X-Men #59

X-Men #59
Writing: Scott Lobdell and Ralph Macchio
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: Cyclops is in a near-empty theater watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Instead of drawing scenes from the movie, the art department has decided to Photoshop screen shots of the movie onto the screen. Jean shows up and surprises Scott, even though he knows that she’s a telepath. Although the theater is empty, someone tells them to be quiet. Jean asks him about Alex, but he just wants to watch the movie.

Back at the Institute, Bishop is getting beat up again by the second guest hero in two issues. Hercules has thrown Bishop through the wall and seems confused as to how his greeting could have hurt Bishop that much. Beast explains the Onslaught storyline to Hercules, and Bishop threatens to beat up Herc, but is held back by Beast. Hercules has stopped by looking for Quicksilver because he wants to team up with the remaining Avengers, since he has been condemned to Earth by his father Zeus.

Quicksilver is outside wondering how he’s going to face his daughter and tell her that her mother is dead. Wolverine gives him a pep talk about being strong for her like Crystal and Wanda would have wanted. Quicksilver runs into Joseph, who is busy building a machine to block Rogue’s powers. Quicksilver yells at him for not realizing all the lives he’s ruined, and then runs away.

Back in the theater, Scott tells Jean how he always liked movies as a way to escape from the reality of being a sickly orphan whose brother was adopted. The two kiss each other. At Creed’s campaign headquarters, Iceman reads a fax that says his father was arrested after Trish Tilby’s talk show and refused to give his name. Cannonball walks in on Creed talking on the phone; he claims he was discussing strategy with his parents. Sam knows who his parents are so he wonders what Creed meant. Outside, Bobby asks Carly if she thinks Creed is going to be elected. Carly responds, “What is, is,” which is the motto of the Askani in the future.

As Quicksilver and Hercules depart, Joseph flies up to the plane and apologizes to Quicksilver, who responds that maybe someday it will mean something. Hercules cautions the dangers of holding a grudge, but Pietro is distant. Cyclops and Jean exit the theater and he wonders if it’s silly that he wasted the day watching movies. He realizes that the fate of the X-Men is up to him, but he’s hopeful because Jean is by his side.

How It Was: Alright, Hercules stops by the mansion for no good reason other than to force a recap of the Onslaught storyline and write Quicksilver out of the book. Hercules comes off as a bit of a tool here, throwing Bishop through a wall and then acting surprised by it. Quicksilver gets some nice development, although it’s a couple of months too late in my opinion. Shouldn’t he have gone to visit his daughter many issues ago? Wolverine’s speech to Pietro feels a lot more like common sense than pearls of wisdom, but how else can Lobdell explain why Quicksilver is still around unless he goes the route of fear.

The Creed storyline is still around, and a whole lot of nothing is still happening there. The reveal that Carly Alverez might be an Askani from the future is interesting, but like so many things in this era, it is totally forgotten about later. Cyclops’ scenes are an unexpected choice. There’s nothing really special about his interactions with Jean, but it’s nice to see him acknowledging the weight of being in charge of the X-Men in the Professor’s absence.

At this point it’s been three months since Onslaught wrapped up, and it still feels like nothing significant has happened at all. Instead of following up on Archangel’s transformation or Havok’s terrorist activity, we’re left with the very boring Creed storyline, and Hercules’ unnecessary visit. This is just filler until somebody can come up with a proper direction for the books to take, and it’s a shame because there are so many possible directions. Very weak plotting, and Macchio’s script can’t compare to Lobdell’s normally insightful character interaction.

D

Uncanny X-Men #339

Uncanny X-Men #339
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Adam Kubert and Cedric Nocon

What Went Down: Spider-Man (the Ben Reilly Spider-Man, that is) shows up at the mansion at the middle of the night and is attacked by Bishop. Because this Spider-Man was a clone, he doesn’t recognize a lot of the characters’ changes, and he calls Jean Marvel Girl. Spidey has showed up to warn the X-Men that Jameson is digging around about Graydon Creed, and he might be in danger.

