X-Men Unlimited #11

X-Men Unlimited #11

Writing: Scott Lobdell and Terry Kavagh

Art: Steve Epting and Mark Millar??

This takes place after X-Men #53.  Go back to Uncanny #334.

What Went Down:  Melody Watkins (Rogue’s landlady from X-Men #52) is at the local Humanity’s Last Stand headquarters to report Rogue as a potential threat to her son.  Unbeknownst to her, Rogue is enjoying her life as a Hollywood Café waitress, free of the frustrations of superheroing.  On her drive home from work, she notices a construction crew that has been working for four nights and hasn’t gotten a lot of work done. 

Once home, Melody confronts Rogue to confess that she turned Rogue into Humanity’s Last Stand, saying she was worried about her son and the Legacy Virus.  This leads to an attack by soldiers in power armor who try to capture Rogue.  Rogue beats them all, but she stops when she sees Bastion holding Melody’s son Stevie as a hostage.  Rogue takes a laser blast to save Melody.

At Humanity’s Last Stand’s compound, a shadowy figure named Mr. Trask tells Bastion that Rogue can’t stay.  Bastion explains his plot to Rogue: he is going to burn down the compound, murder her and all the occupants, then blame the deaths of all the humans on Rogue.  This will then stir up anti-mutant hysteria.

Before the soldiers can carry out Bastion’s plan, one of them starts using super powers to defeat the others and free Rogue.  Bastion runs off while Joseph introduces himself to Rogue.  He explains that after the page in X-Men #53, he joined Humanity’s Last Stand to go undercover and hopefully run into the X-Men.  Rogue, thinking this is regular Magneto, attacks Joseph.  Joseph manages to convince Rogue of his sincerity, and the two team up to save all the compound dwellers from being murdered by soldiers.  Rogue and Joseph defeat the soldiers, but the civilians train weapons on them, telling them to leave.  Joseph demonstrates that he could kill the people if he wanted to before lecturing them on prejudice and flying off. 

After flying for a while, Joseph asks Rogue about his past as Magneto.  Rogue tells him she’d rather wait until they’re around the other X-Men, and Joseph explains how Sister Maria told him about the X-Men.  Their conversation is interrupted by an attack helicopter with Trask on board.  Joseph uses his powers to catch two missiles, but instead of killing the humans, he just detonates the missiles and uses the explosion to cover their retreat.  Rogue and Joseph return to her apartment to get her car.  Melody apologizes, and Rogue and Stevie say goodbye. 

How It Was:  Some stories like to surprise you with plot turns and revelations that make a reader stand up and take notice.  While there is one pretty big surprise in the plot, this story still reads like a predictable, by the numbers story; you pretty much know how it’s going to end five pages in.  And that’s not necessarily a bad thing—having one of the X-Men become fed up with the lifestyle after the previous months of hardship is a legitimately interesting direction to go.  Like most of these Unlimited stories, it’s just unfortunate that Rogue’s taste of everyday living is all but forgotten as soon as she returns to the X-books.  Lobdell sets up and explores a simple, if tragic, idea that the X-Man who can’t touch would crave a normal life more than others by way of the fact that she can never really have one. 

What really works in this story is that Rogue actually succeeds at her normal life, and it’s prejudice and persecution, i.e. other people’s issues with her, that destroy what she’s built.  Lobdell wisely avoids bringing up Gambit too much, choosing instead to deal with Rogue’s personality—she is outgoing and desires to be around people, but she can never get too close.  He also tries to make Rogue’s landlady Melody come off as sympathetic, constantly bringing up her concerns for her son, but really she just comes off as stupid and unlikable; she’s going to report her friend to this group, and they’re going to “take care of her” somehow—frankly I’m glad when her house gets destroyed.

While Humanity’s Last Stand is the same generic bigoted human group the X-Men always come across (this one situated as a survivalist militia), I must admit that I do love the designs for their power armor.  And the fight with Rogue is well done.  The one twist of the story (ruined by the cover) is that Joseph has actually joined the racist organization that persecutes mutants.  His idea to infiltrate the group to learn about the X-Men seems farfetched, but if you can ignore the huge coincidence, it’s an efficient enough means of getting them to meet. 

What really feels odd is that once Rogue and Joseph fight each other, stop the soldiers from killing everyone, and have the civilians turn on them; it feels like the story is over.  Unfortunately, due to the format of the book, the story has to keep going, so we see Rogue refuse to tell Joseph anything and an anticlimactic show down between the Master of Magnetism and a metal helicopter.  The end does have a nice moment with Melody’s son and Rogue, but it feels like it would’ve meant more right after they were turned away by the humans they helped saved.  This issue works for Rogue fans, and it goes through all the beats Joseph needed to after his previous appearance to line him up to join the X-Men. 

X-Fans Only

X-Men Unlimited #4

X-Men Unlimited #4

Writing: Scott Lobdell

Art: Richard Bennett

What Went Down:  Mystique kills a US General for working with the Friends of Humanity.  In a mansion in France, Graydon Creed has been living with some random woman.  The couple is interrupted by a private investigator Graydon has hired; the investigator confirms that Sabretooth and Mystique are his parents and offers to reveal the identity of his brother for more money.  Enraged, Creed beats the man, offering to spare him if he reveals the information.  After the man whispers it to Creed, Creed kills the man.  When his sugar momma demands Creed leave, Creed threatens her and mentions he has issues with being kicked out and abandoned.

At Dulles Airport, a disguised Nightcrawler scares an abusive father into being nicer to his son.  Rogue shows up and chastises him, as both mutants wonder why Forge has summoned them.  They go to Arlington Cemetery for the funeral of the murdered general.  Both notice Graydon Creed in attendance right before the priest insults the dead man and kicks over the casket.  The corpse has a bomb attached to it, and the priest is revealed to be Mystique.  Rogue gets rid of the bomb while Nightcrawler pulls Mystique from the soldiers firing on her.  Mystique punches Kurt, mentions some vague hints about his birth, and escapes.  As the guards close in on Nightcrawler, Rogue flies him off. 

Forge questions Graydon Creed about Mystique’s appearance.  After he leaves, Rogue and Kurt come out and discuss Mystique.  Forge reveals that during Mystique’s treatment, she went through his files.  Forge then tells the two X-Men that they may have a chance of reaching the good part of Mystique, although he refuses to tell Nightcrawler why.

Rogue and Nightcrawler fly to Mystique’s house in Caldecott, Mississippi.  Rogue recalls her first meeting with Mystique, before she took Rogue in and raised her.  The two split up, and Nightcrawler flashes back to a memory flirting with his foster sister Amanda Sefton. 

