until now. Storm makes an excuse that the X-Men have been busy and apologizes, but that is somehow not good enough for Tether. Storm explains that she exiled the mutants in Africa in the hopes that they would escape the bigotry that plagues the civilized world.

As night falls on the village, the X-Men prepare to sleep when Havok and his Brotherhood show up, consisting of the Dark Beast and Fatale. Cyclops immediately confronts his brother, asking what he is doing with the evil McCoy; Havok counters that the X-Men allowed Sabretooth to join and brings up Onslaught as well. Scott is still mad that Havok threw him out of a plane in Uncanny #339.

Havok offers the Gene Nationals a warning and protection. Dark Beast contemplates his inevitable betrayal of Havok while the members of Gene Nation consider Havok’s offer. Storm decides to set up a temporary truce between the two mutant teams.

At the base of Humanity’s Last Stand, we get to see the conflict from their perspective. They blame Gene Nation for the death of Graydon Creed and the series of murders that members of Gene Nation committed back in Uncanny #323. One of the Razor pilots even had a sister that died in the nightclub.

The battle begins; Beast breaks off with Jean Grey to find a more technical solution to their problem, while Cannonball saves Fatale. Some Razors cause a rockslide that buries a number of mutants, so Storm leads a group in rescuing them. D’gard can sense her fear from claustrophobia, and is impressed that she is able to conquer it to help their people. A group of four Razors breaks off to attack the shelters of the injured mutants; Cannonball and Boost try to stop them, but they are too late. Havok uses this as proof that tougher methods are needed to deal with the humans.

Nearby, Jean is using a teke shield to protect Evil Beast as he finds the emergency safeguards in one of the downed Razors. Using this, he is able to trigger the emergency protocols in all of the other suits, causing them to disengage. Storm uses the mutant Boost to amplify her powers and create an enormous sandstorm to wipe out all the retreating battlesuits.

After the battle, all the humans are taken prisoner. Tether and some of the others want to execute the humans who killed the injured mutants. Havok steps up to do it, but Cyclops confronts him and they get into a fight. Cyclops brings up how Havok almost killed him, and Alex brushes it off as “not being in his right mind” at the time. The brothers get into a fistfight, so Dark Beast takes the opportunity to construct a huge gun and execute all of the humans himself. Only he actually has Fatale teleport them all away at the last second so it would look like Beast killed them all. He is excited to have more guinea pigs for his experiments. Havok is as surprised as Cyclops that this occurs.

Boost and Tether decide to leave Africa with the Brotherhood, only they make it clear that they’re not joining, they just need Fatale to help them teleport away. D’gard announces that Storm no longer has claim to leadership, and that he will be the new leader of Gene Nation. Storm is saddened, but agrees it is for the best. Jean comforts Storm as they prepare to leave.

How It Was: This is surprisingly good for an annual, especially for this period in X-History. Not only does the story have actual stakes, but it also picks up on story details in other X-books (X-Factor, the Storm mini-series, last year’s annuals) to give a sense of cohesion in the wider X-Universe. I’ve never heard of Jorge Gonzalez before, but he has a fantastic handle on the characters, and he creates some better than average minor characters in Boost and Tether.

What Gonzalez does that makes the story work perfectly is that he presents the conflict from all sides, and neither side has the perfect answer. Storm wants to protect the village, but due to her commitments to the X-Men, and her terrible shortsightedness, she doesn’t have a practical answer. Havok thinks they should take the battle to HLS, but that will just escalate things. Tether and Boost, as the POV characters for the Gene Nation, represent how conflicted the group is about its purpose and identity, as well as seeing their reactions to various attrocities. Even the humans get a page to justify their motives, by using the events of Uncanny #323 as a validation for why they blame the mutants, since those terrorists did identify themselves as Gene Nation. D’gard offers a great point of view as well, as he is constantly analyzing the situation, trying to find a resolution that will work best for everybody. It’s all very well handled.

