Onslaught: Marvel Universe

Onslaught: Marvel Universe
Writing: Scott Lobdell and Mark Waid
Art: Adam Kubert and Joe Bennet

What Went Down: The Watcher (yes, again with the Watcher) opens the issue after the final battle, speaking about the end of the Age of Wonders. He also claims that his job is done, but we all know that isn’t true. We cut back to Xavier facing off against Onslaught from the end of X-Men #56. Because he has no powers, Xavier isn’t doing too well. The X-Men show up, knock Onslaught away, and rescue Xavier. Onslaught makes a giant hand out of rock to attack the mutants, then blasts them into submission. Fortunately the combined forces of the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom, and the Hulk show up for the rescue.

The fight begins and Joseph is knocked unconscious by some debris. Xavier crawls to him and gets Joseph behind cover. Inside Onslaught, Franklin and Nate Grey discuss possibly escaping. Outside, Iron Man explains that everyone is equipped with psi-scramblers, even though nobody is seen wearing them. Cyclops claims that the X-Men are protected by Cable and Jean, even though Onslaught is supposed to be more powerful than everyone. Onslaught erects a force shield and creates a…wait for it…second sun in the sky whose gravity threatens to destroy the Earth. In practice, all it does is make the battle really windy.

Nate Grey reflects that a five-year-old kid is braver than he is. He reaches out to Cable since they share a connection as the same person from different dimensions. Cable senses them and concocts a plan to use Joseph, Xavier, and himself to magnify each other’s powers to save Franklin and Nate. Doom gives a long monologue about how it’s up to him to save the day while various secondary characters of the Marvel Universe see the second sun and wonder if the world is going to end.

Here’s how the heroes get through Onslaught’s forcefield. Vision merges with Rogue, which isn’t his power—he’s supposed to just turn intangible. Wolverine pierces the field, with his bone claws mind you, and Namor and Giant-Man hold the hole open for Vision/Rogue to fly through and hit Onslaught, which appears ineffective, but destroys the force field nonetheless.

The Hulk asks Jean to shut off Banner so that he can lose control on Onslaught and go all out. She leaves the memory of Betty Ross, but turns Hulk savage. He and Onslaught beat each other while the forces of nature rip the area around the heroes apart. Hulk hits Onslaught so hard that a huge explosion occurs, destroying Onslaught and separating Banner from the Hulk.

The heroes think they’ve won, but Onslaught has just “evolved” into his final energy form. Without a body to fight, the heroes figure that the energy needs a physical vessel to destroy. Thor flies in first, followed by all the other heroes of the Marvel Universe in varying groups. Inside Onslaught, the area the prisoners are in is starting to break down.

Mr. Fantastic stops Wolverine, Crystal, and Quicksilver from going in the energy. He explains that because Onslaught was unaffected by Rogue’s attack, that mutant genetic patterns give him more power because he began life as a mutant. Of course, then he has to make some plot convenient excuse for the Scarlet Witch related to her powers, but there you have it. Quicksilver is saddened, but relieved that his wife will be spared, but she tells him that Richards said nothing about Inhumans, and runs into the void.

Doom tries to absorb some of Onslaught’s energy to use in a later plot, but Hawkeye and Iron Man stop him and send him into the void with them. Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman are the last non-mutant heroes; they tell Cyclops to attack the energy as soon as they’re in and not to hold back. There is a huge explosion, and Bruce Banner gets sucked into the Void right as it’s happening. Xavier and Joseph are also able to save Nate and Franklin right as the explosion takes place. As the heroes die, Franklin uses his vast, plot convenient powers to create a pocket universe for their spirits to go to, thus creating the Heroes Reborn Universe for the Image relaunch. From the perspective of news reporters outside, the world at large believes that the X-Men betrayed the other heroes and killed them, which causes further hatred towards mutants in future X-Men arcs. Professor X consoles Franklin about the death of his family, and we see a blue ball in the grass that is actually the pocket universe itself. No, really, there is an entire universe in that young boy’s ball.

Professor X asks Nate Grey to take him above the rooftops to survey the damage. Nate is really impressed with the heroes, and wishes he could’ve learned more from them. Going back to Uatu, it turns out he wasn’t just narrating to nobody; he was still talking with Apocalypse. Apocalypse agrees that it is an impressive story, but also realizes with so many heroes dead it is the perfect time to try to conquer the world himself.

