X-Men #32

X-Men #32
Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: Spiral tells Warren and Betsy that she wants to help Psylocke seek the truth. Because this is a comic book, and they’re enemies, of course they have to have a fight. Nothing Spiral says is particularly helpful, and then the rest of the blue team randomly shows up to finish her off. Spiral teleports away, and Betsy shows the torn out bionic eyes to the rest of the X-Men.

Hours later, Banshee and Beast are doing things to the eyes with tools. They are able to find recordings from right after Psylocke disappeared into the Siege Perilous. Basically the actual story goes that Matsuo and Mandarin wanted to just switch the two girls’ bodies, but because Spiral is twisted and bitter, she manipulated their minds so that they turned out mixed up. If you were wondering why Revanche thought she was the real Betsy, it turns out that she was not used to telepathic powers, and her emotions confused herself, Psylocke, and the rest of the X-Men, hence the initial story.

Outside Gambit asks Professor X to talk about the problems he’s been having with Rogue. Also, if you care, Beast has outlawed smoking in the mansion. As for Psylocke, she once again journeys to Nyorin’s estate in Japan, this time alone. However, Nyorin is dead, killed by Matsuo. Matsuo’s reasoning is that Nyorin created a fake diary to keep them apart because Nyorin was also in love with Kwannon.

Using a kiss, Matsuo gives Psylocke the stored memories Kwannon had of Betsy Braddock’s; he also removes all of Kwannon’s stored personality traits. Despite this, Betsy is still able to utilize her ninja skills. After this, Matsuo wants to kill himself, but Psylocke convinces him not to in order to preserve Kwannon’s memory. Both characters bury Kwannon, and when Betsy returns she throws the bionic eyes into the water. Archangel shows up, and the two comment about how they’ve both been manipulated by evil forces and come out stronger for it.

How It Was: Well just like this cover and the last one alluded to, Psylocke fights Spiral…for all of five pages. Then the X-Men show up and beat her soundly in another three. This makes for a rather unfulfilling action sequence, on top of the fact that Spiral doesn’t really explain her reasoning for messing with Psylocke and Revanche. The explanation seems to be “because I’m crazy” but I’m sure most people were hoping for a little more.

After that, the sequence with Matsuo and Psylocke turns out to be pretty good. Again, we’re talking about a relationship that Nicieza never built up, and basically jammed into the plot so the story would work. But all in all, the idea of Psylocke convincing Matsuo to overcome his grief to honor Kwannon’s memory is a pretty nice idea. Having Psylocke’s memories returned to her via a plot convenient power transfer kiss is not. And with that contrived kiss, all memory of Revanche is essentially wiped away from the X-Men titles.

Andy Kubert does a great job with the art. The snowy backgrounds look really nice and everyone has a nice sense of action and movement. Plus, Psylocke actually wears clothes in the winter weather, a nice departure from the adventures in X-Men #17-19. While not a very exciting story, Nicieza does manage to get a little dramatic and emotional mileage out of a concept that most thought was completely dead in the water.

C+

X-Men #31

X-Men #31
Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: Ahh, the final Revanche story. It just rolls right off the tongue. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can be done talking about this horrible character. X-Men #31 opens on a flashback of Kwannon jumping around the rooftops of a flashy city, presumably Tokyo. Matsuo Tsuryaba catches her and we find out that the two were lovers and that his nickname for her was Butterfly. At the bottom of the flashback panels, we see the silhouette of Spiral commenting about them. She switches to a live feed of the eye cameras that were placed in the original Betsy Braddock to find that Revanche is standing over a sleeping Professor X with a sword. Then the feed cuts out.

When Professor X wakes up, he finds a note and Revanche’s sword, and gives them to Psylocke. Psylocke worries about how she will resolve her identity issues without Revanche. After Xavier leaves, Psylocke pulls out her parting gift from Revanche…the original Betsy Braddock’s bionic eyes.

