Uncanny X-Men #335

Uncanny X-Men #335
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Joe Madureira

Note: See X-Men Unlimited #12 next
What Went Down: Ozymandias opens the issue walking under a sculpture of the Fantastic Four mourning the loss of Franklin. He is staring at his risen lord Apocalypse. Apocalypse knows that Onslaught is a threat to him, and this fact is reinforced by the appearance of Uatu, the Watcher. Uatu and Apocalypse apparently already know each other, and Apocalypse explains that he is here to observe the end of the Age of Wonders.

In an Avengers Quinjet, the Avengers fly over the ruins of Xavier’s mansion. Nate Grey senses that the X-Men are alive, when suddenly the plane is forced down and ripped open. The X-Men and the Avengers have a minor conflict while Jean Grey ensures that the Avengers are really who they say they are; the X-Men are paranoid after the betrayal of Xavier. Nate mistakes Jean for Madelyne Pryor, a clone of Jean that Nate resurrected after he came to the main Marvel Universe.

Frustrated, Nate uses his mental powers to take all the X-Men’s memories and show the Avengers what Onslaught really is. Cyclops blasts Nate to free his teammates. Nate claims that he knew Xavier was evil from the moment he came to this world, and Wolverine tries to pounce on him. The X-Men inform the Avengers that Xavier has somehow been influenced by Magneto, creating Onslaught, which causes Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch to feel guilty about the actions of their father.

On Muir Island, Moira MacTaggert is briefing Excalibur about Onslaught. Many of the former X-Men want to go to America to help, but Moira insists that they need to stay and unseal the Xavier Protocols.

Below the mansion, Bishop replays Jean’s urgent message, confirming that Xavier is indeed the X-Men traitor. Gambit walks in and Bishop sort of apologizes for accusing him of being the traitor.

In another room, the Avengers and X-Men explain that Onslaught is pure psionic energy. Jean guesses that the transformation was spurned by the shutting down of Magneto’s mind in X-Men #25. Storm brings up that all information about Onslaught at this point has been supplied by Onslaught, which really means that all the “hints” up until now should be ignored because the writers didn’t organize this story very well. X-Force shows up, and they are assigned to protect Nate Grey, since Onslaught’s research showed he had an interest in the young mutant. Part of the heroes break off to warn the Fantastic Four while Cyclops and Jean go off to Muir Island for the Xavier Protocols. Another group is tasked with searching for Magneto, since he is supposed to have some part in the creation of Onslaught. Storm says she is worried about Cable, so she goes off to meet him in his title.

Wolverine says he has a hunch about Onslaught, so he tells the Vision that he’s going off to follow up on it. Vision comments on the contradictory nature of Wolverine as he drives away. Iceman fills Warren and Betsy in on recent events. Bobby calls Psylocke out on seeming cold and detached, which of course is attributed to the Crimson Dawn. They are sent to meet Scott and Jean on Muir Island. In the sewer, Dark Beast excitedly takes Onslaught to his lab. He starts to explain to Onslaught that he did not actually create the Morlocks, he just experimented on them, but Onslaught attacks him because he already knows all this information. He asks McCoy about soldiers for his army, while inside Onslaught, Charles Xavier is shown to be floating alone in oblivion.

How It Was: Whereas the Onslaught: X-Men one-shot set up the main ideas of the story, Uncanny #355 briefly reiterates those ideas and sets up the various missions that will hopefully further the plot. The major flaw is that none of these missions actually affect the plot other than the oh so brief appearance in Excalibur to get the Xavier Protocols to build the plot device that helps the heroes fight Onslaught. Finding Magneto doesn’t affect the story, finding Cable doesn’t affect it, you can probably already guess what’s going to happen in Fantastic Four without reading it, and Wolverine’s spirit journey to find Onslaught’s origins doesn’t really impact how they fight him at all. This means that the majority of issues in “Phase 1” end up being the equivalent of filler.

Once again, these aren’t really problems with the issue, only the narrative structure of the event. As far as the issue itself… it’s dense—there’s a lot of exposition on top of an unnecessary “heroes’ misunderstanding” to generate some action. Apocalypse shows up, making you believe that he’s going to play an important role, but all he does is appear in an issue of Cable before disappearing. As usual, the Watcher is dragged out to make sure that the average Marvel reader understands how “significant” this story is. Plus, this issue was many readers’ first impression of Nate Grey, which shows him as an over-hyped, whiny teen who just irritates all the heroes.

This issue burns away a lot of the momentum that Onslaught: X-Men gave it. While it’s nice to see that all of the individual heroes have a role to play at this point, the fact that none of these threads really influence the overall plot at all really hurts this book. This issue consists of a bunch of facts we already know and some in-story advertisements for a bunch of other books to come out later. Plus Storm’s dialogue pretty much admits at the start how poorly planned out this thing was to begin with, what with none of the build up to this story really mattering. While the Bishop and Gambit scene is handled well, especially Gambit acknowledging just how shady he really is, the rest of the X-Men are already getting forced to the side in a storyline where they should be central to the events, since this involves their mentor. It’s disappointing to see so much potential that later just gets squandered.