Creed confronts Nightcrawler and reveals they are brothers as he attacks Kurt, and that Mystique is their mother.  Graydon explains that Mystique was posing as a German Count’s wife, but was discovered when Kurt was born a mutant.  While a mob chased her, Mystique lost the baby and it was thrown over a waterfall. 

As the two brothers fight, Rogue remembers the triggering of her powers with a boy she liked named Cody.  When Cody appears in the present to comfort and taunt her, Rogue realizes it is Mystique in disguise.  Rogue wants to know if she ever knew the real Mystique.  While the two women argue, Graydon shows up with the unconscious Nightcrawler.  Mystique explains he abandoned Graydon when he turned twelve and didn’t develop mutant powers, and that he killed Kurt as an act of self-preservation.  Mystique actually turned into a villager and was the one who threw baby Nightcrawler in the waterfall. 

In the present, Mystique shoots at Graydon, who teleports.  This Graydon was Nightcrawler using an image inducer, with the real Graydon dressed in Kurt’s costume.  Creed summons an attack helicopter to kill Nightcrawler, Rogue, and Mystique.  Rogue attacks the gunship, but is forced to stop in order to save Kurt and Raven.  Mystique lets go of the cliff on purpose so Rogue will rescue Nightcrawler.  As Nightcrawler wonders why Mystique did what she did, Rogue flies him off into the sunset.

How It Was:  Continuing the trend of focusing more on villains than heroes in the last two issues, here we get the spotlight placed on Mystique.  The problem is that the Mystique in this issue is very inconsistent, going from tragic and misunderstood to completely psychotic and unremorseful in the span of mere panels.  Lobdell picks up on some vague hints Chris Claremont had put in about Mystique and Nightcrawler looking similar back in the eighties.  The revelation that the two characters were mother and son didn’t do a lot for either character.

As with every issue of Unlimited, the story is quite padded out.  The opening murder scene is seven pages just to establish Mystique killing a random general for working with the Friends of Humanity.  Many of the flashbacks also seem unnecessary; it’s good to include the scene of Rogue first meeting Mystique (Question: Why does little girl Rogue have a shotgun?), but the scene of Rogue’s powers first triggering is an unnecessary retread.  Also Nightcrawler’s flashback to the circus doesn’t do anything but establish his pattern of hitting on foster sisters (he hits on Rogue earlier in the book). 

But I’m nitpicking.  One aspect that works really well in this book is the idea that Rogue doesn’t know how to rectify the mother of her childhood to the Mystique of present day.  That’s a great angle since Rogue obviously has love for her, but doesn’t know if she was being manipulated or if Mystique really cares about her.  Nightcrawler doesn’t fair as well; he gets beat up a lot this issue, and while Mystique does sacrifice herself at the end for him, there’s every indication that she doesn’t really care about him.  Speaking of which, the end is completely absurd where Nightcrawler can’t teleport to safety and Rogue, who can lift cars and take out helicopters, can’t carry Nightcrawler and Mystique at the same time.

So the plotting is pretty scattered and drawn out, and things happen for no clear reason (why wouldn’t Forge tell Nightcrawler his relation to Mystique right there?), and Mystique and Creed both come off as homicidal maniacs as opposed to villains with believable motives.  While the main attraction is supposed to be the revelation of Nightcrawler’s mom, the real highlights involve Rogue trying to come to terms with her own feelings towards Mystique. 

Completists Only

X-Men Unlimited #3

X-Men Unlimited #3

Writing: Fabian Nicieza

Art: Mike McKone

This issue takes place between Uncanny #308 and X-Men #28

What Went Down:  Maverick breaks into a church to discover the grisly murder of a priest.  He is tracking Sabretooth, and discovers the mutant holding another dead priest.  Sabretooth is on a killing spree because his assistant Birdy, a telepath, died and is no longer around to give him the “glow” which calms him down.  The two fight, and Sabretooth manages to stab Maverick with his claws before fleeing.  Maverick decides he needs Wolverine’s help.  In Germany, we see an old man named Mr. Geinstach attempting to hire a mercenary named Bashur to kill Sabretooth because of his killing spree.  It turns out all the victims were members of a government operation, even the priest.  Bashur refuses the job since the potential for failure is so high, but recommends Maverick and Wolverine.  He also deduces that Sabretooth’s next target will be in Japan due to the conspiracy.

In Westchester, Gambit is freaking out as Rogue drives like a maniac on the road; Maverick is tracking them.  When the X-Men return to the mansion, Bishop greets them with his guns drawn.  He was worried because they entered without activating the perimeter override, but apparently it can just read biosignatures, so it doesn’t matter.  While all the X-Men argue, Maverick attacks them with anesthetic gas and tranquilizer darts.  After taking down the three X-Men, Beast and Professor X show up and calmly ask Maverick what he’s doing.  He’s here to recruit Wolverine, and decided it was somehow easier to attack the X-Men first.  Beast explains that Wolverine left the team after losing his adamantium, but offers the X-Men’s help.

Sabretooth meets with the merc Bashur, asking where he can find a telepath.  Bashur tells him that there is one on the Yahsida estate, and that Maverick is already on his way.  On the Blackbird, Bashur contacts Maverick and tells him what he told Sabretooth.  Maverick and the X-Men debate whether they should kill Sabretooth, and the team decides to split up.  Rogue, Gambit, and Bishop go to Germany to protect Geintach, while Beast and Maverick go to Japan.

In Germany the X-Men find everyone dead, and Sabretooth ambushes them.  Rogue accidentally absorbs Creed’s memories, and Bishop is forced to let Creed go for Rogue’s life.  In Japan, the remaining two protagonists meet with the Silver Samurai and agree to help him fight Sabretooth, despite having been adversaries as recently as X-Men #22. 

Sabretooth fights through the ninja guards and discovers that the telepath in question is an old man whose mind shut down after the bombing at Nagasaki.  The man wakes up long enough to link everyone’s minds.  Creed thinks back to his Team X days when he was assigned to kill a man and his family.  Creed had to chase the young boy, who only wanted to say goodbye to his pet rabbit. Sabretooth has been killing everyone connected to this operation.  When Beast wakes up, the old man has been killed by Sabretooth, with messages of help written in blood on the walls. 

Sabretooth decides to go to the X-Mansion.  Professor X calmly greets him and holds him off with his mental powers. The X-Men show up and Bishop shoots Creed in the head.  Using this opportunity, Xavier enters Creed’s mind to view a memory of a young Creed locked in a basement and forced to kill a rabbit to survive.  Having learned harshly that killing is the only way to survive, Xavier feels sympathy for Sabretooth and offers to help him.   He tells the X-Men that Sabretooth will be staying.  We end on Creed and Xavier standing in the Danger Room simulating the outdoors.  Xavier explains that he is a prisoner, and that Charles is man enough to stop him.