Matsuo reflects on a flashback of Kwannon and himself; he took a picture of her and she became angry with him. We learn that Kwannon worked for Lord Nyorin and Matsuo worked for the Hand, and it looks like both sides were about to come into conflict. Matsuo (in the flashback) suggests they should kill each other, as opposed to being forced to fight each other later. Of course they can’t, because it wouldn’t be honorable. Spiral sneaks up on Matsuo in the present and eats an apple while they discuss how Spiral repaired Kwannon’s body.

At the mansion, Psylocke partakes in a lethal Danger Room sequence. Archangel programs a hologram of his Angel form to surprise her. Warren offers to go out to eat with her and discuss her problems. In the study, Xavier asks Beast to take over leadership of the blue team as well as the daily tasks of maintaining the institute. We also find out that Emma Frost has deeded her Massachusetts Academy to Xavier. Beast acquiesces. Gambit and Rogue’s relationship is showing tension since the Gambit mini-series. I’ve only read the first issue, but it appears that somehow Rogue absorbed the memories of Gambit’s wife Bella Donna, because she keeps saying things that Gambit remembers his ex-wife saying.

Next we get the flashback of Matsuo and Kwannon being forced to fight each other. Matsuo ends up throwing Kwannon off of a cliff, where she “dies.” After retrieving her body, Matsuo takes her to the Hand, but they can’t heal her because she suffered brain damage from being underwater. In the middle of the flashback, present day Revanche attacks Matsuo.

In Salem Center, Betsy shows Warren the eyes that Revanche pulled out of her own sockets. Back in Japan, Matsuo can’t help viewing Revanche as Kwannon with his “mind’s eye,” whatever that means. Matsuo admits his part in getting the Mandarin and Spiral to preserve her body, since Kwannon’s mind was gone. Revanche points out the irony because the body that was supposed to save her is now infected with the Legacy Virus.

Revanche asks Matsuo to kill her so she won’t have to die from the Legacy Virus. He does, and back in America Psylocke feels the shockwave, causing her to crash the car. The final page leaves us with Spiral popping in, saying that she wants to help Psylocke discover the answers to her questions about her identity.

How It Was: Surprisingly this story turned out more enjoyable than I thought it would. It’s far from perfect, but the sheer fact that it’s the conclusion to the go-nowhere Revanche storyline, and it keeps my interest, says a lot about it. As you can probably tell by my synopsis above, this book is dense with information. There is an incredible amount of exposition, which is needed to tie up the incredible amount of loose ends that span from Mojoworld to the Hand. Plus there is the problem that to make this story work, Nicieza has to retcon his previous story by saying that all of the information Nyorin gave them previously was a lie. While this somewhat negates the impact of the first story, it does leave Nicieza open to write a satisfactory, if melodramatic, tragic romance for Kwannon and Matsuo.

Since it is her death issue, Revanche gets the majority of the focus of this issue, and hence gets to do all of the interesting things. Between ripping out her own eyes and asking Matsuo to take her life, Revanche actually develops a pretty compelling personality. Of course it is all based around that wacky comics’ portrayal of honor, but it’s still a lot better than what came before. Psylocke surprisingly doesn’t do much of anything except for a generic Danger Room exercise and a continuing of her burgeoning relationship with Archangel, meaning her scenes are rather dull.

Really, the main problem is that you can almost hear the plot struggling to contain all of the various retcons. No, Kwannon wasn’t in love with Nyorin, it was Matsuo; really, all of the X-Men knew Betsy was the real Psylocke, it was just Revanche’s emotions affecting her powers, to the point where she fooled Professor X and Jean Grey; Kwannon’s brain was actually damaged, so not a lot of her made it into the pair. It all just reeks of plot convenience, but if you can overlook it all, there is a fairly decent resolution here to a rather awful ongoing sub plot.

C+

X-Men #28

X-Men #28
Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down:  Jubilee has a dream where she is in some dark scary woods running for her life. She finds the lifeless body of Wolverine only to be attacked by Sabretooth. Jean Grey is alerted by the girl’s screams and comforts her as she wakes up. The reason Jubilee is having nightmares is that Sabertooth has moved into the mansion as of X-Men Unlimited #3.

Jean contacts Cyclops, Beast, and Storm, and the group meets at Harry’s Hideaway to debate the matter. Some argue that the X-Men have taken in dangerous characters before while others point out that Xavier’s recent decisions have been questionable at best. Jean is the most upset by Sabretooth living in the mansion.