How It Was: Well it’s finally over, and unlike the majority of this crossover, significant events actually take place. There’s some big action scenes, a surprising detail to characters and relationships, and it really captures the grand scope of the Marvel Universe’s New York. And while there are definitely a lot of issues with the story structure in general, I have to say that there are enough really good moments to outweigh some of them. Quite simply, this absolutely feels like it affects the entirety of the Marvel Universe, and it really does…for the following year. Waid’s script manages to catch most of the character beats that longtime FF and Avengers fans want to see, from Quicksilver’s anguish over Crystal’s death to the forgiveness of Giant-Man and the Wasp. Seeing the Hulk fight Onslaught is pretty awesome, even though he’s only been a presence in his own title and an issue of Cable. Yes, it gets a little schmaltzy and emotional at times, but the heroes are aware that they are literally sacrificing their lives for the world, so it works. Unlike many gratuitous character deaths for shock value in events, this one feels handled with love and respect as the writers go out of their way to show them as noble and heroic as they can.

So as usual, the handling of the characters is fantastic. Where does it go wrong? Well there are far too many characters in this book to be fighting just one villain. Yes Onslaught is supposed to be this cosmic level bad guy, but whereas characters like Dark Phoenix and Galactus have specific abilities and powers, Onslaught’s powers are just made up as the writers go along. Creating a second sun isn’t impressive, it’s just ridiculous, and while it’s handled as serious at the beginning, it really just gets ignored for the remainder of the issue. Then he creates an impenetrable forcefield. Oh wait, the heroes penetrated it, now he’s turned to energy. There is no real logic whatsoever to what Onslaught does; it’s all for the sake of editorially mandated plot convenience. Certain heroes have to end up in Heroes Reborn and others can’t. Thus we get the absurd rule that mutants can’t fight Onslaught, except for Scarlet Witch, and Namor, who the writers and editors forgot is also a mutant. Also, Cannonball, Archangel, and Psylocke are missing for no particularly good reason, but it’s not like their inclusion would have mattered much.

Which brings us to the real problem with this issue, with this whole series in general. It’s an X-Men story where the X-Men have been completely pushed to the side to spotlight the Avengers and Fantastic Four in order to justify a gimmicky relaunch of four of their titles. The X-Men start off the issue on their own, but quickly get overshadowed by the real heroes. Even Xavier and Joseph, who should theoretically have something really significant to contribute since they were the genesis of the villain, get nothing to do except rescue some prisoners. I do like the angle that humans view the X-Men as traitors at the end of the story, but surely the X-Men could just explain the circumstances to people. I guess they were worried that people would learn Xavier was Onslaught, but there probably was a way around it. And what the heck happened to Onslaught’s mutant armies and Sentinels?

The art captures the story quite nicely, but like everything else with Onslaught, inconsistencies abound. The psi-armor that was made such a huge deal out of for issues on end isn’t even drawn on the heroes, and the X-Men decide they don’t even need it. Trish Tilby is drawn completely wrong, and the everyday people of New York are drawn just going about their lives while the battle is raging. Haven’t Sentinels been attacking New York? Wasn’t there a huge EMP that took out all the power in the city? Why is Foggy Nelson just out buying groceries with Karen Page while the writers at the Bugle are just going to work like usual? Shouldn’t they evacuate? I don’t know, maybe I’m just thinking too hard about this.

While I was expecting to hate rereading this issue, I have to say it is more of a mixed bag than pure garbage. Parts of it are very, very stupid, like a little boy creates an entire universe with his imagination and puts it in a blue ball stupid. But there are some undeniably cool parts for the Marvel heroes, even if it does come at the expense of the X-Men. Sure, running into a ball of energy isn’t exactly the most stunning personal sacrifice to be depicted in comics, but this does end up feeling really important. Plus it indirectly leads to the Heroes Return Avengers, which is one of my favorite comic series of all time (Go Buisek and Perez!). It could’ve been a lot worse, I guess, but it kind of, sort of holds up, though not completely.

C+

Cable #35

Cable #35
Writing: Jeph Loeb
Art: Ian Churchill

What Went Down: The opening page is an info dump setting up this point in the Onslaught storyline—brought to us by Uatu the Watcher. Down below Cable and the Invisible Woman are fighting against the psychic storm that is raging with her forcefield, which is being reinforced by his powers. Unfortunately, as Cable puts more effort into reinforcing the forcefield, he is losing control of the techno-organic virus that infects half his body. Sue offers her husband’s help, and Apocalypse shows up to tell them that Onslaught must be stopped. Of course this is a super hero comic, so Cable and Apocalypse have to fight each other for two pages before realizing that they have a common goal.