At X-Factor headquarters in Virginia, Mystique is watching Graydon Creed on the news and contemplating killing him to protect mutantkind, even though he is her son. She recognizes Iceman in one of the shots, from the back of his head no less, and announces that this changes everything.

At JFK airport, the X-Men have decided to send the Beast on the plane in order to watch over Jameson without raising suspicion. Of course he’s recognized by Jameson, who is excited that he must be getting close. To be fair, Cyclops is also on the plane and remains undercover. In the Blackbird, Joseph has been trying to understand the history of the X-Men and asks about the connection between Cable and Cyclops.

In a hotel room, reporter Nick Bandouveris has just discovered files proving that Graydon Creed’s parents were Sabretooth and Mystique. Back on the X-Jet, Joseph tries to synthesize and paraphrase the history of Cyclops and Cable, much to the amusement of Storm. On the plane, a mutant telepath from Havok’s Brotherhood of Mutants tells the passengers to remain calm and buckle their seats. Havok rips off the roof of the plane, and Jameson asks what he is doing. What is Havok’s reason for attacking? He is upset that Jameson is investigating Creed, because he doesn’t want it to look like mutants need help. No really…that’s his reason for trying to kill Jameson.

Cyclops blasts Havok to establish to the reader that their powers cancel each other out. Cyclops instead blasts Havok’s anti-gravity generator, and they both fly out the plane. Cyclops asks his brother what is wrong, and Havok says some cryptic things about finally being in control. Lobdell tries to establish Havok’s history of being mind controlled multiple times as motivation for his frustration with Xavier’s methods. Meanwhile, Joseph stops the plane from crashing.

The Brotherhood plane fires on Joseph, but he is able to shoot it down. Havok activates a teleport machine and leaves Cyclops to die, but Storm rescues him in the nick of time. Joseph lands the plane at an airport, and Jameson recognizes him as Magneto. Joseph contemplates how much he enjoyed saving the plane.

At the same time, Nick is waiting for Jonah, who has been delayed by the plane crash. Bastion shows up, kills Nick, and steals the files because Graydon Creed is still valuable to Zero Tolerance.

How It Was: This is an odd one, but most of it has nothing to do with Scott Lobdell. See at the time in X-Factor, Havok had left to join the Dark Beast because he was brainwashed. After Dark Beast was defeated during Onslaught, the writer of X-Factor set up Havok as a permanent villain. Initially he was written as insane, later it’s established that Havok just wants to save mutantkind with a more active stance than the X-Men, and finally it’s established that he was undercover. Either way, it is hard to reconcile later stories with this portrayal of Havok, since at this time all his appearances were so inconsistent. Lobdell tries his best, using Havok’s numerous times mind controlled as a kind of internal motivation, but really this is just silly. All Havok does is complain about control while he plummets out a plane, and his reason for attacking Jameson in the first place is absolutely absurd.

Spider-Man’s appearance is also kind of silly. We get the traditional heroes misunderstanding fight, followed by Spidey just delivering the plot to the X-Men. Isn’t this the kind of thing that, I don’t know, Iceman could have picked up on to give him something to do for his assignment—to give it a purpose. It is nice that they acknowledge how long it’s been since the X-Men and Spider-Man teamed up, but other than that these scenes are kind of a waste.

Joseph actually gets a few more good scenes. It’s nice to see him get the opportunity to save actual people for a change, and it’s also amusing to see him poke fun at the sheer impenetrability that is X-Men canon by way of using Cable and Cyclops as an example. I do feel like his debut to the world should affect the team more; after all, Jameson brings up the point about Magneto being bad PR, but nothing ever comes of it. The subplot with the reporter goes absolutely nowhere, other than to show that Bastion isn’t a nice guy, and I’m pretty sure that a lot of people already knew who Creed’s parents were, including the X-Men.