In the medlab, Xavier is analyzing Revanche to track the progress of the Legacy Virus in her. He asks her if she will stay with the X-Men, but she wishes to die free. Moira calls and asks Charles for some assistance.

To catch up readers, Creed was dependent on his assistant Birdy, who would give him a telepathic stimulant known as “the glow.” When she died, Creed’s need for the psychic drug overcame him, driving him even crazier. So voluntarily, he requested help from Xavier. This is necessary to know because when Psylocke attempts to recreate the glow, Sabretooth humiliates her and says that her mind is so fractured that only Jean Grey can give it to him.

Next we have a scene where Rogue has volunteered to deliver food to Creed, and Gambit is quite hesitant to allow her. Sabretooth teases the couple, revealing that he knows Gambit from his past as well as the existence of Rogue’s half brother, who later turns out to be Nightcrawler; he also hints that Rouge would be unhappy if she ever heard his stories about Gambit.

Cyclops and Jean Grey confront the professor about Sabretooth living in the mansion. Like most couples, Jean does most of the talking. Xavier understands the arguments, but feels that it is against his personal philosophies to push Creed away. Afterwards, Cyclops tells Jean that he knows that her frustration has to do with Wolverine’s absence. Moira calls, and Jean says that she needs to be the one to confront Sabretooth.

Jean enters the cell, and Sabretooth expects her to give him the glow. He attacks her, trying to intimidate her, but Jean uses her powers to knock the villain around. Jean refuses to give him the glow and proves to him that she has nothing to fear because of how much more powerful she is. Later, Jubilee volunteers to bring up Creed’s meal to confront her own fears. She finds Creed meditating, and finds it just as disturbing.

How It Was: Sabretooth joins the X-Men, and wackiness ensues. Well, “joins” is a little hasty, and that’s pretty much why this story line works, even though it eventually goes nowhere. Because Wolverine is off in his solo book feeling sorry for himself, bringing in Sabretooth does succeed in adding something interesting to the cast. This issue especially works really well as it gives all of the characters an opportunity to react to Creed in a variety of negative ways. The depiction of Sabretooth is fantastic as he is presented as a Hannibal Lechter type who all of the characters fear and respect for his savagery and potential danger.

What’s great is that Nicieza uses Creed’s living at the mansion to explore some different aspects of the characters as well as introduce some new potential stories. Jean is forced to confront her feelings about Logan, Gambit and Rogue are confronted with some potentially unsettling events from Gambit’s past, and Jubilee is forced to reevaluate her position of weakness as a novice on the team. It’s also nice to see the X-Men scrutinizing Xavier’s decisions after recent events, and it’s great to see that the X-crew being overwhelmed by this new responsibility. Plus, the climactic confrontation with Jean and Creed is some of the best material that Jean has been given in a while.

Once again Psylocke and Revanche bring down the rest of the issue. Revanche’s lone scene isn’t too bad as it’s mostly just reiterating the fact that she has contracted the Legacy Virus…again. So it’s inoffensive, yet unnecessary if you read the annual. On the other hand, Psylocke’s scene shows her needlessly confronting Sabretooth, and getting humiliated after some vague comments from him about being internally scattered. Other than that, this is a really great issue with a lot of tension and compelling emotional responses.

B+

X-Men Annual #2

X-Men Annual #2
Writing: Fabian Nicieza and Scott Lobdell
Art: Aron Wiensenfeld and Ian Churchill

What Went Down: On an island fortress, two shadowy figures arise from the water. Despite the cliché 90s battle armor appearance, these two characters are in fact the Crimson Commando and Avalanche, formerly of the Freedom Force. These two are still working for the US government after the rest of the team was captured in the Middle East during a back-up strip in all the 1991 X-Annuals. Anyways, the two run into the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, consisting of Toad, Phantazia, and former Freedom Force members Pyro and the Blob. Both groups are about to fight until they are interrupted by a man in a robe with dragons on it.

