Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Andy Kubert
What Went Down: Part 7 of the X-Cutioner’s Song. This issue starts off right where last issue ended: Reaper standing over the fallen Quicksilver and Gambit, about to deliver the killing blow. Fortunately for them, Psylocke and Havok show up and save them. Storm, Polaris, and Rogue are once again chasing Dragoness (even though they took her out in the last issue). Once again, they defeat her. Also, the fight is now taking place indoors, even though the fight was outside in X-Factor.
Cannonball and Boomer chase down brainwashed allies Rusty and Skids to capture. Before being apprehended, Skids breaks Boomer’s jaw, and a humorous scene proceeds with Boomer still talking despite the fact that nobody can understand her.
While fighting the army of MLF henchmen (now wearing armor suits, even though they weren’t last issue), Rogue is blinded by villain Strobe. This takes Rogue out of the crossover, and her blindness persists for a couple of months after the crossover ends. Iceman confronts Archangel about killing Kamikaze, but Warren just brushes it off as an accident. They agree to talk about it later, but to the best of my knowledge they never do.
Over in Canada, Bishop, Cable, and Wolverine are running from Department K airships. After they’re surrounded, Cable teleports them to his space station, Greymalkin.
Outside the mansion, Colossus is feeling sorry about the death of his brother, Mikhail. X-Factor’s Strong Guy brings him some coffee with whisky in it. Inside, the Beast and Moira are still stumped by the disease that Charles is infected with.
Stryfe is overseeing everyone from monitors in his base. Then he goes into Cyclops and Jean Grey’s cell and forces them to eat some brown goop that is supposed to be warm milk supplement. He drops some more hints about raising children, which indicate that he may be Nathan Summers, Cyclops’ lost son from the future.
After this, Stryfe decides that he needs to kill Apocalypse because he has a grudge against him, too; this also lends credence to the Nathan Summers theory since Apocalypse is the one who infected Nathan with the virus that made it necessary for Cyclops to send his son to the future. Stryfe easily defeats the Dark Riders and then breaks into Apocalypse’s chamber. Apocalypse has no idea who Stryfe is, but it is clear that both of them are about to fight before the issue ends.
How It Was: I’ll admit that this issue holds a special place in my heart since it was the first X-Men comic I ever got; special thanks to my mother for purchasing it at the A-Plus gas station back when I was eight years old. This comic is the one responsible for starting me off on a hobby that continues to consume what little money I have. Quite frankly, I still love this comic.
Trying to look objectively at the issue, outside of my own nostalgia, it isn’t particularly significant. It contains fights with not one, but two obscure C-list nineties super villain teams that are both defeated incredibly easily by their opponents. All that really happens is that the MLF are defeated and a couple of X-characters are knocked out of commission for the duration of the story. The pages spent on Cable’s team are a waste; it’s just two pages of filler before Cable decides to Easy Button the team to his base.
The only real tension in this issue comes from the Stryfe sections, and the fact that Professor X is still “dying,” although that hardly counts since everyone knew he was going to make it. Stryfe has a cool design, and I’ve always found him interesting even though most people probably see him as just whiny. I think he’s perfectly justified in feeling betrayed for being sent to a post-apocalyptic future to be raised in hardship, and I like the idea that Cyclops made the wrong call and turned his son into a petty, twisted super villain. Maybe it doesn’t come off as well in this story, but I always thought it had loads of story potential. Of course this was all before the X-offices decided to make Cable the true son of Cyclops, completely negating the purpose of Stryfe and forcing him into triviality.
The continuity between issues of the crossover could have used another editorial once over since many environment and character designs, as well as events, don’t match up with the previous issue. It’s nothing severe; it’s just annoying. Andy Kubert’s art looks really nice, especially his Iceman, Colossus, and Stryfe portrayals. Unfortunately, his penchant for drawing weird giant clouds of dust behind characters is also present: on the first page no less.
It’s really just an okay issue, but I like to think of it as an above average middle chapter. And it was obviously good enough to convince an eight year old kid to spend the next sixteen years of his life buying comics, so bonus points for that.
A-