Apocalypse suggests attacking Onslaught on the Astral Plane because Onslaught draws power from it, so he therefore must be more vulnerable there (??). Cable agrees to the team up, but tells the Invisible Woman to stay behind in case they fail to rescue Franklin. As they travel the Astral Plane, Apocalypse expresses admiration for Onslaught’s accomplishments, disgusting Cable. Apocalypse offers to cure Cable of the T.O. virus that he infected him with when Cable was a child, but Cable refuses, saying it’s made him stronger.

In his citadel, Onslaught admires the destruction with Franklin Richards attached to his back. Onslaught discovers Apocalypse and Cable, which surprises Apocalypse, and summons projections of the Hulk, Post, and Magneto to attack the duo. Cable faces the Hulk projection, and thinks back to when he fought the real Hulk all the way back in the last issue of Cable. While Cable is distracted, Apocalypse makes his way to Franklin and apologizes for having to kill the boy. Cable tells the Invisible Woman to make her move and it turns out that she has been hiding the whole time waiting for Apocalypse to betray them. As Cable and Sue fight Apocalypse, Onslaught teleports them away. Apocalypse yells at the heroes, accusing them of being narrow minded and having cost them the battle. Apocalypse teleports away, and Cable comforts Susan as she thinks about how helpless her son is alone.

Apocalypse returns to Uatu’s side; Uatu proclaims his respect for the heroes’ principles while Apocalypse sees it only as weakness. Back at the Citadel, Franklin is inspired by the bravery of Cable and his mother, and now he has hope.

How It Was: After two issues of Uncanny to set it up, Apocalypse shows up to affect Onslaught’s conquest. Then he goes away, leaving an anti-climactic dullness in the reader’s brain. This is supposed to be the return of one of the X-Men’s greatest villains, one who hasn’t been seen for about three or so years in the main universe, and the Age of Apocalypse showed how great he could truly be. So it’s not the triumphant return that fans were expecting, but Loeb does still get quite a bit right

The interaction between Apocalypse and Cable is very solid. Loeb nails the mutual hatred and respect that each of these characters has for the other. The offer of a cure for the T.O. virus is the perfect example of a back-handed mind game that the villain would play on Cable. Their interactions are probably the highlight of the issue. The central conflict of the issue, whether it is better to kill Franklin and rob Onslaught of his power, is excellent because the way Loeb handles it, Apocalypse is technically right in his viciousness and Cable and Sue have endangered millions of lives because of their own selfishness and lack of foresight. Absolutely fantastic.

However things devolve very quickly once Onslaught enters the picture. First, it’s hard to tell whether the fight takes place on the Astral Plane or the physical plane; I think it is the physical since the word balloons change shape in the Astral Plane. Then they end up fighting uninteresting copies of existing villains, and it is really disappointing to see the Hulk back in this series so soon, especially a more shallow and boring version of the character. Also, inconsistencies continue to pop up as Ian Churchill draws the wrong version of Onslaught for this point in the crossover—it should be the evolved version from Uncanny #336. Plus, if Onslaught can make his enemies disappear at will, why doesn’t he just do it at the beginning?

There is a lot to praise about this book, but it is too bad that it begins the same way as it ends…with absolutely no new plot progression at all. In the end Franklin is still captive, Sue is still distraught, and Apocalypse leaves to go back to spectating with the Watcher. You can skip this issue and not miss anything important whatsoever. On top of that, the confrontation with Onslaught makes no sense, and he uses powers that never appear in any of the other issues of this crossover. It is a nice treat for Cable fans to see the protagonist forced to interact with his arch villain, but outside of that, this is for super collectors only.

B-

Uncanny X-Men #336

Uncanny X-Men #336
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Joe Madureira

What Went Down: Franklin Richards is alone inside Onslaught with an unconscious Charles Xavier. He tries to wake the Professor up, but he can’t. Onslaught speaks to the boy and tells him that the boy will help conquer the world.

Apocalypse and Uatu the Watcher are hovering over Manhattan. They observe as people try to rescue each other from elevators and cops fire on Sentinels, all the while commenting on whether Onslaught is the next evolution of mutants. Outside Onslaught’s citadel, the Human Torch and Iceman are hiding behind an ice wall that is protecting them from the citadel’s defenses. Hawkeye joins them and they discuss rescuing young Franklin. Cyclops, Psylocke, Mr. Fantastic, and the Invisible Woman show up to get readings for the science team. Hawkeye asks Psylocke to help him free the wounded in the street (see Incredible Hulk this month) and the Invisible Woman stays behind with Iceman to try to save her son.

