kurt-wagner-official

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #115: XF issues 30-32

Bobby is training the kids with mutant volleyball on the deck of Ship, until Scott and Jean come out, almost get hit with a bomb, and go off on Bobby for being irresponsible, even though he's been by far the most helpful caretaker for the kids recently. Scott and Jean head out on a baby finding mission- I thought they said the whole team was gonna go and take Ship? maybe I misread it- and Bobby takes Hank out for a night off. He gets overwhelmed and goes for a walk across the rooftops, where he sees Infectia transform a cop. Meanwhile, Scott and Jean head to find Freedom Force, the last to see Maddie alive, to find a lead on the baby. They discuss Alex's death. I was wondering why it didn't come up before now; I should have trusted Simonson, who writes Scott as having the same numbness he felt when he thought Jean died in the arctic long ago. Wife-grief and baby-grief have broken through his defenses, and if he lets one more grief through it'll finish him off. Back in New York, Infectia sends her new minion after Bobby and then runs to him, playing damsel in distress. He saves her when the minion explodes like her last ones did, and though Hank tries to tell Bobby what he saw, Bobby ignores him to talk to reporters. Cut again to Warren searching his old company's records for info on Candy's disappearance. No updates on that yet, Simonson just wants to keep the plot thread going, which I appreciate since Claremont would probably drop it for 5 issues at a time. Scott and Jean find Freedom Force, who threaten to arrest them for not registering. Bobby takes Infectia back to Ship, where Hank runs off in a huff and Bobby starts flirting.

Hank can't explain what he saw, but he knows Infectia is dangerous, so he convinces the kids to keep her away from Bobby, which Tabitha is happy to do cause she's into him. What follows is a series of looney tunes attempts by Bobby to kiss a woman that keep getting interrupted by bombs, earthquakes, fireballs, forcefields, and dinosaurs (those are Artie's illusions). Meanwhile, Freedom Force doesn't know how to have a conversation, so they start fighting Scott and Jean, who hold their own while continuing to interrogate them. Destiny finally answers them in a very cryptic way; Maddy didn't know where their son was, but she can see him imprisoned somewhere. She says his destiny lies in New York, so back they go. Now time for the issue to jump to Nebraska for one page, where an assassin kills the parents of a young child. Then cut again to a room full of shadowy figures talking about how Warren is getting closer and closer to them. And finally back to the main plot, where Infectia takes Bobby back to her apartment, frustrated by her failure to kiss and transform him. She straps him up to a power dampener and prepares to actually do it, but is interrupted again by Hank, who dives in the way and takes the kiss. The energy feedback destroys the power dampener as Hank, suddenly covered in blue fur, collapses. This is what happens when you kiss girls Bobby. Stop trying it. I do really like the way Simonson writes, but the constant jumps between plotlines gives me whiplash when I'm trying to summarize it. Nothing much going on in these issues character wise, just people following through on the plots from the last downtime issue.

The villains of this one are the aliens Xartans, shapeshifters who fought Thor one time and have since copied the form and powers of the Avengers. They're preparing some invasion plot when they see Ship in the upper atmosphere and attack. Scott and Jean have returned to find Hank in a coma. Scott is starting to crack again; every time he's gone to save someone in this book, he's failed and then come back to find someone else in grave danger. When the fake Avengers attack, along with another Xartan who turns into a giant monster immune to X-Factor's powers, the kids convince Ship to let them go help, and they turn the tide back to our heroes. That's most of the issue, another battle focused one. At the end, the kids are celebrating their success, but the adults worry that they're raising child soldiers like Xavier did with them. They decide the best thing for the kids is to send them to a human boarding school for a while. In the teaser, the head of the mysterious figures who were worried about Warren contacts N'astirh, a Limbo demon, and makes a deal: he'll deliver mutant babies for a sacrifice, and N'astirh will give him the power to survive Warren's wrath. This was kinda a generic issue; I feel like half the Marvel books I've read have done "evil imposter Avengers" stories. But the action was serviceable and Simonson is currently writing like 4 books and planning Inferno, so she's allowed to take it easy every once in a while.

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #114: WLV issues 1-3

That's short for Wolverine, because Logan is getting his own ongoing solo series! Around this time, he actually starts starring in Marvel Comics Presents and this book at the same time, but the new rule I'm implementing for this blog is that I will only read one Wolverine solo book at a time, including minis. This will also apply to Cable when he shows up. I do love Logan, but with every X-book I read, my favorite parts are the ways the characters play off each other and act as foils for their teammates. I'll keep an open mind going into this book, though, because I know a lot of people love it and there's some classic stories. The first issue opens with a pilot named Lee Kwan Pen being beat up by pirates on an island in Indonesia. The pirates raid passing boats, steal the money, kill the men, and abuse the women. Logan has stumbled on them when he was tracking a passenger plane that disappeared, actually having made an emergency landing here. He moves silently through their camp, killing pirates as he finds them, to get to his target, a passenger on the plane who's been taken hostage. His name is Kojima Noburu, Mariko's secretary, but when he finds him, he's confronted by dozens of pirates. He kills the whole crew, except the captain, Banapur, who takes a woman hostage and flees on a boat. But one of the other women, a stewardess on the plane, has snuck aboard and shoots him, turning the boat back around. Logan goes back to Kojima, who, in his dying moments, tells him these pirates were hired by the Cult of the Black Blade, who are seeking the sword, forged by Muramasa. Cut to a few days later, when Lindsay McCabe arrives in Madripoor, hunted by the cult and followed by Logan. She was Jessica Drew's roommate, and met Logan in San Francisco, so he's being sneaky so she doesn't recognize him by wearing an eyepatch, which is a good enough disguise for her. He saves her from an attack and learns Jessica is the courier for some magic talisman Kojima warned Logan about, and she's walking into a trap.