How It Was:  This is a slight improvement over last issue and does significantly impact the main titles for years to come.  Also it works a lot better because the focus of the story, Sabretooth, has a lot more to do and say this time, as opposed to dozens of people just talking about him.  Sabretooth actually feels dangerous here as he’s finally allowed to kill people, and while the bunny rabbit thing is corny, I like what it says about the character.  The idea that he was conditioned as a young child to think that killing is a means to survival, that attachment is a weakness, well that’s as good a take on what motivates Sabretooth as any.  It’s better than, “I just like killing people because I’m evil.”

The X-Men don’t come out too well this issue.  They get taken down once by Maverick and again by Sabretooth in a matter of a few panels.  What’s worse is how repetitive the action is.  Sabretooth holds a character by the neck and threatens to kill them no less than three times this issue.  Although I will admit that the repetition does pay off in the climax when Bishop once again has Sabretooth at gunpoint and just shoots him in the head.  Maverick doesn’t get a lot to do once he shows up to explain the plot to the X-Men, and the Silver Samurai is similarly wasted.  Sure we get to see him eventually in his armor carrying his cool glowing sword, but he doesn’t ever actually use it.  His only role is to be the caretaker of the plot device old man.

You know who does come out great in this issue?  Xavier.  Man he’s tough, not even blinking when confronted by Maverick or Sabretooth.  The surety of his position is fantastic as he makes his decisions without giving a crap about his students’ positions because he knows that morally he’s right.  Who are they to judge Sabretooth when he hasn’t had any of the benefits that the other X-Men have had?

Mike McKone’s art is disappointing.  When characters are standing around and talking, they look fantastic, but any time they fight on the same panel it looks awkward and stiff.  Thus the emotional stuff works a great deal better, and the action is dialed back quite a bit.  There’s one bizarre sequence where the X-Men are between Sabretooth and the telepath, so he dives through a door or window and ends up next to the telepath.  Also Gambit’s eyes should be red in the opening, but that’s not McKone’s fault.

Ultimately this is a much more satisfying villain-centric story.  It’s still padded out quite a bit (the killing debate could be a little shorter), but there’s enough here to make you think the writers have bright plans for the future of Sabretooth and the X-Men.  Xavier gets some awesome moments, and although Sabretooth’s flashbacks are a little sappy, they work as a way of taking him beyond the two dimensional maniac he’s always been, especially now that Wolverine isn’t around anymore.

For X-Fans

Gambit #4 (vol 1)

Once you're done, feel free to go back to Uncanny X-Men Annual #17 if you're reading these in chronological order.
 
Gambit #4

Writing: Howard Mackie

Art: Lee Weeks

What Went Down:  Gambit returns to New Orleans to the aptly named Church of Lost Thieves.  He finds Julien there, and steals the final elixir component from the villain.  Gambit explains that he intercepted Julien’s agent trying to steal the other elixirs, and then unmasks Julien, revealing a haggard and drained man.  Gambit takes Julien to his father to confront him about the elixir.  It turns out that in some people the Elixir of Life has horrible addictive side effects that cause pain unless the person regularly ingests it.  Jean-Luc explains that he’s seen it before, but it’s rare and a small risk for a long life. 

Just then the Tithe Collector bursts in with an army of Thieves and Assassins.  After saving his father from a hail of gunfire, Gambit blows up a statue and takes off.  Elsewhere, Bella Donna is convulsing, but Rogue isn’t responding to Tante Mattie’s pleas for help. 

Gambit fights off more soldiers, lamenting that some of them are his old friends.  Gambit makes it back to his house, but the Tithe Collector is already there with Belle and Rogue held hostage.  As the bad guy goes to kill the women, Gambit leaps forward and charges the Collector’s jacket.  After kicking the Collector out a window, Gambit gets to mixing the elixir.  Rogue tries to tell him what she’s done, but Gambit is too focused on making sure the elixir turns out right. 

Julien bursts in, stabbing Gambit in the hand and shattering the vial of Elixir.  Marius kills Julien by filling him full of arrows and thanks Gambit for trying to save his daughter.  Candra shows up to see the execution of Gambit, but Gambit gives a speech about how she has been using and manipulating the guilds for her own selfish means.  Both guilds refuse to kill Remy, with Marius blaming Candra for the deaths of both his children.  Candra disappears, and Jean-Luc tells Remy that he will always be seen as the death of the old ways and exiles him from the city and the guild. 

Gambit tears off a sheet with some of the elixir soaked in it and drips it into Belle’s mouth.  Belle wakes up, but has none of her memories.  Gambit leaves her to her father and tries to console himself by taking Rogue out.  However Rogue knows he still loves her, and disturbed by the memories she’s absorbed, flies off. 

How It Was:  Julien gets turned from an unstoppable force to a weakling for plot expediency, and that’s just the first three pages of this book.  And I feel like I keep saying the same things, but that’s because they’re true.  The art is great, especially the fights.  Seeing Remy fight the combined guilds is pretty exciting, even if all the thieves look like homeless people and all the assassins look like every other Image Comics villain.  The writing refers to all the blood spilled, so it’s vague if Remy actually kills them or not. 

The real problem with the story is that Gambit defeats Candra basically by explaining how awful and stupid her plot is to everyone else in the book and then the guilds realize how stupid it is.  She gives a life elixir by tricking you into killing each other.  And with the Tithe Man killed, this plot is settled forever; I can’t understand why Jean-Luc is unhappy for Gambit setting them free.  It just reads weird that he would exile Gambit just for pointing out how futile their whole existence has been. 

I do like that Belle wakes up with no memories, leaving the reader to wonder if it was Rogue or the elixir that did this to her.  But overall this series has been a series of unmemorable new characters peppered with some nice action scenes.  All the villains are weak, and at no time do we think any of them are going to beat Gambit.  There is some tension with the fate of Bella Donna, but if you didn’t read the Brood crossover, then all you know about her is she’s some unconscious girl waiting for Gambit to rescue her.  It’s a commendable attempt to create a mythology around Gambit and his origins as a thief, but in some respects it just would’ve been easier to say he was a thief who eventually turned good and leave it at that.  Worth a look for the art though.

Completists Only

Gambit #3 (vol 1)

Gambit #3

Writing: Howard Mackie

Art: Lee Weeks

What Went Down:  Gambit enters an exclusive Paris club without paying mind to the dress code.  After making a scene with a woman, the security guards escort him to a parking garage.  When the guards, who are working for Candra, go to kill him, Gambit subdues them all.  After changing into his uniform, Gambit is knocked out by the Tithe Collector.