Joseph rescues some civilians trapped in a subway. They attack him, but Gambit knocks him out of the way. Gambit tries to explain that Joseph isn’t responsible for this, which impresses Rogue. Joseph goes off to end the threat, and Rogue and Gambit make up for their fight in X-Men #45 and hug it out.

At Four Freedoms Plaza, Vision, Iron Man, and Ant Man (??) were injured in the EMP and are recuperating. Mr. Fantastic uses Jean Grey as a sounding board for his thoughts, and Jean thinks about how inspiring he is since the creation of the FF marked the birth of the modern age of heroes (since Fantastic Four was the first of Marvel Comics’ Silver Age super hero titles). The Thing helps out a wounded Iron Man because Iron Man is determined to help no matter how weak he is.

Outside the citadel, Onslaught is producing energy and talking about how powerful he is becoming. Sue Storm wants to stop him, and Cyclops tries to stop her. She knocks him away, but Cable and Storm show up (after fighting the Hulk in his own title) to tell Sue that Cyclops knows what it’s like to have a son in danger.

Inside Onslaught, Xavier wakes up and comforts Franklin. He tells Franklin to be brave, and Onslaught takes the boy away to use him…for something. Outside, Joseph attacks Onslaught, and the villain opens his armor to reveal a trapped Xavier suffering. A group of heroes attack; Cable uses his powers to psionically enhance Joseph’s magnetic hold on Onslaught. Cyclops sees a crack in the armor and blasts it while the Invisible Woman pulls it open. Xavier notes that this allows himself to exist on the physical and psychic planes at the same time.

Thor bursts through Onslaught and rescues Xavier. Instead of defeating Onslaught, this causes him to laugh and change appearance even further. Apparently Xavier was holding Onslaught back, so now the villain is able to unleash a “psychic maelstrom” to beat back the heroes; essentially this is a big flamey forcefield thing that the heroes can’t penetrate. When asked to search for a sign of Franklin, Xavier informs everyone that he has lost his telepathic powers. In the sky, Uatu and Apocalypse talk about what is to be done next. Uatu shows Apocalypse a hologram of Cable and tells him that he knows what to do.

How It Was: Well first thing first, Joe Mad does not draw very impressive Sentinels, which is a big disappointment. But he does do a good job with all of the different heroes. And man, are there a lot of heroes. Lobdell does a decent job managing all of them, even though all they’re really doing is shuffling around until the final issue. Hawkeye and Psylocke show up just to leave, Iceman and Human Torch don’t do much. Lobdell doesn’t do a lot with the actual X-Men, although he does a good job displaying Sue Storm’s frustration and anguish, and Iron Man and the Thing get a nice little scene. Unfortunately, Lobdell’s handling of Joseph and Gambit is completely inconsistent with Mark Waid’s; while Waid had Gambit attacking Joseph and Joseph defending himself, Lobdell has Gambit acting sympathetic while Joseph blames himself. It’s just another sign of the disorganization of the Marvel Bullpen at this point. And I’d like to know how the Sentinels survived the EMP.

Actually Xavier and Franklin both get a brief chance to shine this issue as well. Lobdell manages to capture the fear and confusion a young boy would be going through, and it’s neat to see Xavier finding strength through the boy. The fight at the end is pretty cool, although it ends almost exactly like X-Men #55 ended, with an immense force from Onslaught pushing back all the heroes, and the heroes feeling hopeless because of it. I personally dislike having Onslaught as a separate entity since it seems like yet another ploy to absolve Xavier of guilt. Plus, you’d think that once Xavier is rescued, he might play a part in defeating what he created, but he doesn’t. At least we have a new plot development for X-Men with the loss of Xavier’s powers.

Once more we have lots of buildup and little payoff. Onslaught “evolves” but nothing changes because of it except for how he’s drawn. And Lobdell makes Apocalypse seem like he’s going to be a major player in the story, when all he’s going to do is show up in the next issue of this story and then disappear. So it still feels like nobody has really thought this through. This is a pretty mediocre Onslaught chapter made worse by the fact that most of the X-Men are pushed to the side by all of the guest heroes in the book. I’d like to say that Xavier’s rescue moves the story along, but really the plot is at the same place it’s been; Onslaught is more powerful than the heroes and the heroes need to figure out a way to stop Onslaught.

