Uncanny X-Men #293

Uncanny X-Men #293
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Tom Raney

What Went Down: Storm, Colossus, and Bishop begin the issue by tracking the Morlocks as they return to the sewers. Even though the Morlocks are no longer under the influence of the scared little boy from last issue, the Gold Team still wants to make sure there is no trouble. Also, following the Morlocks evidently means breaking through the walls of the sewers instead of just tailing one of them.

Well big surprise, there is trouble as Mikhail Rasputin (in full crazy mode) is discovered at the Morlocks’ lair sitting on a throne made of live Morlocks. It seems he wants to take over the vacant spot of leader.

In another part of the sewers, Jean Grey is looking for Archangel, who left the fight to go sulk last issue. Professor X is guiding her telepathically until Calisto attacks him.

Colossus decides that he has to reach out to his brother, a very reasonable assumption, and begins by tearing off his shirt, a very weird and uncomfortable action. Mikhail uses his powers to open the floodgates because he believes that the best direction he can take as leader is to kill all of the Morlocks in a flood, thus sending them to the hereafter where they won’t have to suffer any more.

Jean finds Archangel reminiscing about when the Marauders injured his wings, although he calls them the Reavers by accident (i.e. typo). Jean tells him that his wings aren’t controlling him, even though other stories had already established that they do sometimes, and that all of his rages were his own fault. Unfortunately this explanation is allowed to stand, killing the only good Archangel plot thread for the foreseeable future, at least until he starts dating Psylocke, which isn’t really that interesting at all.

Back to Xavier, he severely embarrasses Calisto by knocking her out. That’s right; an unarmed, paralyzed man on the ground beats up the warrior leader of the Morlocks who has a knife. Mikhail uses his powers to carry the Professor and Calisto to where he is, so now he has telekinesis as well.

Iceman shows up to attack Mikhail, and the X-Men get to work trying to stop him. Iceman tries shooting ice at him, Bishop tries absorbing all of his energy, but nothing works. Oddly enough, Iceman is also ineffective at trying to freeze the water, which doesn’t really make sense since that’s the whole point of his power.

Colossus gives up and tells his brother that he will die with him if he must, but Archangel saves him. Mikhail uses his powers to use Jean Grey’s powers and send all of the X-Men out of the sewers before the water crushes all of the Morlocks. No worries, they’ll be back.

The issue ends with Colossus calling his sister and telling her that his trip home is going to be postponed. Then Jean consoles him as he cries for his brother.

How It Was: So the Morlocks, and Mikhail, get unceremoniously dumped out of the comic because nobody wants to deal with them. But the real problem with this issue is that a lot of it just doesn’t make sense. If the Morlocks are no longer being controlled, then why do they make Mikhail their leader, and how come no one protests when he decides to kill everyone? Why is Jean telling Warren that his wings aren’t responsible for his rages when other stories have clearly established that they are? Why does Archangel have to cry for two issues straight? How could the Professor possibly beat Calisto when he is a paralyzed man in the water with a bleeding leg? How come Iceman can’t freeze water? Why has Mikhail decided to go against his no killing rule? And why does Colossus rip his shirt off when there are only a couple of holes in it? There are just too many aspects of the plot that don’t make sense.

The one shining moment in the comic occurs during the last two pages, and not just because the story finally ends. The scene where Peter talks to his sister while trying to hold it together is very powerful. And the art does a fantastic job of rendering Peter’s pain. It’s a well done bit that is the complete opposite of Archangel’s scenes, as these are relatable and warrented. While it’s a great scene, it’s not enough to make up for all of the other shortcomings with this final chapter.

D

Uncanny X-Men #292

Uncanny X-Men #292
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Tom Raney

What Went Down: Things aren’t going too well for the Gold Team since the last issue. Storm is still having a conniption over being swarmed by hideous mutants in an enclosed space, Archangel has abandoned the X-Men to go cry like a little girl at the spot where he lost his wings during the Mutant Massacre, and the Morlocks are rioting in New York. To make matters worse, Colossus and Bishop start the issue out with a confrontation over Bishop’s violent tendencies.