Back in New Orleans, Rogue and Gambit’s Tante Mattie, a voodoo practitioner and healer, are watching over Bella Donna.  When Mattie leaves, Rogue debates using her powers to absorb Belle’s memories of Gambit.  In Paris, Gambit wakes up in a nicely furnished room.  He fights the Tithe Collector again and blows a hole in the room.  Candra breaks up the fight, announcing that she has need of Gambit and revealing their romantic past together.  Over in the Big Easy, Rogue stops herself from touching Belle, but Belle’s hand reaches out to grab the mutant anyway.  This forces Rogue to relive the entire Gambit/Belle romance.

Candra reveals her elixir and offers to give it to Gambit if he will kill his father.  She explains that she created the guilds centuries ago to keep each other in check and do her bidding.  Now she wants to create a new organization.  The Assassins and Julien burst into the room to steal the elixir for themselves.  Julien is powerful enough now to take Candra, one of the Externals, but Gambit distracts him.  In the middle of the fight, Jean-Luc Lebeau takes one of Julien’s claw swipes to save his son.  Enraged, Gambit subdues everyone while Candra knocks Julien out the window with a psionic bolt.  Gambit kisses Candra good-bye, but uses the opportunity to steal the elixir from her cleavage.  We end on Candra telling the Tithe Collector to order both guilds to hunt down Gambit, Rogue, and Belle.

How It Was:  Now this is more like it.  Gambit with a leather jacket, torn jeans, and a cigarette, tearing into a high society club, flirting with ladies and beating the crap out of jerks.  This is the stuff I want to see, even if it slumps a little once we get to…sigh, Candra. 

So the entire plot still centers on this elixir, the plot device that the guilds exist to compete for.  We learn that Candra created them for some vague purposes—something about reaping benefits.  But it’s hard to see what she needs them for because we don’t really know anything about Candra, other than she sleeps with Gideon and had a fling with Gambit.  I have no idea why a super powerful mutant would need an army of thieves and assassins, and how giving them powers to rival her own or having them kill each other is remotely a good idea.  It’s story logic that makes no sense whatsoever.  And the problem is, all these issues are what drive the primary sources of Gambit’s origin.

The tension and mystique of the Tithe Man have been completely shattered now that he has been beaten twice.  And there is this plot convenience of Julien being able to almost kill these uber-powerful beings, but Gambit can smack him in the head and hold his ground against him.  Gambit might be a little too powerful in this series, which harms the story when we don’t think there’s any chance Gambit could fail. 

Well we’ve got Gambit back in character, but now Rogue is acting out of sorts.  I don’t know why Rogue would want to absorb Belle’s memories since they could only hurt her emotionally.

Still, it’s Lee Weeks’ art that continues to carry this book.  His layouts here are especially memorable.  There’s a nice sequence where Gambit drops a card at the top of the page and it lands by a panel of Belle grabbing Rogue.  Or the composition of Belle’s memory montage which looks great.  Even the explosion panel where Julien and his men enter the hotel is fantastic. 

So we’ve got some great scenes for Gambit mixed with some dreadful Candra gibberish.  While I feel this issue does some harm to Gambit’s back story, the stuff in the present is rather fun.  I just wish Gambit had something better to do than assemble a magic elixir from some fantasy novel that somehow got stuck here.

X-Fans Only

Gambit #2 (vol 1)

Gambit #2

Writing: Howard Mackie

Art: Lee Weeks

What Went Down:  Down in New Orleans, Gambit breaks into an Assassin’s Guild base and finds his wife Bella Donna unconscious, but alive.  He then attacks the assassins as they try to sneak up on him.  During the fight, Belle’s father Marius shows up, blaming Gambit for the loss of both his children.  They duel with swords, and Gambit spares Marius’ life after defeating him.  As the rest of the assassins move in to kill Remy, Rogue shows up to help him out.  They beat all the assassins and plan to take Belle with them.  Marius tells Gambit to use the Thieves’ Guild’s Elixir of Life to cure Belle. 

After the two X-Men leave, Julien shows up and kills the remaining assassins.  He confronts his father, blaming Marius for letting Gambit take his sister.  Marius denounces his son, and Julien attacks the old man, leaving his fate unresolved. 

Gambit takes Belle and Rogue to the Thieves’ headquarters and interrupts the tithing ceremony.  The Tithe Man disappears, saying he will return when they are not busy.  Gambit implores his father to use the elixir on Belle, and fights off one of the angrier thieves named Pierre.  Gambit and Rogue leave after Jean-Luc refuses to use the elixir on an outsider, and after they leave Pierre tells Jean-Luc that they need three vials for the elixir to be complete. 

Julien, Pierre, and an army of assassins attack the Tithe Man, trying to get the vials for the elixir.  Julien tells Pierre that he has to steal the vial that the thieves have to complete their deal.  In a house that Gambit owns, he thanks Rogue for staying with Bella Donna while he goes to Paris to retrieve part of the elixir.  Gambit mentions that the house is for when he settles down, knowing that he probably never will.  Gambit visits Marius for information to save Belle, while Gideon apologizes to Candra for having to leave.

How It Was: The opening with the super-melodramatic panel of Gambit screaming his wife’s name is not a good sign for the series.  Side note: why is Bella Donna naked…shouldn’t the Assassins caring for her put clothes on her since she is a patient.  Again, the fighting is very cool, but Gambit is challenged to his second duel by an assassin in a matter of pages.  So this is getting a bit repetitive, and the fight doesn’t actually progress the story.  In fact, the fight just stops and Gambit calmly takes Belle away. Marius as a character is pretty generic.  He does get a bit of an arc this series, but he doesn’t do anything particularly defining or memorable.  Also we get the first inference that Julien wants to be a little closer with his sister than is normal, which is a might bit over the top and uncomfortable, at least for this reader. 

The problem is I miss the fun, wise cracking Gambit.  There is yet another melodramatic ham fest when Gambit announces to his father “We will have words!” And Jean-Luc doesn’t turn out to be any more memorable than Marius, other than that Remy’s dad is calm and Belle’s dad is angry; Mr. Lebeau hardly even reacts upon learning that his real son Henri is dead.  None of these new characters, from the fathers to the Tithe Man, are really that interesting or compelling.  There’s also a serious problem with Candra’s scheme if her plot is to reward the guilds with enough power that they can eventually beat up her and Tithe Man and steal more power for themselves.  On top of that, Gideon gets one panel to reveal he’s not actually in this story, so what was the point in having him in the first two issues at all?