While this issue continues the Jameson subplot, nothing really compelling is going on here. Jameson claims he’s getting close to a discovery, but if it’s one that readers already know, then what’s the point? All of this is going to be made moot in a couple of issues anyways when Creed dies, but more on that later. This is just an odd one, with an odd villain who has odd motivations that never quite add up. Some good stuff for Joseph, though.

D+

X-Men #58

X-Men #58
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Bernard Chang

What Went Down: Storm is down in the sewer visiting the graves of the Morlocks on the anniversary of the Morlock Massacre. She finds a number of candles laid out and wonders who has done this. She’s surprised to see Gambit paying his respects, especially since he wasn’t an X-Man during the event. Also, there appears to be grass in the sewer where the Morlocks are buried. Gambit mistakes Storm for an attacker and throws some charged cards at her, then apologizes. When asked why he is there, Gambit just tells her that he feels badly for them.

Trish Tilby is interviewing Graydon Creed on her news show. Creed takes time to thank Drake Roberts, really Iceman, for his contributions to the campaign. Trish asks Creed about his hate speech, but he brushes it off as distortion from the liberal media. He frames himself as a champion, when suddenly Iceman’s father stands up in the crowd and calls Creed out for his prejudices. Bobby feels pride that his bigoted father would take the time to stand up for mutants.

At the mansion, Joseph flies through Rogue’s window while she is sleeping. Joseph insists that she come to the sub-basement with him, but she wants to get dressed first. Outside, Bishop and Wolverine are sitting by a fire. Bishop wonders what he should do next since he has fulfilled his ultimate goal of discovering and defeating the X-traitor. Wolverine tells him he just has to live, when they both notice Gambit staring into the distance. Gambit attacks Joseph; Joseph tries to explain that he may’ve found a way to cure Rogue’s powers, but Gambit insists it will just lead to disappointment. The two fight for a couple of pages before Rogue breaks them up and chastises them for acting jealous. Rogue flies away, and Gambit and Joseph make up.

We end on a scene with J. Jonah Jameson’s wife Marla telling him to stop working and go to bed. Outside the office we see that Havok is observing Jameson with intentions to kill him.

How It Was: Well, this is mostly a filler issue. Probably the most significant event is the revelation of Gambit showing his respects for the Morlock Massacre. Since the last anniversary was in Uncanny #325 thirteen months ago, I don’t know how that works in Marvel time. Still this is a pretty big clue that Gambit was somehow involved when he worked for Sinister. While the scene of the graves underground in the sewer is a little absurd, it works really well as a nice visual. And it is nice to see Storm acknowledge her failures with the Morlocks.

The rest isn’t quite as interesting. Iceman is apparently watching to see if Creed does something illegal, but that doesn’t explain why he’s helping Creed. Seriously, Creed calls Bobby his best volunteer, so what is Bobby doing to earn this title? Other than that it’s more of the same from Creed. I have to say that a lot of the dialogue does feel a lot more relevant in post 9/11 America. Seeing a conservative politician justifying racial profiling and speculating on the fears and paranoia of regular Americans, all while blaming the “liberal media” for calling him a fear monger, feels very familiar in a world of Tea Party politics and “Ground Zero” Mosque distortion. Having Mr. Drake come to the defense of mutants is okay, and he draws some good parallels, but it comes completely out of nowhere. I mean Bobby’s dad hasn’t been in the book since Uncanny X-Men #319; we’re at Uncanny #339 at this point, and that isn’t even including the Age of Apocalypse issues. So we’re picking up on a two-year-old side-character arc with absolutely no buildup… fantastic.

The fight between Gambit and Joseph is just weird and poorly handled. It seems obvious that Gambit is jealous, and emotional from visiting the Morlock graves, but he still comes off as a jerk to a guy who didn’t do anything wrong and is trying to help the woman he loves. Gambit’s portrayal towards Joseph is so inconsistent in the X-titles; sometimes he’s telling Joseph to forget the sins of the past and that redemption is possible, while other times he’s just like, “Hey, you were Magneto! Blah, blah, blah!” It’s actually a cool looking fight, but there is no emotional investment since there isn’t any decent motivation behind it.