I only have two complaints. One is a minor nerdy nitpick: this is the team that regularly appears in X-Men during this time, and they’re in an Uncanny X-Men Annual. That just bothers me a little. The second is that Rouleau’s art isn’t really working for me. It’s so super exaggerated with lots of weird proportions and poses. It does have its moments, but more often than not it just looks odd to me. More importantly, there are moments, such as the landslide, where the frame is focused on Storm fighting bad guys when it should be focused on…well, the landslide. There are one or two other moments as well where the frame is of a character saying “Hey look at that thing over there,” when really the panel should just be showing the event. Plus we never get a feel for the scale of the battle, since the art pretty much focuses on the characters we’re familiar with. That’s an understandable decision, but it would be nice to have a few more establishing shots just to show off what a huge war this is supposed to be.

Overall, this is a pleasant surprise that feels less like filler than the actual stories running in X-Men and Uncanny around the same time. It’s the X-Men actually fighting for something, dealing with the themes of the series, and not always winning in the end. I would have loved to see this as a three or four issue arc as opposed to the Uncanny space farce, the X-Men meeting Shang-Chi in Hong Kong, or the entirety of Operation Zero Tolerance. Still, at least we got this much, and it works as a great one and done story as well as a great epilogue to the Storm mini.

A

Uncanny X-Men #325

Uncanny X-Men #325
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Joe Madureira

What Went Down: The X-Men are spending the day playing baseball with the cast of Generation X. Bishop steals a base, and it ends with a bunch of mutants tangled up in Skin’s skin while everyone else laughs. Wolverine shows up to mention how nice it is to see Storm smile. A portal appears on the baseball diamond, and Colossus comes through it, holding an unconscious Callisto, asking for help.

In New York, members of Gene Nation have stopped a subway full of people to use as hostages. Back at the mansion, Colossus fills in the rest of the X-Men. For some reason, Callisto passed out after she told Peter what needed to be done. A bunch of renegade Morlocks calling themselves Gene Nation are preparing to kill a lot of humans for the anniversary of the Morlock Massacre. Callisto accuses Storm of not taking her role as Morlock leader seriously enough, even though last time we saw her, Callisto had renounced her leadership so she could be pretty and have a normal life on the surface world.

Callisto uses a hologram to show the X-Men Gene Nation and explains that the Morlocks were taken to an alternate dimension where time was accelerated after Mikhail seemingly killed them all. Marrow and some others felt that the old Morlocks were weak and came back to Earth to reclaim their home and punish the humans.

Meanwhile, Gambit receives a phone call from Rogue. She tells him that they’re going to Seattle, where Gambit apparently did something really awful. Gambit tries to stop her, but she leaves the phone off the hook. Cyclops, Beast, Jean, Archangel, and Psylocke load up into the Blackbird. They’re acting as back up to the main team, but they don’t do anything else important in this issue. Archangel discusses the loss of his wings with Betsy.

At Sinister’s secret base, his assistant Threnody alerts Sinister that Gambit is on his way to Seattle just as she was ordered to do if that ever transpired. Sinister says some vague and cryptic mutterings about this being according to plan.

Wolverine, Callisto, Colossus, and Storm are the only four that Callisto’s teleporter could carry, so they are the ones searching the sewers. Callisto blames Storm for all of this, but the group is interrupted by a mangled body in front of a message for the X-Men. A new Gene Nation member named Reverb is tracking the X-Men, and Marrow is anxious to begin the fight. The X-Men are attacked by a big, strong mutant named Hemingway, who Callisto notes as having mutated recently. Vessel also shows up for the fight. While Colossus and Wolverine hold them off, Storm and Callisto continue towards the hostages.