Back at the mansion, Iceman is getting his clock cleaned by Mikhail Rasputin. One of the major themes of Scott Lobdell’s Iceman stories is having Bobby realize that he hasn’t lived up to his potential as far as mastering his own powers as time after time other mutants use his powers better than he can. Mikhail demonstrates how to melt Iceman, turn Iceman into pure ice, and shatter and reform Iceman.

In between issues, it looks as if it was decided that the cause of the Morlocks’ riot was not Masque’s violation of their bodies and minds. Instead, the cause is actually a Morlock boy named Braincell who is projecting his feelings of fear into everyone else.

Colossus and Jean fight one of the most annoying characters I have ever read, MeMe. He’s a Morlock who absorbs people into his body, making him stronger, and he also happens to have the rather aggravating habit of repeating random words twice in his sentences. It annoy annoys me a lot lot. Thankfully, the only way to save the people he’s absorbed is for Jean to shut off his mind. They make a big deal about it being sad and Jean even cries, but I say good riddance to awful characters.

Bishop is also fighting a group of Morlocks, but he is interrupted by the police. They want to arrest him for killing all those mutants before he joined the X-Men. He shoots at their cars in an attempt to scare them away, and Storm takes that exact moment to reenter the fray and chastise Bishop.

As Mikhail beats up Iceman, Calisto tears apart Storm’s room and finds her old vest that she gave to Storm.

Down in the sewer, Xavier has to exit his hover chair to crawl into the small space that the young boy is hiding. In a completely unnecessary gross out scene, the Professor gets his pants caught on something, pulls really hard, and then realizes that it was actually his leg that was caught on something, and he has now ripped that leg open pretty badly. Despite the risk of bleeding to death, the Professor calms the kid down, and the Morlocks calm down in turn.

At the mansion, Calisto and Mikhail kiss; Mikhail explains that he cannot bring himself to kill anybody, but Calisto believes she can change his mind.

How It Was: It’s a big fight issue, occasionally interrupted by Archangel’s weeping and the Professor goring himself on debris. Warren’s weeping in this issue is completely uncalled for since he was joking with the X-Men down in the sewers during the previous issue, as well as the fact that he’s supposed to be the freaking angel of death. I was expecting him to maybe flip out on the Morlocks and give into the dark side that writers had been building up in stories since the original X-Factor. Instead, next issue completely ruins all of that setup by ignoring a lot of it and prematurely ending Archangel’s uncontrollable darkness, except for a brief scene during the crossover. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for characters expressing emotion, but not for them acting pathetic.

Mikhail is still lame, but his fight with Iceman is kind of exciting. Evidently crazy is contagious since Calisto is now acting completely nuts as well. As mentioned before, the scene with MeMe can’t end fast enough. Poor Bishop gets scolded not once, but twice for being too violent. Having the toughest character on the Gold Team being constantly chastised like a school boy is definitely not the way to make him seem cooler.

The art is good, especially the scenes in the sewer with Xavier. The Morlocks are all pretty generic looking, but I guess that’s part of the idea of the whole getting violated by Masque aspect. And even though I do hate it the scene with Archangel crying looks really nice.

It’s a long fight that has nothing to really recommend story or character wise, especially if you’re squeamish. The only really interesting aspect is the possibility of the X-Men and the police coming into conflict over Bishop’s wanted status, but nothing ever comes of this and it’s soon forgotten.

C

Uncanny X-Men #291

Uncanny X-Men #291
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Tom Raney

What Went Down: Random Fact About the X-Men #1: they are fans of Jay Leno. Random Fact #2: some of them need more appropriate pajamas to wear while they watch together. The X-Men’s Leno viewing is interrupted by a beaten up woman at the front door; Colossus answers the door in his boxers. The badly beaten woman turns out to be Calisto, and the badly beaten Morlock Healer is with her.

Upstairs Mikhail is having hallucinations about all of the people he killed with his powers back in the Void. Rather than act terrified, he seems to just grudgingly acknowledge them.