Bernard Chang fills in this month. His style is a little more cartoony than usual, but it’s okay. He does accidentally draw regular Wolverine when he should be drawing mutated troll-Wolverine, and he insists on putting both Storm and Rogue in midriff tops, which is quite unnecessary. Rogue’s outfit is especially absurd since she insisted on getting dressed and then puts on fewer clothes than she had on in bed, with a half-shirt and short shorts.

The X-Men books have felt like filler since the end of Onslaught, and this continues the trend. Yes, once again the final issue sets up the next issue of Uncanny, but that’s about it. I can’t say that I really care about anything going on at this point, and a lot of the character motivations feel off to me.

D-

Onslaught: Epilogue

Onslaught: Epilogue
Writing: Larry Hama
Art: Randy Green

What Went Down: After being arrested by Val Cooper, Xavier is secretly taken to the location of Operation Zero Tolerance and held personally under Bastion. He is labeled Prisoner M-13, and Bastion constantly interrogates him for information and mistreats him as well. Henry Peter Gyrich is around, chastising Bastion for mistreating Xavier, who is apparently responsible for Xavier being there. We also learn that the location is an abandoned Hulkbuster Base. Bastion knows that Xavier is, or was, a mutant, but Gyrich doesn’t understand why Bastion thinks this is true.

We see a replay of the interrogation with Bastion losing his patience as Xavier refuses to admit that mutants are less then human. He then strikes the Professor. We also learn about prisoner M-9, also known as Nina the Mannite. She is a non-human little girl who is potentially the next stage of evolution beyond mutants. Bastion brings in a psychologist, Dr. Ingrid Thysson to try to prove that Xavier is a mutant. After introducing herself, Dr. Thysson sees a body bag being disposed of, but she is told not to question it. Thysson comments on how Xavier has obviously been mistreated, as does her associate Daryll Smith, a character from Hama’s Wolverine that is immune to psychics. While watching the monitors, the feed is interrupted by a cartoon called the Rainbow Bears.

In Xavier’s cell Nina teleports in and uses telekinesis to get Charles back in his chair. Bastion and his men barge into his cell, but Nina is already gone. As Bastion freaks out, Daryl tells him to calm down, and Bastion orders him to the brig. The next day Thysson sets out to create a full psych profile on Charles. She straps him in a weird gyroscope and asks him loads of questions. Xavier asks her if she knows the true purpose of this facility, and claims that after he volunteered to help, he was taken away without Cooper’s knowledge. Ingrid discovers Nina’s stuffed rabbit, and Xavier grabs it from her.

Later Gyrich and Bastion are discussing Nina. After learning that Daryl is a psi-anomoly, Bastion tells Gyrich to give him the DX order for Nina. Since the body bag from early had the letters DX on it, that can’t be a good thing. Nina visits Charles again and explains how she can read people, except Bastion. Charles tells her about his own powers, and Nina offers to turn them back on, but he tells her he’s not ready. Xavier wishes for a phone and she makes one appear, which he uses to call Renee Majcomb. Thysson sees the Rainbow Bears back on the monitor and goes to investigate. She barges into the cell, and Nina reveals herself because she senses Thysson is good.

Nina tells her that she read that she was scheduled for DX. To save the girl, Ingrid gives Xavier access to a hover vehicle to distract the guards. Thysson tries to get Nina out, but they are stopped by Darryl Smith. Xavier is recaptured and Thysson is knocked out. Smith delivers the girl in the body bag to Bastion; Bastion claims he takes no pleasure in this. On board the helicopter meant to dispose of the body, the soldier notes that the body bag is empty.