There are some nice bits toward the end as Gambit tells some of his origin to Rogue.  And learning that he has a piece of land set aside is a nice little character point for Gambit.  Although it is rather sexist that Rogue is being sidelined as a nurse; I like to think it’s more to do with being Gambit’s series than her being a girl, but we all know it’s a little bit of both. 

Hmm…what else?  The scenes of Julien carving up the assassins are well sequenced and have the right mood I guess.  Sorry, not much is coming to me.  None of these characters being introduced are that interesting and Rogue doesn’t have anything to do except ask Gambit questions that let him give exposition about his history; she helps fight, but it doesn’t feel needed or necessary.  Plus the fact that Gambit has to retrieve three elixirs is frustrating; it’s like a generic video game fetch quest delivered to our hero.  It’s just not very original.

Completists Only

Gambit #1 (vol 1)

The first Gambit mini-series takes place (by my estimate) between X-Men #23 and Uncanny X-Men Annual #17, since Wolverine hasn't left the team after Fatal Attractions yet.
 
Gambit #1

Writing: Howard Mackie

Art: Lee Weeks

What Went Down:  An enigmatic figure known as the Tithe Collector scares some hoods away from a woman they are robbing.  As the thieves run away, they are killed by the monster from Ghost Rider #26.  In Salem, Storm and Wolverine observe Gambit flirting with Rogue in the Danger Room.  Outside the mansion, a man in black slips through the security.

Rogue saves Gambit from an explosion, and Gambit suddenly announces that they have an intruder (somehow?).  The intruder is Gambit’s adopted brother Henri, and he has come to recruit Gambit for the tithing.  Henri is shot with an arrow and dies, but not before revealing that Bella Donna and her brother Julien are still alive.  Gambit pursues the men who shot his brother by himself.  In New Orleans, Remy’s adopted father Jean-Luc Lebeau requests permission to give his son an elixir.  In Paris we see the Externals Gideon and Candra talking cryptically about exciting plans.

Gambit pursues his brother’s killers, members of the Assassins Guild, to an abandoned warehouse and fights them.  At the same time, Rogue reveals to Wolverine that she loves Gambit, and Logan suggests that Rogue not wait to tell him.  Gambit then encounters the killer from the X-Men/Ghost Rider crossover, who turns out to be Julien, his ex-brother-in-law that he accidentally killed years ago.  The two sword fight, and Julien impales himself on Gambit’s sword.  Not dying, Julien and the assassins teleport through a portal.  Gambit returns to the mansion, tells the X-Men that he has to follow up on this alone, and Rogue announces that she is going with him. 

How It Was:  So it’s the 90’s and anti-heroes are super in.  Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor are getting demolished in the sales charts by the likes of Ghost Rider, Punisher, and Wolverine.  Due to the success of the new X-Men title as well as the Saturday morning cartoon show, Gambit was quite the popular character.  A mini-series seemed like a sure bet (and it was), but of course the problem is taking Gambit from member of the team (one piece in a greater story) and making him the focus—giving him supporting characters and motivations outside of the X-Men. 

To Howard Mackie’s credit, he does start out with some serious stakes.  We’re introduced to Gambit’s brother, who is almost instantly killed.  A little cheap?  Maybe, but it is enough so you buy that Gambit is willing to up and leave the X-Men for a little bit; this part would be more effective if Gambit’s brother was mentioned at all during the rest of the series.  Gambit doesn’t even do anything with his brother’s body…he just leaves. 

The fight with the Assassins members is laid out rather nicely.  Weeks changes it up enough when depicting Gambit’s powers that it never gets old to see him pitching cards.  In fact Lee Weeks does a nice job with all the characters and poses.  The only weak spot is the Danger Room sequence—it’s a room that can literally create anything, so I don’t know why so many artists decide to fill it with empty white space.  We see some arms, pistons, and rockets coming at Gambit and Rogue, but most of it is off panel and just barely in view.  There are some robots, but they’re drawn too close up to get any sense of how they are attacking or what they might do as a threat.  I get that the scene is supposed to be easy for Gambit and Rogue so they can banter, but it would be more impressive if we could see the full threat in a couple of panels, not just have it creeping in off panel. 

And of course the real problem is the plot points that Mackie is stuck with.  We’re exploring the two guilds, which makes one think of ancient orders dedicated to a craft.  Mackie knows he needs a conflict for them to fight over, and the best he can come up with is this generic macguffin of the elixir of life.  Plus we meet Jean-Luc Lebeau, Gambit’s father, who is pretty much a generic swashbuckler/Robin Hood type.  Things get even more disappointing when we learn just how Candra is tied into all this.

The rest of the issue is serviceable, although there is one inconsistency that always bothered me.  I understand that all this is embroiled in Gambit’s past and family, and he wants to solve his own problems, but surely the same was true in the X-Men/Ghost Rider crossover that sets this series up.  If the X-Men didn’t let Gambit go off alone then, why now? 

It’s an intriguing start, and to its credit, Gambit #1 delivers everything a Gambit comic needs: Gambit + Rogue, an arch enemy for Gambit to fight, and the unraveling of Gambit’s history.  We get one really good and one okay/decent action sequence, and some scenes of Wolverine telling Rogue common sense.  Tonally it’s struggling a bit; Gambit is a light hearted rogue, but he’s confronted with a lot of serious tragedy that force him to be a little too serious.  Still, it catches your attention well enough.

For X-Men Fans

X-Men #83

X-Men #83

Writing: Joe Kelly

Art: Adam Kubert

What Went Down:  Renee Majcomb holds Nina the young Mannite as the Alpha Cerebro fights the X-Men.  Nina is able to assist by waking up members knocked unconscious. Gambit blows up the floor underneath the villain, buying the team some time to regroup.  In a power plant, the primary Cerebro is busy cataloging humans and locking them in spheres.

Back in Russia, Renee helps Nina explain her background.  Back at the Zero Tolerance base, Nina imprinted Xavier’s mind when she met him, adding his memories to her own telepathic and reality warping powers.  Charles was able to summon Renee to save Nina, and Nina led them to the monks that Charles had spent time with while trying to control his own powers. 

Cerebro attacks again, this time by controlling Colossus.  The Cerebrite is also able to prematurely cause Gambit’s cards to explode and utilize nanotechnology to trap Storm in a box.  The Cerebrite shoots a beam at Storm causing her to disappear. 

After a brief glimpse at the Cerbro battle over in Uncanny, we return to the action with Rogue saving the unconscious Gambit.  Rogue’s glove is torn, so she accidentally gets a glimpse of the green mist lady who saved Gambit in Antarctica.  The Cerebrite knocks out Rogue and takes Nina.