At Xavier’s school, Professor X, Beast, Banshee, and Moira are tracking new cases of the Legacy Virus. Beast is still giving Charles crap for not involving him in the initial case with Illyana Rasputin, and everyone is very serious about how serious the Legacy Virus is. In the Danger Room, Revanche is facing off against Jubilee, Gambit, and Rogue. She takes Jubilee out easily, causing the young girl to question when she is going to get better at fighting. Rogue then tackles Revanche, ending the session.

Up in the control booth, Cyclops, Psylocke, and Jean are discussing whether Jean should enter Betsy’s mind to confirm her identity and mental state, even though she absolutely refused to in X-Men #21. Betsy is more willing now because she feels guilty about almost breaking up Scott and Jean, blaming it on different aspects of the two personalities in her surfacing. Inside Psylocke’s head, we see a depiction of Betsy killing her brother Brian when they were children, demonstrating the savage influence of Kwannon’s mind on Betsy Braddock. Jean comes to the conclusion that the two personalities are now fused permanently.

Back on the island, called Empyrean, former friends Pyro and Avalanche are discussing what has happened since they last saw each other. After being captured, Blob and Pyro were forced to work as bodyguards for the commander that defeated them until the Toad got them out. Inside, the rest of the Brotherhood observes the pair. The man in the robe chastises the Blob for an inappropriate outburst and uses his power to keep him in line. Unbeknownst to the group, they are also being observed by Henry Peter Gyrich, who is searching for two missing scientists that allegedly now work for the mystery man named Jonathan Chambers.

In one of those wacky coincidences that only happen in comics, the X-Men’s Blue Team just happens to have also taken an interest in Jonathan Chambers. Chambers is a scientist and author of a book calling for unity between humans and mutants, and the X-Men want to investigate the sincerity of his claims. There are some doubts about Chambers since his father died at thirty-eight, but looking twice his age, and he has been seen with the Brotherhood on his island. One half of the team meets Chambers at his front door, while the other half sneaks in through the basement.

The sneaking squad includes Psylocke and Revanche, who argue the entire time until they discover the Brotherhood. Meanwhile Beast and the rest of his team have a polite discussion with Chambers. There is a big fight between the X-Men and the Brotherhood until Chambers stops both teams with his powers.

Time for some revelations. First Pyro reveals that he is suffering from the Legacy Virus. Then Beast explains that Chambers, or Empyrean, is an “energy vampire” as he absorbs ambient energies around Legacy sufferers like Pyro; however, this process also relieves the pain that the ailing patients feel, and allows him to conduct experiments to possibly find a cure. It also shortens the victims’ lives. As for the scientists, they have joined Empyrean freely. Finally, Revanche reveals that she is infected with the Legacy Virus as well. She encourages Cyclops to leave Empyrean alone since it is up to every infected person to choose his or her own path.

Gyrich shows up because he believes that illegal activities might be occurring, but Cyclops tells him that there is no evidence of anything illegal. Chambers threatens to expose Gyrich to the media if he does not leave. Then the X-Men leave the island peacefully.


What Else Went Down: The Beast starts this back-up strip falling down an elevator shaft that he has been thrown into. After stopping his fall and sabotaging an elevator full of security guards to protect them, Beast goes back up to save his girlfriend Trish Tilby and a scientist named Dr. Cahill. Trish has sprained her ankle and it appears that a giant muscle-bound creature named Malvin is assaulting her and the scientist. The Beast fights Malvin until he explains that Dr. Cahill is responsible for turning him into a monster. During the fight, Trish goes through the Doctor’s files and discovers proof of this.

The Beast, Malvin, and Dr. Cahill are all flung out the window. Beast holds each character in one of his hands before pulling them both up. Trish is surprised until Beast explains that he can bench three thousand pounds. The security guards burst in, automatically assuming that the Beast and Malvin are the villains, but Cahill admits his guilt. The story ends with one of those clichéd narrations about one person being a man in the body of a beast and the other being a beast in the body of a man.