The two Morlock leaders find the hostages escaping. One stops to fill them in, but then shoots Callisto with a gun, revealing himself to be Sack; Storm subdues him. Marrow appears and tells Storm that she was a young girl when Storm became leader of the Morlocks. Storm offered hope but never followed through on any of it, angering Marrow, who was once called Sarah. She reveals a number of hostages with bombs attached to them. The trigger has been strapped to Marrow’s heart, so Storm has to remove it before the timer reaches zero. They agree to a one-on-one duel using Marrow’s bone fragments as knives.

The mutant Reverb tries to affect the fight by attacking Storm, but Storm kills him by throwing her knives at him. Unarmed, Storm is still able to overpower Marrow, stab her, and cut out her heart to save the day.

The X-Men free the hostages and Callisto asks Colossus if he wants to go with her, but he declines. After a good-bye kiss she teleports away. Colossus decides his place is no longer with the X-Men either, so he walks away after saying good-bye to Storm. Storm agonizes over her choice, and Wolverine comforts her as they walk away.

How It Was: This issue is double-sized with a foldout cardboard cover to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Giant-Sized X-Men #1, the issue where Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Banshee joined the X-Men. Thunderbird did as well, but he died after three issues, so he hardly counts. The bad news is that this month had two, two, two double-sized issues for me to review and this is the first. And of course, both issues have covers that neglect to have the titles of the comic books or their numbers on the front, so that’s real helpful to collectors and potential new fans.

As for the comic, there is a lot of space filled by baseball and later by exposition. The baseball game has some fun comments from Beast, but other than that the rest of the scene is silly, and not in a good way. The inclusion of Generation X is perplexing since they don’t do anything else for the rest of the issue even though they’ve also been fighting members of Gene Nation in their own title. At the very least they should have let Banshee go with the field team since the rest of the members are all mutants from Giant-Sized X-Men #1.

This book seems to be full of errors. Callisto’s unconscious appearance is most likely a last minute mistake that was covered with dialogue. Callisto has to note that Hemingway has mutated recently, which probably means that his design was different in Generation X. And Callisto blames Storm for neglecting the Morlocks when she did the very same thing back in her last appearance in Uncanny X-Men. None of these break the story, but it is frustrating to see so much inconsistency.

The tone suddenly shifts from light and silly in the beginning to very, very dark. All of a sudden we go from laughing at people crashing into each other on home plate to mangled bodies left as messages for the X-Men. And while the battle with Gene Nation is what you would expect, the fight between Storm and Marrow is surprisingly violent. We get the two slicing at each other with bone knives, Storm licking Marrow’s blood off of a knife (???), and Marrow getting her heart ripped out. It’s a pretty big “what the?” moment, at least until you start to think about how stupid and contrived it is to strap a bomb detonator to her heart in the first place. Most of these final scenes feel out of character for Storm, from the taunting with licking blood to the part when she tells Marrow to “get over it.” The scenes at the end showing Storm’s guilt make it clear that she was putting on a strong face, but it still reads really strangely.

While the Gene Nation members are still completely one-dimensional, Marrow does have some good moments. When she’s not being “strap a bomb to your heart” crazy, she actually comes off as a fairly sympathetic character who put her faith in Storm and was ultimately disappointed when she let the Morlocks “die.” And for all my insisting that Callisto is a big hypocrite, she does have a good point about the X-Men having forgotten about the Morlocks; after all, they’re playing a game of baseball on the anniversary of the Morlock Massacre.

It’s also nice to see Colossus back as an X-Man, even though I feel like there were still stories left to explore with him as a villain. He doesn’t do a lot except flirt with Callisto and take accusations from Wolverine, but he’s still back where he is meant to be. And speaking of Wolverine, he gets some classic lines in while fighting with Gene Nation, and he’s finally wearing his mask again.

There are some pretty good moments in this book, but you have to wade through a lot of filler to get to them. Plus Gene Nation’s origins are quite convoluted, involving interdimensional portals and different rates of time. It’s nice to have Storm in the spotlight, and it gets rid of the Morlocks for the time being, although they always come back.