How It Was:  Kelly tries to frame this issue through narration that focuses on the fear that the young Nina must be going through.  This would be a lot more effective if the girl in question wasn’t an all-powerful plot device, or if anybody cared about Nina.  Anyway, here’s an issue long fight scene where half the X-Men fight their rogue computer. 

Actually the fight has some nice moments, like Gambit charging the floor up, and Storm blowing him away at the last second.  It’s a little annoying that Nina can use her powers to wake up X-Men that have been knocked unconscious.  I suppose that one could argue that Cerebro is just as overpowered: he can trigger powers, possess Colossus, and survive lots of different attacks.  But at least Cerebro explains how he makes Gambit’s cards explode or makes a box for Storm to be trapped in. 

There’s not a lot to say about this issue.  It’s a big fight with a lot of complaining from Renee and Nina.  Cerebro gets a chance to use its powers intelligently in taking down the X-Men, although it’s unclear why it only chooses to assimilate Storm instead of the whole team.  Plot convenience I guess.  Solid action.

For X-Fans

X-Men #82

X-Men #82

Writing: Joe Kelly

Art: Adam Kubert

What Went Down:  Gambit and Colossus are both plummeting from a mountaintop after Gambit impulsively jumped on Peter’s shoulders in an attempt to lighten the mood.  Storm and Rogue save them, and fortunately the fall has led them right to the place they were hoping to get to.  It’s a temple made of ice. 

Inside the temple, one of the monks of the order alerts Renee Majcomb that there are intruders.  Elsewhere, Gambit brushes off Rogue’s attempts to get close to him.  Colossus finds it appalling, not knowing that Gambit is possessed by an evil being.  Gambit blows the door to an area and finds the frozen corpses of the majority of the monks.  An observer watches the X-Men and analyzes them. 

The X-Men come to a liquid mirror that appears to be some kind of portal.  Since Xavier’s signal is coming from it, they enter it.  The world inside distorts their senses and skews reality.  Rogue has an easier time with it because she is used to the confusion of having multiple personalities in her head.  Outside Renee asks a mystery figure if the trap is working; the mystery person thinks that they have the wrong people.  A robot that looks like Cerebro from issue #81 observes the mirror. 

Inside the mirror the X-Men experience a variety of abstract tortures, but when Rogue and Gambit reach for each other, they begin to turn back to normal.  They realize that extreme emotions are the key to escaping the mirror.  Storm thinks of her love for the X-Men, Colossus the death of his sister, Rogue thinks of Gambit, and Gambit thinks about the mist thing that possessed him. 

After breaking out, the X-Men are confronted by Renee and Nina, the girl from Onslaught: Epilogue that Professor X met.  They apologize for mistaking the X-Men for enemies and learn that they are being chased by Cerebro, who thinks Nina is Xavier. 

How It Was:  This issue: the X-Men get their own young and adorably cute sidekick.  What, you’re not excited?  Anyways Nina the Mannite turns up after her appearance in Onslaught: Epilogue.  Don’t worry, she’s not staying permanently, but it’s still enough to cast a pall over this story.  Nobody could possibly care whether or not this tiny plot device got ripped apart by a Cerebro robot, which is a real failing in this entire story.

Despite that rather sobering intro, this issue is actually really fun.  The opening is worth a small smile as Gambit tries too hard to fit back in with X-Men and the ice temple is really nicely rendered by Adam Kubert.  The best part of the book is when the team is attacked in the mirror by Nina.  The shift in art style and coloring does a perfect job of capturing the shift in reality that consumes the X-Men; it’s a great example of storytelling through visuals as the team’s perceptions are completely upended.  Yes it’s hokey that they break free by feeling emotions, but it’s worth it for the line, “And then the whole world stopped making fish.”  Some really creative imagery here.

It’s a neat issue if you ignore the fact that the plot doesn’t really advance all that much.  The characters are still shining as always in Kelly’s book, except for Colossus who is suffering from a case of nothing to do.  One of the better parts of this event.

For Everyone

X-Men #81

X-Men #81

Writing: Joe Kelly

Art: Adam Kubert

What Went Down:  The X-Men have crudely reconstructed a makeshift Danger Room to help them train.  Despite Nightcrawler’s efforts, Marrow doesn’t want to participate.  Storm tries to order Marrow, but the Morlock complains that all their training didn’t help them with Operation Zero Tolerance or protecting Professor X.  At the boathouse, Gambit is exercising and working up the nerve to go see Rogue.  When Rogue shows up, he manages to embarrass himself completely.

In Boston a hooded figure laughs and talks to herself.  Up in the attic Storm shows her garden to Colossus while they reconnect.  Wolverine and Kitty do the same thing while practicing knife throwing.  In Boston, Rogue and Gambit meet to escape the prying ears of the X-Men.  Gambit tries to make Rogue guilty for leaving him.  Their discussion is interrupted by new villain Kali, who channels energy through a staff and hears voices.  She fights the two X-Men, calling them lovers and angering Rogue.  Gambit knocks her away and admits to Rogue that it was his mind’s self-hate that influenced her decision.  Then they work together to defeat Kali, who promptly explodes in a fury of green energy. Gambit and Rogue talk, and he stops short of saying he loves her.  Rogue thinks he’s just afraid, but actually he is possessed by a green mist woman who threatens to kill Rogue and the other X-Men.

How It Was:  Although the main emphasis is on Gambit and Rogue, Kelly’s script gives every character his or her own moment to shine.  The opening four pages do a wonderful job of setting up where most of the characters are at this point.  Wolverine and Storm are struggling with Marrow, while the Excalibur 3 are trying their best to fit back in and keep it light.  The tension between Marrow and Storm is much more interesting than Marrow stealing some pictures.  The reunion between Gambit and Rogue is handled very well, and Kelly wisely chooses to cut the awkwardness with some humor. 

The conversation between Gambit and Rogue handles all the necessary chores.  Their mutual interest in each other is reaffirmed, it is firmly established that Rogue left Gambit because she had absorbed his self-loathing, and a new obstacle is placed in the couple’s way to keep them from getting together and becoming boring.  Kelly tries to tie in the other X-Men by cutting to some sporadic conversations about characters and relationships, but it is all tangential and never goes anywhere. 

The big weakness is the villain Kali.  She is a goofy character brought in because this is a super hero comic, and darn it we need a fight somewhere.  She talks to herself, and she will never be seen again, so feel free to forget about her.  Kubert does a wonderful job with the action, both here and in the Danger Room.  He really sells the emotions of the characters as well, such as when Rogue blows off Gambit’s white rose, or the jolly teasing of Colossus. 