How It Was: Another sixty-four pages of story; man I’m getting worn out from all of these double-sized comics. Once again, this year features another annual written by the regular writer, so actual plot points are addressed and furthered in this issue. We’re still focusing on the Legacy Virus, and at this point it still seems like the book is going somewhere with the plot. Overall it’s a pretty good issue, with the main problem being that the Chambers plotline never appears in these books ever again. There is an interesting conflict about the potential exploitation of mutants by Chambers, as well as tension created by the fact that we never learn if his intentions are sincere or not, and unfortunately we never get a resolution for any of these points. The concept of exploitation by a character of unknown sincerity is revisited soon in X-Men with Threnody and Mr. Sinister, so it is possible that Nicieza just didn’t feel like returning to the same theme.

Another dropped idea is this incarnation of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which I always thought had some potential, minus the horrible straight out of the ‘90s armor revamped costumes. Between the ‘91 annuals and this issue, it at least seemed like the Toad had some kind of agenda going, but this particular team disappears after this issue. At least we get some closure from the previous Freedom Force story.

As for the X-Men, well their arc in this issue makes for more of a mixed bag. Once again we have an annual begin with a Danger Room sequence since the writer needs an unnecessary action sequence to take up a few pages. The fight scenes are all pretty good, if brief; it’s the first time the X-Men have fought a decent super-villain team in a long time. As for the major revelations of Legacy infected, they definitely felt significant at the time. Revanche feels more monumentous because if you’re like me, you’re excited that her storyline is about to end. Pyro’s struggle with the disease gets strung out for a great many years; the poor guy is on death’s door in every future appearance, until he finally dies in 2001. This issue is, once again, a nice opening issue to a story that never resonated. Could have been better if it went anywhere interesting.

The back-up strip is just terrible. Out of ten pages, the story takes five of them to show Beast escaping from an elevator shaft. The depiction of Malvin is ridiculous with so many muscles awkwardly sticking out everywhere. Plus Trish Tilby comes off as a knockoff Lois Lane, and the resolution centers on all of the characters underestimating the central character.

B

X-Men #24

X-Men #24
Writing: Fabian Niceza
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: We open on Rogue and Gambit finally getting around to sharing a date. They are trying to enjoy themselves in spite of all the tragedy surrounding Illyana’s death and Psylocke’s personal problems.

Outside the X-Mansion, Banshee returns after leaving in issue number four to go after Moira MacTaggert. Since Moira had to return for the X-Cutioner’s Song and the Legacy Virus, it seems that he must have given up after a while. The two make up, but not much more comes out of their relationship, since Banshee is going to be busy teaching Generation X in a couple of months.

Xavier and Beast are inside looking at the data from Illyana’s illness. Xavier apologizes for not including Beast in the study sooner, and Beast concludes that even he can’t solve the mystery of the cure to the Legacy Virus.

Jean picks up Cyclops at the airport. She is hesitant at first, but after they embrace, they both promise to face their problems together.

Psylocke and Revanche are in the woods sparring; both women find that they are too evenly matched. Wolverine appears and tells them to get over their hatred of each other.

Kitty Pryde comforts Jubilee as she cries in Illyana’s bed with her doll. Kitty suggests she keep the doll to remember the little girl by.

Back on their date, Gambit tries to get a kiss, but is once again shut down. To compensate, Rogue offers to reveal her real name, but Gambit stops her, saying that names don’t mean anything.

In the mansion, everyone welcomes Cyclops and Banshee. Cyclops reiterates what he learned from Sinister last issue. At the dock, Wolverine comforts Jubilee, the Psylocke twins share another moment of accusing each other of being imposters again, and Cyclops and Jean go to bed after reaffirming that they both need each other.

How It Was: Another quiet, contemplative issue. Niceza shows that he’s no slouch in the emotional department either, while still furthering, or at least paying lip service, to some ongoing storylines. Jubilee is responding to Illyana’s death, the Betsys are still at each other, and Sean and Moira begin their relationship anew after breezing over her breakdown in issue number four. The most important facts are those on the Legacy Virus since this is going to be the focus of the X-books after the upcoming crossovers. That being said, nothing new is really learned as everyone just reiterates what they’ve learned about the virus thus far.