In the medlab, Professor X scans Calisto’s mind to discover what happened. Basically the Healer came by to ask if Calisto would reassume her role as leader of the Morlocks, and she refused because she likes being pretty and not living in the sewers (due to the mutant Masque’s ability to shapshift other people). Unfortunately, all of the Morlocks have been made even more hideous by Masque, and this has made them a tad insane. After she says no, the other Morlocks freak out and beat both of them senseless.

Everyone is startled to discover that Mikhail was able to listen in on the Professor’s psychic frequency. Mikhail also expresses his sympathy for Calisto since she is also responsible for the fall of a group of people entrusted to her. Storm declares that she is going to try to stop the Morlocks by herself (because she was technically the Morlocks’ leader until Masque took over), but Archangel talks her out of it by explaining that the Morlocks are everybody’s responsibility.

As the X-Men are planning their next move, the Healer heals all of Calisto’s wounds, but at the cost of his life and Calisto’s beauty for some reason.

There is a subplot scene about a man in sunglasses from the Friends of Humanity collecting someone at a nursing home…I have no idea what this refers to; I think it was a dropped plotline.

Well the X-Men, plus Professor X, journey to the sewers, and Iceman stays at the mansion to watch Calisto. Mikhail gets in Iceman’s face and tells him he is going to free Calisto.

Down in the sewers, Storm tries to talk to the Morlocks, but they all swarm around her. She flips out because of her claustrophobia, and blasts a hole through the sewer to the surface, setting free all of the unstable Morlocks.

How It Was: And so begins “The Last Morlock Story.” Except it’s not really, the last issue of this arc just has those words on the cover. Between this story and the Mutant Massacre, you’d think the Morlocks would be all gone by now, but they always find a way to come back.

This is a pretty good intro to the story, although in the next couple of issues the narrative starts to abandon logic. But the badly beaten Calisto does start the issue off with a sense of urgency, as does the death of the Healer, even if he was an inconsequential mid-1980s comic book bit character (Random Fact: the Healer actually appears in the X-Men Legends video game voiced by Emmy and Golden Globe Award winning actor Ed Asner, so maybe he’s not that minor). However, Mikhail’s perceived connection with Calisto doesn’t really make much sense since she completely abandoned the Morlocks without reservations and remorselessly killed some in the process. Future stories tend to forget the whole “pretty Calisto” plot, and in a few years she will be accusing Storm of abandoning her people without any sense of guilt or irony. But back to Mikhail, he turns into a total tool over the course of this story, and Lobdell keeps giving him more and more applications for his vaguely defined powers.

It’s also nice to see characters like Archangel and Storm react to having to deal with the Morlocks again, although it is funny how every Morlock story starts with Storm feeling guilty about not taking her role as leader seriously, and then afterwards she completely ignores them until the next Morlock crisis.

The art by fill in artist Tom Raney is rather nice. Sometimes the proportions on characters are a little off, and the two page spread on the second and third pages contains characters in some completely unnecessary action poses, but for the most part the characters are depicted clearly, and with some great expressions. There is a really gross scene of one of the Morlock’s taking out Calisto’s eye, followed by a great shot of her tearing the Morlocks apart with her arms covered in blood. Unfortunately the coloring scheme in Calisto’s flashback consists of hot pink and neon orange.

It’s a decent story up until the last couple of pages where we get some of the most boring banter between the gold team yet (Jean worries about the Professor some more, Colossus bores Warren with his theories on his brother’s powers), and then Storm freaks out and blasts a hole in the sewer. I don’t really understand why this is such big deal since the Morlocks could have easily just used the manholes to get to the surface and terrorize New York if Storm hadn’t freaked out.

Some interesting and memorable moments, but the parts with Mikhail and the end kind of ruin it.

B-

Uncanny X-Men #286

Uncanny X-Men #286
Writing: Whilce Portacio, Jim Lee, and Scott Lobdell
Art: Whilce Portacio, Jim Lee, and Art Thibert

What Went Down: Colossus is reunited with his brother Mikhail, and it is revealed that Mikhail is the actual savior from the prophecy. All of the rebels decide that they now have two saviors on their side. Mikhail has the power to stop the portal from destroying both worlds, but he refuses to.