C

Uncanny X-Men #324

Uncanny X-Men #324
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Roger Cruz

What Went Down: Psylocke is taking the time to invade Gambit’s mind while he’s unconscious to find out what he is so afraid of. The landscape of Gambit’s mind is a black and white noir version of Bourbon Street. Gambit discovers Betsy’s intrusion, even though he shouldn’t be able to. Gambit wakes up and asks what Psylocke was doing. She makes up an excuse about being worried about him and leaves.

In New York City, three of the X-Men and Charlotte Jones are getting ready to throw down with two members of Gene Nation with the unfortunate names of Sack and Vessel. Storm worries about Wolverine losing control of his feral nature, and we find out that bullets can’t hurt Sack. Sack also brings up that their forefathers were the Morlocks, which alarms Storm. We also find out that Vessel’s powers involve absorbing the life essence of people, explaining the dead people with no physical markings. Storm interprets this to mean that Vessel is stealing people’s souls, and Wolverine seems to buy this explanation as well.

Rogue and Iceman find a small town to call for a tow truck. Inside that bar, Bobby once again sees Emma Frost, this time as the waitress of the bar. In the air, Sack is in the process of absorbing Cannonball, while down below, Vessel attacks the Graydon Creed rally. Beast shows up in time to save Creed from being crushed by debris and rubs it in that a mutant saved the life of an anti-mutant bigot.

Wolverine attacks Vessel, who starts to leak energy. An energy blast knocks Wolverine away, but he figures out that they have to destroy Vessel to release the people’s souls. Cannonball flies into a building to defeat Sack. Storm overloads Vessel with lightning, causing lights to pour out of him, releasing the “souls.” Both Sack and Vessel’s remains seep into the ground, hinting that they will return.

At the bar, Rogue pays for the bill and tells the waitress to give her regards to Grey Crow. Rogue doesn’t know why she said this because it is a residual memory from Gambit, and the waitress turns out to be an old friend of Gambit’s. Outside, Bobby is trying to call the Massachusetts Academy. Emma Frost is standing next to the ringing phone, saying that there is no one to take Drake’s call.

How It Was: It’s hard to know how to judge this story since it’s mostly set up for future stories. Should it be measured on how intriguing the set ups are, or on how good the payoffs turned out to be? For example, the scenes hinting at Gambit’s past really felt significant at the time, but we won’t get any real resolution until #350 in about two years time. The Iceman scenes do go somewhere, but the territory of Iceman not utilizing his powers to their fullest has already been explored in past Uncanny issues.

This leaves us with the fight with Sack and Vessel that is woefully unexciting. Unlike the Holocaust fight going on in X-Men at the same time, this battle features uninteresting characters and has no real stakes for the reader to be concerned about. Lobdell tries to up the tension by having Storm bring up the fate of people’s souls, but it really feels like a random conclusion that she’s jumped to. Vessel absorbs energy, he’s an energy vampire. Storm seems to be overreacting; after all, she doesn’t say that Rogue is stealing people’s souls when she absorbs people’s energy. The outcome of the story is so hollow; it’s meant to feel significant when the energy returns to the victims’ bodies, but they’re still dead so it doesn’t really matter.

Other than some fun scenes between Beast and Graydon Creed, and some intriguing Gambit mysteries that take a long time to pay off, there is not a whole lot to recommend in this issue.

C-

Uncanny X-Men #323

Uncanny X-Men #323
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Bryan Hitch

What Went Down: Rogue and Iceman are still on their road trip around the country, but their car has broken down. Rogue insists that neither one of them use their powers, so they begin walking to the nearest town.

Archangel and Psylocke are spending the afternoon in the Danger Room, since Sabretooth is no longer living in it due to his injuries from Wolverine. Psylocke senses that something is wrong with Warren. It turns out he is still shaken from seeing massacre at the disco from last issue. The couple is interrupted by Gambit, who asks about Rogue’s whereabouts before he passes out again; he is concerned that Rogue has absorbed his memories and may’ve discovered some secrets.