The main purpose of this issue is to finally resolve the Cyclops/Psylocke relationship, show that he is definitely choosing Jean, and explore the Gambit/Rogue relationship some more. This offers some interesting polarities to highlight as one relationship is based on comfort and familiarity, while the other is based on hesitance, danger, and excitement. Rogue’s teasing of her real name is kind of a disappointment for long time fans, but seeing Gambit evolve from pure seduction to a place of comfort and understanding in a natural way is well worth it. Or is Gambit just afraid of revelations since he is hiding things from Rogue and the X-Men? Ooo, so many potential glimpses into the character.

This is a well done issue, but at the same time it doesn’t really stand out all that much. Still, everyone feels true to character as well as down to earth, so it succeeds as a nice prelude to the big bombastic Fatal Attractions crossover next month.

B

X-Men #22

X-Men #22
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: Previously in X-Men: when we last left our heroes they were about to engage in combat with the Silver Samurai. In this issue, they do indeed fight the Silver Samurai…for about five pages before beating him. Also, Beast is better now after being cut across the back with a katana blade charged with energy. During the fight, the Samurai stabs the picture of Kwannon, and afterwards Gambit discovers that the picture is actually hiding Nyorin’s diary.

In Tokyo, Shinobi Shaw meets with Matsuo, Nyorin, and the apparent leader of the Japanese underworld Lord Tatsuo. Tatsuo knocks Shinobi on his bottom for being arrogant and overconfident.

Across the pond in Alaska, Cyclops has just finished telling his grandparents about the death of Madelyne Pryor, and how he was forced to send his son Nathan to the future to save him. The grandparents are appropriately dismayed and confused. Scott is in the middle of telling them about Cable when they are interrupted by the Summers’ neighbor Mike Milbury asking to borrow a chainsaw. Super X-Men fans will note that Milbury is an alias often used by X-villain Mr. Sinister; other x-fans will just note the depiction with the red diamond on Mike’s forehead.

Even though she claims to be the original Betsy Braddock, Revanche is the only one capable of reading the Japanese diary of Nyorin. Rather than read the diary out loud, she decides to stab Psylocke with her psychic sword, allowing her to learn the story in the scroll. This version states that Kwannon was supposed to be on a mission when she discovered Betsy Braddock’s unconscious body. When she touched the body, Kwannon and Betsy’s minds merged for a bit. Kwannon than ran off to Matsuo while Betsy was found by Nyorin and aided so that she could bring back the woman he loves, Kwannon. Revanche is still sticking to the story that Psylocke is an impersonator.

The Gamemaster appears to Shinobi and Matsuo to basically explain that he is letting Matsuo kill Psylocke because he feels like it. The two Psylockes prepare to fight each other again, but Lord Nyorin and Silver Samurai interrupt them. Nyorin claims that both women are who they claim to be. Back in Alaska, Mr. Sinister confronts Cyclops outside in an ominous fashion.

How It Was: What a long story this turned out to be. Everything is basically the same as last issue. The two Betsys are threatening to beat each other up, Gambit and Beast somewhat humorously interject, and Cyclops is sad while with his grandparents. The fight between Silver Samurai and the X-Men is a nice distraction for a couple of pages, but ultimately just serves as a distraction to string out the plot. There is no real tension since he is outnumbered and dispatched fairly quickly.

But the major flaw with this story is Nyorin’s diary. First of all it reveals a brief, boring story with no twists that Nyorin couldn’t possibly know anyway; second, in about ten issues this story gets retconned and the diary is written off as a red herring left by Nyorin to confuse the girls. Add to that some meaningless scenes with Shinobi Shaw and the criminals of Tokyo, and you get one dull issue. At least the introduction of Sinister promises something potentially interesting, which it delivers.

Also, what really bothers me is all the characters getting summarily defeated, then showing up later in the same scene perfectly healthy. This happens to both Silver Samurai and Beast, who should both be out of commission for the rest of the story if Nicieza didn’t just have them waking up when they’re needed. Granted Nicieza had a difficult mandate for this story, but that doesn’t excuse this.