The next day, Thysson tells Xavier that she’s been transferred. She assumes that the little girl mentally controlled them, but a phone appears out of thin air. It seems that Renee has picked up Nina, and that Nina also has the power to appear dead and lifeless. Charles is happy and tells Nina to find more people like herself. Nina ends the issue by telling Renee that one day she is going to turn Charlie back on.

How It Was: Well, let’s get to the huge, gaping problem. This issue is called Onslaught: Epilogue, yet it has absolutely nothing to do with Onslaught whatsoever. In reality, it should’ve been called Operation Zero Tolerance: Prologue, but I guess Marvel was eager to keep cashing in on their super-mega crossover. Really, this is the type of issue that belonged in X-Men Unlimited, and it was most likely editorially mandated. As it is, it offers up an interesting twist on Xavier’s fate, and it offers some cool sequences where the Professor gets to calmly stand up to the bully Bastion. As a Xavier character piece, it’s actually quite good at exploring his feelings of hopelessness and his desires at redemption, all while constantly frustrating Bastion.

But then there’s Nina the Mannite, who is an overly cutesy overpowered plot device. She seems to have about a million powers, from phasing to telepathy to dropping her heartbeat, but for some reason she hasn’t escaped Bastion up to this point. Yeah, she’s a little girl, but she can materialize phones and block security systems, so what the heck is her hold up? Believe it or not Nina actually appears quite a bit later down the line, so you have that to look forward to, don’t you?

As for the rest, I like Xavier as Bastion’s prisoner, but the circumstances under his imprisonment are a little iffy. Henry Gyrich, who isn’t supposed to be a bad guy, just one who doesn’t question rules often enough, seems pretty oblivious to the fact that Bastion is mistreating a voluntary prisoner for no particular good reason. Shouldn’t he and Thysson be reporting Bastion, I mean he’s planning on annihilating an entire race? And shouldn’t Renee contact the X-Men to tell them what’s going on? Oh well. While the plot isn’t spectacular and the new characters are less than compelling, Hama does an admirable job with the internal and external struggles of Professor X, even if it is in a story that’s hard to really care about. This story definitely didn’t warrant its own one-shot, but what are you going to do?

D+

X-Men '96 Annual

X-Men ’96 Annual
Writing: Larry Hama
Art: Roberto Flores and Anthony Castrillo

What Went Down: After the Onslaught crossover, the X-Men have decided to hold a cookout/get together with the members of X-Force and Generation X. The issue starts with them playing a friendly game of baseball. Storm is about to come in for a grand slam when the group spots a Sentinel and attacks it. The Sentinel doesn’t put up much of a fight and slams into some nearby powerlines. The robot claims that it was on its way to warn the heroes; it turns out it was an unarmed surveillance unit that learned to feel because of its advanced computer processor. After Onslaught took over the Sentinels, it broke away and managed to observe Xavier turning himself over to Val Cooper in X-Men #57. It’s about to warn humanity about some great threat before shutting down.

Jubilee stares right into the robot’s eyes as it dies; it tells everyone that it’s afraid. Jubilee feels sad because they killed a sentient being, and it reminds her of the Sentinels that learned to feel in Wolverine #73-74. Cable mentions that it was a robot programmed to hunt mutants, and he and Wolverine break into a fight about how not empathetic Cable is. The fight spreads to the various teammates, but Cyclops breaks it up and tells everyone how important it is that they stay together. Storm brings up honoring Professor X’s teachings, and Caliban makes an awkward speech about Professor X loving all of them.

The next sequence takes place at the pool as Cannonball tries to videotape the various heroes lounging around; most of the X-crew harass him or tell him to blow off. After falling into the pool, Joseph offers to help Cannonball, but the youth acts skittish around him because of his past as Magneto. Later the teams cook up some food and there is a three-page sequence that involves a ping-pong ball landing in potato salad and getting sucked clean…no, really. Domino also tells the girls of Gen-X that they are going to need to grow up fast. The members of X-Force ask Cannonball about Wolverine’s ordeal that resulted in him killing Genesis. Wolverine apologizes to Cable for killing Genesis, who was really his son Tyler, and the two share a beer.