We learn the tragic origin of Mikhail. As a Russian cosmonaut, he was forced to fake his death when the government found out he was a mutant. Mikhail and a group of scientists were sent into the void and crashed. When he awoke, he found that he was recuperating in the palace with the former Avatar, or king, and his daughter Tra-Mai-A-Zath. Mikhail and the king’s daughter were married, but when he returned to the wreckage of his vehicle, Mikhail learned that the king had killed the rest of his crew.

Mikhail then joined the resistance, who are pro-democracy. It turns out that the portal was responsible for the Avatar’s powers, so Mikhail tried to close it with his own mutant abilities. The end result killed everyone on both sides and made him very sad.

Elsewhere, Iceman freezes a bunch of goons who were hassling the local women; he and Sunfire learn the location of the rebel base from one of the women.

On Earth, multiple portals are popping up, and everyone is powerless to stop them. Reed Richards, Hank Pym, and Nick Fury make cameos so that the reader knows this is quite serious.

Colossus and Mikhail argue over what should be done. Mikhail walks away rather than risk everybody’s lives.

Over at the Triumvirate, Archangel is training with some soldiers of the Posse Comitatus, when he accidentally kills them all. It is revealed that Sha-Har-A-Zath, the current avatar, has the ability to control his will through touch. She’s also very bitter that Mikhail killed her parents and sister.

The mind controlled Archangel leads the Posse Comitatus into battle against the rebels. A huge fight ensues with Storm, Jean, and Colossus coming to aid the rebels. Archangel attacks Jean, but is stopped by the arrival of Iceman and Sunfire. For some reason, being shot by Sunfire’s heat blasts also cures Warren of his mind control.

Colossus is injured blocking a laser blast for his friends, which causes Mikhail to pull out two swords and fight. Sha-Har-A-Zath reveals that she is also a mutant, attacks Rasputin with some kind of pink laser, and then gets sucked into the void. Mikhail decides to use his powers, but with the assistance of the other X-Men, he is able to prevent the body count of his first attempt.

The X-Men make it back to the other side, with Mikhail in tow. Colossus has to give his brother CPR, but he makes it and learns about their sister. Awww, a happy ending.

How It Was: This is the Whilce Portacio’s last issue on art; he would later go on to help co-found Image comics with Jim Lee, Todd McFarlene, and a number of other influential artists of the time, leaving the X-offices, and Marvel Comics in general, totally screwed.

This is slightly better than the past two issues, as it isn’t all just set up, and events actually occur. While Mikhail Rasputin’s reappearance isn’t a huge deal in the long run, it does make for some great scenes with his brother. The part where Colossus confronts Mikhail and accuses him of abandoning his duty is really well done; it gets the right mix of Peter’s feelings of betrayal and anger as he calls Mikhail a coward not just for refusing to help the alternate dimension people, but also for running away from his life on the farm to become an astronaut.

The fight at the end is also pretty good; however, the supposed main villain of the story Sha-Har-A-Zath gets dispatched in one panel by the void instead of an actual character (and may I never have to write that name again). The whole story ends rather abruptly, and the reader never gets to see the impact of the rebels’ battle other than Jean swearing that they didn’t die. The end also suffers from the X-Men having to use their powers in ways that blatantly defy science; how can Sunfire’s power open a window between dimensions?

While everything comes off as rushed, from the ending to Mikhail’s origin, I still think it was a good idea to end the story and get the X-Men out of that dimension. It just didn’t work; the other dimensional people weren’t very interesting because they weren’t all that different from normal, everyday people. Other than having purple hair and advanced weapons, nothing makes them stand out. The Primate character who keeps following our heroes is a wasted opportunity to introduce the ideas and behaviors that could have defined these people and made the reader care about their all too cliché battle. Also, their dimension needed a name like Polemachus or Asgard; no creator is ever going to write another story about the unnamed dimension of the purple-haired people.

C

Uncanny X-Men #285

Uncanny X-Men #285
Writing: Whilce Portacio, Jim Lee, and John Byrne
Art: Whilce Portacio, Art Thibert, and Al Milgrom

Note: The price goes up twenty-five cents this issue. Stupid inflation.