D+

X-Men #21

X-Men #21
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Brandon Peterson

What Went Down: We open on an awesome page spread of Wolverine’s claws pinning Psylocke’s head to the wall. She is asked whether she is really a spy for Lord Nyorin, an accusation that she refuses to acknowledge. Surprisingly, most of the X-Men believe that Revanche might be telling the truth, despite her having no proof other than her body. Psylocke doesn’t help her case by refusing to be scanned telepathically, although she claims that is because she is tired of being violated after her experiences with Mojo and Slayback; this is also meant to explain her more aggressive attitude in the X-books. Wolverine tells Xavier that neither of the Betsys is lying or telling the whole truth; since Revanche knows Ninja moves that only Psylocke/Kwannon should know, there is reason to doubt her story as well. Xavier decides that the team needs to go to Japan.

Up north in Alaska, Cyclops’ plane arrives at the airport, and his grandparents Phillip and Deborah Summers arrive to pick him up. After arriving at the cabin, Scott announces that he is going to tell his grandparents the truth about the deaths of his wife and child.

Slightly less north, in Seattle, Mesmero is being chased by the Dark Riders. Mesmero is able to hypnotize one of the riders, Psynapse, but he is killed by another member (actually years later he turns up alive, claiming that he hypnotized the Dark Riders to make them think he was dead). The remaining Dark Riders kill Psynapse, believing he is unfit because he is sick. Actually, he is supposed to be another mutant infected with the Legacy Virus.

Jumping around the globe again, this time to Tokyo, Lord Nyorin visits a drunken Shinobi Shaw. Shaw makes a deal that he will petition to reinstate Clan Yashida (the clan formerly run by Wolverine’s deceased girlfriend Mariko) if he receives help killing the X-Men.

Outside the Nyorin Estate, Gambit, Beast, and the two Betsys are sneaking in—Wolverine decided not to go because the memory of Mariko Yashida’s death is too fresh, so he goes off to the Savage Land with Rogue and Jubilee in Wolverine #70-71. The group in Japan is attacked by ninjas, which they easily defeat. Afterwards they discover a painting depicting Psylocke with two swords called “Kwannon in Repose.” Back at Shaw’s Tokyo estate, Shaw learns that Matsuo Tsuryaba has petitioned the Gamemaster to have Psylocke spared. Shaw is angry but agrees there is nothing he can do.

Back at Nyorin’s, Psylocke is getting ready to attack Revanche again when the Silver Samurai sneaks up on the Beast and slashes him in the back. He reveals that he must kill the X-Men for the sake of Clan Yashida.

How It Was: More Betsy Braddock battling. Alliteration aside, this story is amounting to be less than spectacular. Psylocke is really angry, understandably, because none of her friends are taking her side. At the same time, the rest of the X-Men have nothing better to do except for question who is telling the truth and yelling at the two to stop fighting. Even Gambit and Beast seem fed up with this storyline, focused more on getting the job done than uncovering the truth.

The other subplots don’t fair well either. The Cyclops thread is completely standard as all he does is go on to do what he said he was going to last issue. The Dark Riders subplot is actually really interesting, revolving around the Riders testing characters to see if they are worthy and killing the ones who are not. Unfortunately this entire subplot gets dropped after the next four issues and is never brought up again, so the “death” of Mesmero really happens for no reason. Matsuo’s machinations really make no sense in this initial version of the origin of Psylocke/Revanche; the later version clears up this inconsistency, but it is hard to rectify it at this point.

Peterson is filling in on art and it looks decent for the most part. The ninja fighting scenes, as well as the Mesmero chase scene, are all very nicely organized and depicted. However, his Revanche doesn’t look as good as Andy Kubert’s, and once again some of his characters look stiff and robot-like, particularly the panels with the drunken Shinobi Shaw. And there is definitely a problem when Shinobi Shaw is trying to kill Matsuo, and it is impossible to tell one character from the other.

This story continues to chug along at an all right pace. Because most of this story is retconned later, and it was never really that exciting to begin with, it’s hard to recommend this book to anybody other than X-completists.