Forgetable villain aside, this is a great issue.  It gets the Rogue/Gambit relationship back on track, and it has some fun with the characters.  As for the end, the green smoke girl is interesting at first, but this drags on for quite some time until it’s finally done away with for good.  Still a very good read if you love light character pieces a la the majority of Scott Lobdell’s run.

X-Fans Should Read

X-Men #80

X-Men #80

Writing: Joe Kelly

Art: Brandon Peterson

What Went Down:  Kitty starts off the issue making her escape while the evil X-Men pursue her.  She manages to make it down to the sewers where she finds the captive Peter Corbeau.

Elsewhere in the Florida swamplands, Colossus and Wolverine tear themselves out of the crashed Blackbird.  Wolverine acts abrasive towards Peter, angry about his time as one of Magneto’s Acolytes.  Storm appears to remind him that it is not worse than his marriage to Viper.  Rogue wakes up powerless and is saved from a hungry alligator by Marrow. 

There is more exposition from the blond news reporter, followed by a scene where a scientist and a general discuss the rockets true purpose…to hunt down and kill mutants.  Back in the sewers, Corbeau warns Kitty that she has to stop the rocket from launching.  Kitty escapes, forced to leave Corbeau behind. 

With Storm and Rogue powerless and Nightcrawler badly injured, the X-Men are forced to hike through the swamp.  Colossus helps Marrow remove some of her broken bone shards so new ones will grow.  Marrow mentions that Peter’s brother used to do the same thing for him.  With the team’s spirits down, Storm gives an impassioned speech that inspires them to continue on.  Kitty appears at a copy shop and sends a fax to SHIELD that is intercepted by Xavier.

The X-Men make it to Cape Citadel, just in time for Nightcrawler to feel better and Rogue and Storm to get their powers back.  Kitty also shows up at the control tower, just in time for it to be attacked by the alternate X-Men.  Fortunately the real X-Men show up to save her.  The Grey King is tinkering with the rocket when the true X-Men attack.  A fight ensues and the control team tries to launch the rocket.  In the middle of the fight, Xavier confronts our heroes and demands that they stop interfering with his goals.  The X-Men question his behavior, but Xavier explains that the Benassi Rocket contains hardware to complete a network that can identify and kill mutants with satellite lasers at will.  The X-Men are conflicted about what to do until Wolverine smells him and realizes that this Xavier isn’t even human.  After being attacked, the false Xavier turns into a being of blue energy. 

The Grey King removes the satellite from the rocket to help Xavier catalogue mutants.  The rocket is triggered with the X-Men right where the engines are, but Kitty is able to phase the team to prevent them from being disintegrated.  The rocket has to be stopped because it contains a nuclear payload, so Rogue absorbs Nightcrawler and Colossus’ powers as well as Wolverine’s military knowledge to stop it.  The X-Men stop the other “X-Men” and destroy the satellite while Rogue disarms the rocket.  The blue energy Xavier is appalled that the X-Men stopped him and vows vengeance, and the X-Men steal their enemies’ jet to get home.  The final two pages show the scientific, military, and government officials being grilled about attempting to wipe out mutants through the Benassi rocket.  The last page reveals that the false X-Men are just hard-light programs, and the false Xavier is really Cerebro, the X-Men’s mutant detecting computer, brought to life.

How It Was:  I’ve always liked Joe Kelly’s issues just a little more than Steve Seagle’s, and reading them side by side with the exact same cast and plot makes this preference even more apparent to me.  Both writers have a great handle on the characters, but Kelly just adds more small touches, more humor, and more of an emotional impact altogether.  The scene that exemplifies this the most is Marrow saving Rogue from the gator.  Whereas Seagle’s Marrow is more of an angry kid who rubs everybody the wrong way and doesn’t always realize what she’s saying, Kelly’s Marrow is a jaded, battle hardened youth who points out the weaknesses that others take for granted.  When she stands up to Storm about their odds against the evil X-Men, she’s being realistic, not condescending, and even Rogue and Strom agree with her a little.  Plus the scene of her killing the gator just makes me laugh.  Other stand out moments include Storm’s pep talk and some of the characters’ reflections on Xavier’s meaning to them.

Of course there are some nitpicks.  The worst offense is Rogue being drawn with her pink outfit from Uncanny #342-350 instead of her original green costume that she was wearing last issue.  This always, always bothers me every time I read this story.  Wolverine’s behavior towards Colossus feels a little hypocritical, considering how conflicted Wolverine has always been about straddling the line between hero and killer.  It still kind of works as Wolverine reacting to missing his friend in the only manner he can while maintaining his gruff persona, but it feels a little forced.  Also, there are some issues with the order of events in the story.  Xavier tells the X-Men to process Kitty towards the end of Uncanny #360, then the bad X-Men take out the real ones, then the next issue opens with them trying to capture Kitty, which they should’ve done before attacking the real X-Men.  Oh, and Peter Corbeau serves absolutely no purpose in this story; yeah he warns Kitty about the rocket, but fake Xavier is the one who explains to the X-Men why it’s important.  Corbeau doesn’t even show up in the end; there’s just a brief mention about the officials under investigation because of his testimony.

As for the villains of the story…they’re okay I guess.  They’re not funny, they’re not scary, they’re not really noble…they just kind of do whatever the plot requires of them.  As for the reveal at the end, I like the design of the living Cerebro, even if the concept is a little silly.  Plus the reveal confuses the origins of the all-new X-Men; my understanding of it is although they think they’re real mutants, they’re just programs constructed from Cerebro, made up of file combinations from all the mutants Cerebro knows.  So Rapture is a combination of Angel and Mystique; Landslide is a combination of Sabretooth and Blob; etc.  I can’t remember if this is from future issues, or if I just read this theory somewhere online.  I guess we’ll see.

There is a nice conflict here, not between the two teams, but with the idea of the X-Men’s identities being robbed from them, both by these new villains and the unfortunate circumstances that have left them down and out.  Kelly manages to make it feel significant that the X-Men are reclaiming their agency and their purpose.  Again, all the X-Men just feel perfectly characterized, and although their villains here are forgettable, the stakes of being supplanted or made obsolete feels very real.  It’s nowhere near as good a starting point as X-Men #70 was, but this is admittedly a likeable cast, and both writers have a strong handle on them.

B+

Uncanny X-Men #360

Uncanny X-Men #360

Writing: Steve Seagle

Art: Chris Bachalo

What Went Down: On the anniversary of Magneto’s first battle with the X-Men in Uncanny X-Men #1, a news reporter is covering the controversial launching of the Benassi rocket.  While the government insists it is just carrying camera equipment, skeptics are protesting the secrecy of the project and the nuclear components on the rocket. 