Later all three teams gather for a group photo; Gateway even shows up for the picture. A bunch of energy users are flown up into the air for a fireworks show. Jean and Cable offer to join all the mutants in a superficial telepathic mind-meld to share all the positive feelings between teammates without revealing any personal secrets. Nobody refuses the mind-meld, and the mutants go inside after it’s done.

How It Was: Well the cover promises “sixty-four pages of all-out X-Men action,” and…it’s a complete and utter lie. Really there are like two pages of all out action, and the other sixty-two pages are the various members of the X-Men, X-Force, and Generation X participating in summer activities and talking about any recent storylines that Larry Hama has taken part in, i.e. Onslaught and the Wolverine/Genesis fight. The Sentinel fight is very brief and inconsequential; we never find out what the robot was warning them about (probably something to do with Operation: Zero Tolerance), Jubilee cries over it and brings up a two year old story from Wolverine, and then everyone literally forgets about it like it was nothing. It’s pretty bad when the characters themselves don’t even care enough to follow up on lazy plotting.

The rest of the book is just the various X-characters hanging out and talking, and it gets pretty dull. Granted Hama has a cast of about thirty mutants in this book, and he manages to keep their voices unique and give each of them something to say or do. But most of this is reiterating recent plot points, like that Joseph and Gambit don’t get along, or that everyone is sad that the heroes died during Onslaught.

Wolverine does apologize to Cable for killing his son, so that feels pretty significant, but the rest of this is just fluff. Adequately written fluff mind you, but fluff nonetheless. Then again, it is kind of nice to see the characters get a chance to be less serious, since the last couple of years have been Legacy Virus, Age of Apocalypse, and Xavier going insane. It’s just too much doing nothing, and a lot of it is humor that misfires: like why is Monet so disgusted that the ping-pong ball fell in potato salad? It’s just potato salad; it’s perfectly okay to eat, isn’t it. Plus it always irks me that Excalibur doesn’t get invited since there are a lot of former X-Men on that team; X-Factor makes a little more sense since Sabretooth and Mystique are members of that team, but it’s still a sad state of affairs when you have to pick and choose who you have at your X-Reunion. All in all it has a few moments, but it is really unnecessary unless you’re a huge fan of super heroes having fun in the sun.

D

Uncanny X-Men #338

Uncanny X-Men #338
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Joe Madureira and Salvador Larroca

What Went Down: Archangel is laid up in the fetal position on the floor in pain. He is visited by Ozymandias, servant of Apocalypse. Ozymandias explains that Warren’s transformation into Archangel was only the beginning of Apocalypse’s greater plan. As Warren screams, his metal wings shatter, revealing his original organic feather wings.

In the Danger Room the X-Men are running tests on Joseph that involve measuring his responses to a simulation of the original X-Men battling Magneto. Joseph is taken aback by the old Magneto’s anger, but he has no connection to it, just emptiness. Jean takes this as a good sign, but Joseph worries that he may repeat his sins if he cannot remember them. Joseph asks Scott and Jean why the X-Men have taken him in after he has spent so many years trying to kill them as Magneto. Gambit and Jean explain that Xavier instilled in them the belief that no one is beyond redemption.

Psylocke takes the time to show up by teleporting through the shadows. Since she’s never done this before, all of the other X-Men are surprised, but she doesn’t seem to understand. She tells the X-Men that Archangel is missing and shows them one of the feathers that she found.

Warren finds himself drawn to a church in Brooklyn for reasons beyond his understanding. Inside the church, the Legacy-infected Pyro is in a confessional talking to a priest about needing to warn someone about a mysterious woman.