D+

X-Men #20

X-Men #20
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: Professor X is in his war room watching a reenactment of the events of the last three issues. Jubilee is with him, and he asks how she feels about the deaths of Colossus’ parents. She gives a cynical response and flees to check on Illyana before Xavier can follow up. Xavier checks in with Colossus; at this point everybody thinks Illyana might have strep throat, but really she has been infected with the Legacy Virus. Jubilee once again leaves before her feelings can overwhelm her and bumps into Psylocke who is dressed seductively and looking for Cyclops.

As it happens, Cyclops is down in the garage working on the Blackbird. Psylocke surprises him, and he clumsily slips and stumbles into her, knocking them both to the ground. As he stammers an apology, Psylocke licks some motor oil off of Scott and then kisses him. Cyclops pushes her away just in time to avoid being seen by his girlfriend Jean Grey. Scott leaves in a hurry, making Jean even more suspicious of Betsy.

Outside, Jubilee finds Wolverine chopping up trees; he is thinking about all the losses that the X-Men have suffered in the past couple of months. His meditation is interrupted by a strange scent, but he brushes it off as just being Psylocke.

Jean watches Beast and Gambit in the Danger Room and wonders if Beast feels that he has outgrown being an X-Man. Jean then checks on Rogue, who is having her vision tested by Storm; Rogue is now able to see again, but she is sensitive to light.

Cyclops packs a suitcase and decides to visit his grandparents in Alaska to tell them about his former wife Madelyne and his son Nathan, both of whom are dead. Storm cautions Cyclops not to run away from his relationship problems like she did with Forge. Jean watches him leave, then asks the computer to detect Psylocke; the computer has two locations, but Jean ignores the second.

In the Danger Room, Jean asks Psylocke whether she is having an affair with Cyclops. Psylocke answers by stabbing Jean with her psychic knife. According to the narration, this act showed Jean the reason Betsy was behaving this way, and then made her forget it; as ridiculous as this sounds, this point does come back up in later issues.

The former body of Betsy Braddock, Revanche, confronts Psylocke; Psylocke thinks it is a Danger Room program at first, until it calls her Kwannon and attacks her. The rest of the X-Men burst in, and Revanche accuses Psylocke of being an imposter.

How It Was: Well finally we are getting to the bottom of a couple of these mysteries, and finally subplots that have been going on for far too long are being resolved. Rogue gets her sight back, which is welcome indeed, and the Psylocke trying to sleep with Cyclops thread is finally getting put to an end. Unfortunately, we are also getting to the period of X-continuity with Revanche in it, and there are a lot of reasons to be unhappy with that.

During Claremont’s run, Psylocke’s originally British body was switched with a Japanese one after she went through the Siege Perilous, an annoying plot device that randomly manipulates characters for the sake of new story directions; this isn’t the last time the Siege Perilous screws with Psylocke either, but that is another story. Anyways, this is the story that explains what happened to Psylocke, except that in about nine or so issues it gets revised and completely changed around. Psylocke herself is really not interesting from a character standpoint; from the perspective of the artist, she is a lot more interesting. Not only does she not have a fully developed personality like the other members of the group, her powers are redundant on a team that already has two really powerful telepaths. So for nine issues we get stuck with two Psylockes on the X-Men, but the second one, Revanche, doesn’t really have a lot of personality to her, either.

There are, however, quite a few nice character moments. Professor X and Jubilee build on their father/daughter relationship set up in Uncanny #297 as she tries to act mature and hide from her feelings. Jean also has some great moments of confusion and frustration as she finally confronts Psylocke. The stuff with Beast and Cyclops is slightly less compelling. It is also unfortunate that the deaths of Colossus’ parents have been glossed over.

Art is good; the opening flashback to the previous story arc is nice and somber, while the details on the computers are very intricate. Also Revanche’s armor looks really nice and the scenes in the Danger Room with ninjas and robots have a nice sense of motion and action to them. Still, there are those phantom dust clouds as Jubilee roller blades on the metal floor, as well as when Revanche confronts Psylocke in the Danger Room. Either the X-Men need to hire a housekeeper or 1990s Kubert needs to observe what actually happens when people walk in a room. This is a necessary issue, but I can’t really enjoy it knowing that it is the start of one of my least favorite stories.

C+