C

X-Men #40

X-Men #40
Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: Legion Quest Part 2: This issue starts with an excellent misdirect that involves Xavier sitting in a wheelchair, but revealing that the scene is actually a flashback due to the fact that he can still walk. Xavier and Magneto, going by Magnus, are working together in a hospital in Israel; this is early in their relationship, so neither has revealed his powers to the other. Magneto is working as an orderly; after his conversation with Charles, he goes off to visit one of his newest patients, an amnesiac who happens to be Legion—the main villain of this storyline.

Back in the present, Archangel and Rogue are flying around looking for any sign of the Gold Team; Archangel is very upset because Psylocke was with the group, and he has just started a relationship with her. With Professor X’s help, Archangel is able to find Jean half-buried in the sand. After she regains consciousness, Jean tells the Blue Team what occurred, and tells them that she has no idea what happened to them.

Back in the past, Psylocke, Iceman, Bishop, and Storm are drinking coffee at an Israeli café. We learn that these X-Men have all come down with a case of plot-convenient amnesia; they remember their names and powers, but not who they are or what they need to do.

In an interlude, we find that Sabretooth has been left alone in his cell in the mansion; I wonder how he was being fed. Anyways, he is trying to escape, but he gets shocked by the wires he’s messing with. We also find out that Wolverine has stopped by to keep an eye on the villain.

Back at the hospital in the past, Magneto contemplates the relationship Charles has with his patient Gabrielle Haller. He chalks it up to jealousy over the loss of his own love Magda. While being assisted out of bed, one of Legion’s latent powers activates and allows him to read Magneto’s mind. David sees visions of the Holocaust as well as the death of Magneto’s daughter. Magneto flips out and runs away.

In downtown Israel, Psylocke passes Xavier and recognizes him psychically. Magnus runs up to Xavier and asks for his help with his patient. When both men return to the hospital, they find their patient on fire and having a psychic seizure.

In the here-and-now, the X-Men have contacted Cable and Domino to assist them in finding the time lost Gold Team. The Israeli army is not happy to see Cable because he is wanted in a number of countries, but Cable tries to explain that his clone Stryfe is responsible for all of the crimes. The debate is interrupted by a hologram of Lilandra warning the X-Men about the danger to reality. When asked how Lilandra knows about all of this, we see that she has been visited by not one, but numerous Watchers.

How It Was: This issue breaks the story into three separate threads: the interesting Xavier/Magneto flashbacks, the boring amnesiac Gold Team flashbacks, and the Blue Team standing around in the present with nothing to do. Even though he’s catatonic in regular continuity, it’s really awesome to have Magneto’s presence in the book again, especially with this take on him. His friendship with Charles is really the central theme behind both this story and the next one, and it is portrayed elegantly. This is a treat to see Magneto and Xavier both so optimistic and I also like seeing Magneto on the edge of deciding what kind of person he wants to become.

However, as good as the stuff with Xavier and Magneto is, I really dislike the Gold Team having amnesia. First of all, it slows down the story for two issues and serves as an unnecessary obstacle. Plus, we saw last issue that there were no side effects to time travel when Storm did it with Legion. Sure there is some muttering in the present about how their minds were probably taxed by the effort, but it feels like it only exists so the Blue Team and Cable have something to work on in this story.

As for the Blue Team, well they aren’t going to have a lot to do for the rest of this story. This sounds kind of boring, but really it works as an excuse to have the characters contemplate their own mortality and reflect on the choices they’ve made in their lives. Most of that comes later though; in this issue the goal is really to find Jean and then get Cable into the mix. I feel like the ending with all of the Watchers is kind of neat, although I can understand how a number of fans could see it as contrived; the Watcher is usually stuffed into big storylines to add an extra sense of gravity, but in a story where the world literally ends, I think that it’s appropriate.

The art is really good, again. Andy Kubert has definitely come into his own as an artist on this series. Unfortunately he doesn’t have a lot to draw except for a number of characters standing around and talking. The payoff of Legion’s powers activating is very cool, with Legion rolling around on fire and the flames portraying images of the present in them, but this sequence is seemingly forgotten next issue with no real explanation. Overall a much slower issue than the last one, but it’s great to be reminded of the foundational relationship between Magneto and Professor X that has driven the book for so many years.

B-