A mysterious bald figure in a wheelchair is collecting a new team of mutants to help him save the world.  There is the Grey King, a graduate assistant with telepathic dampening powers; Chaos, an autistic who can shoot psycho-plasmic force blasts; Mercury, who has liquid metal limbs; Rapture, a nun who is blue and has angel wings; Crux, an ice skater who can shoot fire and ice; and Landslide, a giant brawler.  At the end of the recruitment we see that it is none other than Professor X inviting the mutants to join the X-Men.

On a cruise ship named Titania, Colossus, Kitty Pryde, and Nightcrawler are enjoying a vacation after the disbanding of Excalibur.  The group discusses how it is the anniversary of the X-Men going public, and the ways that this event changed their lives.  Their reverie is interrupted by the new X-Men, who attack the cruise ship.  While Nightcrawler evacuates passengers and Colossus tries to plug a hole created by the fake X-Men, Kitty is captured by the group.

In the sewers of Washington D.C., Marrow, Rogue, Storm, and Wolverine are fighting a high tech security system.  Finding a door with an X on it, the group enters it to find a room outside a lab.  Although they were invited by sometime X-ally Peter Corbeau, it appears Corbeau has been abducted.  A tape left at the crime scene incriminates the X-Men. 

In a bunker in the Florida swamps, the evil X-Men are holed up with the captured Kitty.  Kitty is shocked that the mutants call themselves X-Men, and even more shocked to find that they have intimate knowledge of the real X-Men.  Professor X shows up to chastise Kitty for her behavior.

Inside the Lincoln Memorial, the four remaining X-Men meet with Val Cooper to discuss Corbeau’s disappearance.  Val offers the X-Men resources to help them clear their name.  Over in Salem, Nightcrawler and Colossus have gone to the mansion to enlist the help of the other X-Men.  The mansion is empty except for a shotgun wielding Cecilia Reyes, who is housesitting for the team.  After a brief misunderstanding, Cecilia leads the two heroes to the hanger where the original Blackbird is being housed after it was salvaged in Uncanny #353.  Kurt thinks he can fix it.

Back in Florida, Xavier tells Kitty that he cannot access his emotions because Bastion attempted to bind his functions to a computer with a virus.  Xavier’s detached behavior worries Kitty, as does the fact that he didn’t just ask for her help.  On the X-Men’s borrowed jet, the team observes a press conference outside the Cape Citadel rocket launch where a US director is seemingly assassinated.  We then get a scene where some shadowy government figures discuss how this was a fake distraction to take people’s attention away from what is really on the rocket.

Kitty manages to purge the virus from the computer.  Xavier rewards her by having his X-Men recapture her and prepare her for storage.  Up in the sky, the X-Men’s plane is dismantled in the air.  They assume Magneto is attacking, but it’s actually the fake X-Men.  A mid-air battle takes place, but Storm and Rogue lose their powers due to the Grey King.  Wolverine is left plummeting to the ground, but he is saved by Nightcrawler.  After saving the rest of the team, the Blackbird is shot down by Mercury.  

How It Was:  I had assumed I was done with gimmicky shiny foil cover double-sized issues, but lo and behold here we have two in a row.  Uncanny X-Men #360 and X-Men #80 are celebrating the 35^th anniversary of Uncanny X-Men #1; to my recollection these are the end of the foil-cover era for the X-Men.  These issues also mark some drastic changes to the books, mostly forced upon the writers by editors.  The team has been scaled back to a core cast of seven regulars, Uncanny and X-Men tie into each other regularly making for essentially a bi-weekly reading experience, and the former members of Excalibur are being shuffled back on the team. 

I’m torn about the inclusion of Nightcrawler, Kitty, and Colossus.  On the one hand I’m overjoyed as an X-Men fan to see them since these characters haven’t been on the main X-Men team in almost a decade (Excalibur lasted 125 issues).  On the other hand, it’s clear there is no real reason or story behind having them back on the team—somebody just thought it would be neat, which it is.  But there is something to be said for picking a cast because of potential stories to do and picking a team because people like the characters.  Worst of all, the majority of the new X-Men (Maggott and Cecilia), who had tons of story potential as the characters grew into their heroic roles, have completely been thrown out without any warning.  I really liked both these characters and the books feel more directionless without them.

But I should probably talk about the comic itself.  It’s double-sized, and fairly padded out, although there are some nice action sequences towards the end. A lot of the fluff revolves around the tedious newscaster exposition scenes that just aren’t very interesting.  There’s an incomprehensible attempt to make them more relevant by having a government conspiracy with a faked assassination that makes no sense at all.  If you wanted people to not pay attention to you’re high profile satellite launch, pretending to kill a member of the staff seems like it would be counterproductive.  Having the story take place at Cape Citadel is a nice call back to the first issue of the series, but many of these scenes feel tiresome, constantly reminding the reader about the rocket and that mutants are a divisive issue.  There’s a whole four-page sequence with Val Cooper that serves no purpose other than to say out loud that the X-Men are still hated and mistrusted, and for Val to give the X-Men a TV and a plane.  Also, the necessity of Kitty to “Xavier’s” plan seems arbitrary.

While I really like the homage to Giant-Sized X-Men #1 with Xavier collecting his new team, none of the characters really stand out.  Most of them do feel derivative, although that does tie into their origins, and none of them really come off as likable or menacing.  Plus Chaos, the autistic character, speaks in these one-word fragments, and I’ve never known any autistic person to do that.  Strangely it is played for comedy most of the time; Nightcrawler even mocks him for it at one point in the story.

Bachalo does a great job making the cruise ship and air battles seem frantic and chaotic.  The X-Men versus guns in the sewer feels a little forced for the sake of action, and I don’t understand how a door in the sewer leads to a vent on the surface where the X-Men can see the hole their friend was abducted in.  Peter Corbeau is pulled out from comic limbo for no other purpose then he was a scientist in that one space story in the seventies.  You know, the Phoenix Saga. 

The mystery over Xavier’s cold demeanor does work really well, and it’s about time the books actually addressed what is up with Charles.  And although I still think the Excalibur recruits feel forced onto this team, they do get some nice moments.  I enjoy the discussion of life without the X-Men where Kurt realizes he’d probably be dead.  There is also a sense of exhilaration from the team when Colossus and Nightcrawler first show up to save them. 

This issue could work a little better as a normal-sized issue.  Take away some of the exposition from the newscaster and Val Cooper, maybe a little more time for us to get to know the evil X-Men and care about them one way or the other, and this could’ve been one of the greats.  It does succeed in feeling like a new direction, it gets the characters right, and it is bookended by two solid action sequences. 

B-