C-

Wolverine #101

Wolverine #101
Writing: Larry Hama
Art: Adam Kubert

What Went Down: Wolverine starts off the issue by stabbing Ozymandias and jumping into the abyss after Cyclops. Cyclops is busy shooting his optic blasts to slow his descent, but it’s not working, and he gets knocked unconscious by some debris. Jean fights a stone Magneto who has complete control over rock.

Wolverine catches Cyclops and stabs the wall to stop their descent. Scott wakes up and sees a carving of Professor X in the wall in front of him; he wonders out loud why Apocalypse would revere a carving of Xavier. Then Cyclops flashes back to the plane crash in his origin and passes out. Wolverine starts climbing the stone face.

Above, Iceman, Jean, and Cannonball are slowly being overwhelmed. Jean tells Iceman to extend a bridge, but the stone Wolverine attacks him. Some more stone statues are about to ambush the group, but Elektra knocks them off the ledge. The Magneto statue pins Jean, and flings some rock spikes at Wolverine, who shields Cyclops with his body. Scott responds by blowing the statue away with a laser blast. Ozymandias destroys the column in the center with all the carvings to preserve its secrets, so Iceman saves Wolverine and Cyclops.

Afterwards Wolverine acts savage, but Jean calms him down. Everyone agrees that it’s time to leave.

How It Was: I cannot see what the X-Offices were thinking at all with this one. How does giving your main character absurd proportions and reducing his mind so that he can only growl make for a better book? At one point he actually licks Cyclops’ face like a dog! Frankly this story is stupid for so many reasons, the main one being Wolverine’s transformation. The second reason is that I can’t really tell why Ozymandias is fighting the X-Men, other than the fact that he’s a bad guy and they’re good guys.

So it’s just an issue of the X-Men fighting stone statues for no reason. Kubert competently renders the action, but there’s no real investment in any of it. Elektra’s role in this story is so minor that she might as well not be in it, and as I said before, Wolverine is not compelling now that he has the brain of an animal with no personality. And the reveal of Professor X’s depiction in Apocalypse’s temple feels significant here, but is never mentioned again, so it’s hard to get excited by it.

Overall, I do not have a lot to say about this issue. It’s dull, boring, and disappointing overall.

F

Uncanny X-Men #332

Uncanny X-Men #332
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Joe Madureira

What Went Down: The issue starts out with Elektra stalking Super Feral Wolverine and recapping the events of Wolverine #100. At the offices of Landau, Luckman, and Lake, Professor X is asking a woman named Ms. Cullhoden about the whereabouts of Wolverine. Xavier reveals that he knows about all twenty-six branch offices as well as the ones in alternate dimensions. The X-Men are waiting for the Professor outside in the car. Jean mentions that she and Wolverine worked for LLL in Wolverine #97, while Cannonball and Iceman talk about how Sam blames himself for losing Wolverine.

Jean picks up Logan’s telepathic echo, and Xavier tells the team to leave him at the office. Ms. Cullhoden then shoots Xavier, but it is revealed to be a trick of Xavier’s telepathy. Xavier holds the woman with his mind, and explains that he will not lose Wolverine.

Wolverine discovers an abandoned city and falls through a trap door, frustrating Elektra as she tries to follow him. Wolverine falls and discovers Ozymandias, a servant of Apocalypse who was once his enslaver. He is the scribe of Apocalypse and has visions of the future that he makes into sculptures. He shows Wolverine some of his sculpting depicting Holocaust’s destruction of Avalon and the Age of Apocalypse.

The X-Men interrupt Ozymandias’ revelry and burst through the wall. The villain uses his powers to make his sculptures come to life and attack the X-Men; most of them are from the Age of the Apocalypse. Ozy also explains that he was manipulated by Apocalypse in much the same way that Sinister was. During the fight, Cyclops gets knocked down a hole, while Wolverine is grabbed by Ozymandias.

How It Was: We continue to explore “New” Wolverine in part two of this unnamed crossover story. And much like New Coke long before it, New Wolverine is a huge mistake. After rereading these issues today, I am now convinced that Logan’s new design had to have come from Joe Madureira since it matches his style so well, with his over-muscled torso and the exaggerated proportions for his hands and feet. Absolutely horrible.

The surprise of this issue is that Xavier gets to kick ass. First he puts the LLL representative in her place, shows he is fully aware of their “secret” organization, and then messes with the woman to demonstrate how serious he really is. I don’t know if this is Onslaught talking or not, but Xavier is awesome in this issue.

Cannonball’s guilt feels a little misplaced since he did save Wolverine from Genesis by himself. And Ozymandias isn’t really that great a villain, although he looks pretty cool. Even though the cliffhanger seems like it would be pretty good, there is absolutely no sense of urgency at all to save Cyclops. Plus, I have no idea why Joe Mad is obscuring Elektra’s identity the whole issue, when we already know who it is from Wolverine #100. This is definitely the definition of a middle issue in a story, and not a great story. Grunting Wolverine isn’t compelling, Ozymandias isn’t really that interesting, and the whole thing comes off as rather ill-advised.

D+