What Went Down: Colossus, Jean Grey, and the rebel leader Primate fall out of the other side of the portal into some fantasy world. They notice that the rest of the X-Men are nowhere to be seen, and then they are attacked by a group of rebels who think that they killed the Primate. Jean and Colossus are both defeated, but the rebels surrender when they see Peter unarmored and mistake him for some kind of savior.

Meanwhile, Storm is dying in a desert. This is odd because normally the weather doesn’t affect her, but since she is in a different dimension she gets to feel the full effect. A stranger rescues her and takes her back to his house. He feeds Storm and asks how she found herself in a desert alone. When she brings up the portal, the stranger freaks out

Archangel stumbles upon a group of rebels fighting against the forces of the established government, which we later learn is called the Triumvirate. In a daze, Warren kills all of the rebels, and when he wakes up he is proclaimed a hero even though he has no idea what happened. This is an ongoing subplot from X-Factor where Archangel’s wings would control him and cause him to slip into rages because they were created by Apocalypse.

And finally we find Iceman and Sunfire in a bar after having fallen through a hole in the roof. When the bartender and his patrons show justifiable anger at having their property vandalized, the two mutants beat them all up and leave.

Back in the desert, Storm and the stranger are getting ready to ride giant lizards to the location of the portal, so they can stop it from destroying both worlds. Storm is pretty sure the X-Men will fix the problem, as should be the reader by this point.

Colossus and Jean are being lead back to the rebels’ base and trying to fit in with the group as best they can.

Iceman and Sunfire walk away from the bar, which is completely destroyed in background. Sunfire takes the time to backhandedly apologize to Iceman for attacking the X-Men during his first appearance. Since it happened almost thirty years (in real time) before this issue, Iceman isn’t too concerned. The pair hear about a steel warrior and go off to find their teammate.

Archangel meets the leader, known as the Avatar, of the Triumvirate; her name is Sha-Har-A-Zath, and she makes Warren a Lord Protector in her army.

Back at the rebel base, Jean and Primate are discussing the prophecy that Colossus is meant to fulfill. Jean finds him in a room with a harem of women, at which point he starts acting embarrassed and bashful. Storm and the stranger show up at the exact same time, and the stranger reveals himself as Mikhail Rasputin, Peter’s brother who was supposed to have died.

Back in the real world, the police are investigating the bodies of more mutants that Bishop and his team have killed. Witnesses have mistaken the XSE officers for the X-Men because of the black Xs on their uniforms, and Trish Tilby is doing a report on possible mutant gang warfare. Bishop again ends an issue with a vow—this time that his past will never come to be.

How It Was: On the plus side, all of the X-Men get their own individual plot lines in this story, so some of the characters finally get some room to breathe and let their personalities show a little. Archangel’s subplot is at the same time the best and the worst. On the one hand it deals with the internal darkness he’s been struggling against since his transformation, and the fact that he might be finally losing control is rather intriguing indeed. On the other hand, his plot deals with the monarchy of this dimension, and I get bored just writing Sha-Har-A-Zath and Posse Comitatus, let alone reading about them.

As for the other character beats, they’re okay. Storm’s plot at least has the mysterious stranger’s identity to keep readers invested, although the reveal that he is Colossus’s brother makes for a hell of a coincidence. Colossus and Jean’s arc has the mystery of the prophecy, but it’s never really resolved completely and comes off a little contrived in the end. Iceman and Sunfire’s journey is completely unnecessary, and the question of why Sunfire is even in this story is still a very pertinent one.

Above all else, the world is just really boring and not fleshed out at all. The only things the reader really learns about the culture are that there is a monarchy, some of the people don’t want a monarchy, and the people say “by the mother and son” a lot. It’s about as interesting as it sounds.

The Bishop plot continues and it seems like there may be serious ramifications for the rest of the X-Men. There aren’t, and the fact that a bunch of civilians think they saw the X-Men gun down other mutants in the middle of a club gets quietly forgotten. Oh well.

C-