Outside, Sabretooth is running around like a puppy dog because the claw Wolverine shoved through his skull seems to have caused some brain damage. Attached to Creed’s collar is a leash being held by the newest X-Man Cannonball, formerly of X-Force. Sam struggles to take Creed on his walk, but Creed hesitates when they come across a very angry Wolverine. Wolverine threatens Sabretooth and scares Cannonball a little when the youth comes to his prisoner’s defense. Storm interrupts with a mission, and Wolverine says he can squeeze it in before meeting with James and Heather Hudson of Alpha Flight over in his own book.

At Trish Tilby’s news building, the Beast visits her and accuses her of selling out mutants for a scoop. Tilby argues that it’s a public health concern that people have a right to know about. Beast brings up the death of Dennis from X-Men: Prime, but Trish says the death is as much Hank’s fault for failing to save the man.

Graydon Creed is making an impassioned speech outside of City Hall. Noah Dubois pops up again, observing that Creed is reminiscent of Hitler. A block away, Wolverine, Cannonball, and Storm meet up with Charlotte Jones because she has something to show them. Rogue and Iceman are taking a break when Bobby decides to ask Rogue what is bothering her. Rogue can’t seem to remember, and Bobby starts seeing hallucinations of the White Queen, Emma Frost, taunting him.

At the city morgue, the coroner shows the X-Men images of the dead club patrons; it is revealed that they just stopped moving, and there was no physical evidence for why they died. Wolverine realizes that the doctor smells wrong and attacks him. His friends think he might be losing it, but it turns out that the doctor is being possessed by a new villain named… (sigh) Sack. Yes, his name is Sack. Then Sack’s partner Vessel appears and announces that they are members of a group named Gene Nation, and of course they are going to try to kill the X-Men.

How It Was: The “new” direction for the X-Men continues with Cannonball joining the X-Men for some reason…I didn’t collect X-Force, so I don’t really know why. Unfortunately, the writers decided to portray him as a young, naïve, in-over-his-head neophyte as opposed to the seasoned veteran and leader that he is supposed to be. The X-staff’s comments on this period were that Cannonball would be intimidated by joining the main, core X-team, but that explanation doesn’t really fly with past events. Sam has fought with and against the X-Men many times, and he shouldn’t be scared of being one of them. X-Force and X-Men fans around the country were both quite bothered by this, but Sam remains a member of the X-Men for about three years before going back to X-Force.

As for the rest of the story, not all of it works. Sabretooth’s lobotomy is kind of interesting, especially given the events in Age of Apocalypse, and it comes off as a genuine attempt to reform the villain. Wolverine’s regression to a more feral nature doesn’t work as well since all he does is stop wearing his mask and act slightly angrier then usual. In all of the action sequences, he acts perfectly normal, so his deterioration can’t be that severe.

The reveal that all of the club customers died from stopping is also a letdown since earlier it is set up as the most horrific thing that Archangel has ever seen. Gambit’s outburst is intriguing, although it is going to be a long while before we get a definitive answer as to the specifics of what he is afraid of. And Noah Dubois continues to pop up in Uncanny, misleading you into thinking that this is leading to something significant.

Worst of all is the return of the Morlocks in the form of Vessel and Sack. They both have cool designs, horrible codenames, and zero personality. Worst of all, they tie into Gene Nation, a group that somehow manages to convolute the Morlocks even more than when Dark Beast was made their founder.

There’s a lot going on in this issue, but unfortunately most of it doesn’t really go anywhere interesting. Iceman’s visions of Emma, the Noah Dubois appearances, Sabretooth and Wolverine’s changes in attitude, and the Gene Nation all end up either getting dropped or leading to some really disappointing stories. Graydon Creed’s political campaign does begin here, affecting the titles for the foreseeable future, and the conflict between Beast and Trish is really well done, presenting balanced arguments for both sides. And of course Cannonball needs some work.

C+