At a Graydon Creed rally in San Diego, Iceman, aka Robert Drake, has infiltrated Creed’s staff under the alias…sigh, Drake Roberts. He encounters J.Jonah Jameson of the Daily Bugle who tells him off for having his candidate prey on people’s fears and prejudices for votes. Drake is suitably impressed with Jameson and runs into another campaign employee, Carly Alverez. She introduces Iceman to Samson Guthry, who is really the X-Man Cannonball aka Sam Guthrie…groan.

The X-Men are assembled in the Blackbird on their way to help Warren, who bursts out of the now-flaming church’s window carrying the priest. His wings surprise all the X-Men, but they don’t have time to question him. Pyro has lost control of his powers because of the Legacy Virus. Joseph uses his powers to restrain Pyro in metal, and threatens to crush him if he does not stop. Wolverine scolds Joseph for threatening someone with a terminal disease. Pyro tries to explain about a group that has big plans, but the ground sucks him up, most probably because of the mutant Avalanche. The X-Men ponder Pyro’s fate, and the priest chimes in that he has finally found peace. Archangel worries about why he has his old wings back and how this plays into Apocalypse’s plans.

How It Was: Tell me if you’re sick of having me write this, but here we have another potentially interesting plotline that gets all but abandoned completely. I can respect that Lobdell is trying to do something different with a character that hasn’t had the spotlight all that much. Going off the setup from the end of Onslaught of a potential Apocalypse story, this seemed at the time that it might be going somewhere pretty good. But it doesn’t, and the plot point is all but dropped until the 2000s in the new X-Force series. Oh well. The overt symbolism of the church doesn’t really help matters that much; we get it, he’s an angel, he’s reborn, yadda yadda yadda. But there is an interesting bit with Pyro that sets up some future storylines…in X-Factor. Yes this a period of time where events were happening in the completely wrong X-books, as if you couldn’t tell by stories like the Beast being rescued in X-Factor during Onslaught.

Speaking of which, the Graydon Creed subplot has taken a turn for the stupid with Iceman and Cannonball infiltrating under the stupidest aliases in comics’ history. Spider-Man’s Jameson is still hanging around for some reason decrying the tactics of Graydon Creed. I get that Jameson’s character is supposed to have a lot of integrity when he’s not dealing with his most-hated Spider-Man, but is he really the right choice to be preaching for tolerance and open-mindedness? Also, it’s a little vague what Cannonball and Iceman are supposed to be doing. Are they protecting Creed, trying to dig up dirt, sabotaging the campaign? They just don’t seem to have any purpose. And I’m pretty sure that the X-Men already know that Graydon Creed is the son of Sabretooth and Mystique, so isn’t it about time to start making that information known?

The fight with Pyro is okay, if brief. I like that Joseph uses less than kosher methods to get Pyro to stop, even if he was bluffing, but it feels really out of character for Wolverine to be the one chastising him. Psylocke’s new powers are well-handled, but the thought of more changes to Psylocke makes me want to jump off a bridge; I’m not excited for this at all. This is a really great issue for Joseph and the rest of the X-Men as far as building him up as a believable member of the team. While Rogue’s absence is strange, I like seeing him interact with the other members, and it is interesting to see him interact with his own dark history. This is par for the course for a Scott Lobdell comic; the character work is great, but the plot structure leaves a lot to be desired as most of it goes nowhere or becomes forgotten.

B-

X-Men #57

X-Men #57
Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: In Cerebro, which I thought was still damaged but whatever, Xavier is asking the computer to locate himself. Because Xavier no longer has powers the computer cannot detect him. Xavier has Cerebro delete all files on Professor X, including the ones in Massachusetts, Muir Isle, and the Mutant Underground. The mansion is still fairly damaged and Xavier reflects on the destruction while looking at old photos of the original X-Men.

The doorbell rings and Cyclops answers it to find Val Cooper standing there. Cyclops asks about his brother, but Havok is still missing after turning evil. She has actually come to take Professor X into custody. Cyclops, Wolverine, and Bishop are not eager to allow that. They walk past Iceman and Cannonball, who are watching video of Graydon Creed’s speeches in preparation to go undercover in his camp. Cyclops reasserts that Xavier isn’t going anywhere, but Storm shows up to explain that Cooper is right because no one can guarantee that something like Onslaught will never happen again.

Outside in Washington Square Park, Beast is enjoying a beautiful day while using an image inducer to hide his appearance. A young child runs by pretending to be a mutant monster, which spoils Hank’s good mood. Beast is meeting up with his ex-girlfriend Trish Tilby. It seems that during his time spent as a captive of Dark Beast, Hank realized that Trish was the love of his life. Even though he felt betrayed by the Legacy story, he realized he overreacted. They embrace, even though she doesn’t give him a definite answer.

Back at the mansion, Jean shows up and tells the team that she agrees with turning Xavier over, since she was in Xavier’s mind while he was being influenced by Onslaught and did not enjoy it one bit. Val turns the TV to the news to show the destruction to the city and the vigils people are giving for the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. This goes a long way toward proving her point.

In Manhattan, J. Jonah Jameson thinks back to when he saw Storm and Cannonball during the beginning of the Onslaught event. Bastion shows up to their meeting and tells Jameson that he should stop the inquiries he is making. Jameson tells him not to bother intimidating him. Bastion threatens that he knows a lot about the publisher, so Jameson throws his wallet at him to prove his point.

Back at the mansion Joseph shows up to weigh in on the debate. He thinks that they are seeking to punish Xavier for something he did not do. Val doesn’t recognize Joseph. Quicksilver also chimes in with his opinion. Xavier shows up to quell the debate and agrees to turn himself over to learn more about the threat he represents. Joseph feels guilty because once again he is to be left blameless, but Xavier insists that it is a second chance for him. He gives a speech thanking the X-Men for their loyalty and patience, but says he owes it to the perished heroes to do what he feels is best. Back at Archangel’s loft, Psylocke finds it empty. When she searches for Warren, all she finds are feathers.

How It Was: Well after the X-Men got their crossover stolen from them by the other Marvel Heroes, it left them without much of a direction to go in. Plus afterwards, Scott Lobdell was once again left with two monthly X-Men titles to fill. He goes the understandable route of having the books basically make up one bi-weekly story in individual increments. Fair enough. This issue is spent dealing with what should happen to Professor X after Onslaught. This is a fair question and Lobdell uses all the characters to cover just about every possible side of the debate. While there are different factors to consider, it basically boils down to the potential threat of Xavier versus how he was not purposefully responsible for the creation of Onslaught. Of course this means that once again we have an issue that is light on action. That’s okay, since Onslaught took forever, but Andy Kubert does feel the necessity to throw in some overwrought action poses of the X-Men acting hostile towards Val Cooper.

The Beast stuff is okay; it’s nice that Lobdell is still following up on his long captivity; it’s just that his relationship with Trish never really goes anywhere. It is yet another example of an X-Men subplot that seemed better in hindsight but never really developed. The sequences with Jameson and Bastion are just plain weird; I still can’t understand what he’s doing in this series, especially since Cannonball and Iceman are getting ready to go undercover. That seems redundant as far as looking through Creed’s dirty laundry goes.

Val Cooper carries the issue as the realist who hates what she’s doing but knows that it’s the right thing. Her use of the news allows a nice glimpse of the effects of Onslaught, and it’s cool to see her stand her own against the likes of Wolverine. It’s a shame that Kubert drew her hair wrong and it had to be covered up with a dialogue balloon about the summer frizzes, but oh well. Xavier also shines in this issue with his speech at the end; it’s nice to see him jump at the chance to have purpose again after losing his powers. I don’t really understand the point of deleting all his files, maybe something Lobdell was going to build on? But it’s nice to see one last issue show how important Professor X is to the X-Men before he’s shipped out of the book.

B