Logan and Lindsay go to where Jessica was sent to meet Kojima, where they now know the cult was waiting. Logan finds the Silver Samurai, who's also unable to recognize him through the eyepatch, and they start to fight but are interrupted by Jessica, who shows up talking like a ninja and beats up the Samurai. He says that the sword she has is the Black Blade, and it's possessed her and given her powers. She flees the bar, pursued by Logan, while Lindsay takes the Samurai's sword and almost kills him before sparing him. This earns his respect, and they set off together to find Logan and Jessica so she can get her friend and he can get the sword. They arrive too late, however; Logan has taken the sword from Jessica, hoping to save her, but it's possessed him.

Most of this issue is focused on Silver Samurai and Lindsay. They see Logan- I mean, Patch- declare that he's gonna sacrifice Jessica to the sword and then disappear. They spend a while making their way through the Madripoor underworld tracking down the cult. It's fine stuff, but Lindsay is not the character I'm here to blog about. Eventually they catch up, and fight Logan for the sword to save Jessica. Eventually, his will overcomes the blade, and he throws it away. The Silver Samurai picks it up, but it doesn't possess him, because he's the true fated master of the blade. Logan wishes his old enemy well and leaves with Jessica and Lindsay.

This arc was okay. I did really like the first issue, because as I've said I'm a sucker for stories where Logan's running around hunting people and monologuing. But as much as he loves them, I don't think samurai stories are Claremont's strength; the first Logan mini and the wedding story were great but every time he's gone back to the genre the well has seemed a little drier. This was basically the same plot as the Kitty/Logan mini, which was good not because of the kinda bland plot but because of the relationship between those characters, which we don't get here. I do really like Logan's disguise though, that was hilarious, and Lindsay was pretty fun. It was a fine start to the book, but not my cup of tea. I'm glad it exists for people who do like this flavor of Logan though.

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #113: UXM issues 230-231

Finally, we get to slow down and see Ororo rejoicing in her powers as she flies over Australia. Down below, Maddie is regaining her own agency in a nice parallel as she explores the Reavers' sophisticated computers. She's getting the hang of it and is proud to finally have a way to contribute to the X-Men, although tragically it comes much to late to heal the X-Men-related rift between her and Scott. Using the computers, she guides the X-Men through a sparring session, which goes very well. The team has finally learned to trust each other, and with Ororo back, they finally have a good leader (no offense Logan, but that is not your strong suit). One X-Man didn't show up though- Longshot's psychometry powers are drawing him to the Reavers' vault of stolen money and treasure. Some of the stolen objects have absorbed the psychic energy of their own violent history and have manifested as lonely spirits, which overwhelm Longshot and render him comatose. While he sleeps off the mental overload, Ororo cleans their base of operations, which is under a ghost town, and Anna brings a picnic basket of food to Gateway. It's a nice beat for her; other than maybe Logan, she's the loneliest X-Man, and unlike him, she's not content to wallow in loneliness, so it makes sense that she'd reach out. Longshot wakes up and tells everyone how much residual tragedy the Reavers left in their wake, and they decide to fix as much as they can by returning all of the treasure. After Longshot and Betsy have read and sorted every piece of loot, Gateway sends the X-Men all around the world returning the items in secret. Ororo's errands bring her to New York, where she sees the New Mutants miserable in a snowstorm mourning their mentors who abandoned them. Ororo gives their spirits a little boost by clearing up the weather enough for them to keep caroling. When the deliveries are finally done, the X-Men realize that, by coincidence or fate, they delivered all that stuff on Christmas Eve. As everyone relaxes and enjoys the good feeling, Anna takes some cake and a wooden recorder to Gateway as a Christmas present. He still doesn't say anything, but he motions for her to sit with him and plays her a song. This was my favorite issue in a while, and one of the sweetest ones. It was cool to see Longshot center stage in a dramatic role, and he was probably the one who got the most catharsis out of helping lost spirits. And the whole team got a reminder that no matter how dark their world has become, they don't have to stay edgy; they can spread joy just as well as justice. And Anna and Gateway is such a sweet friendship. This is the kind of one-off story Claremont was writing at his peek, and even though he's gotten a little too excited about plots and X-mythology lately, he can still write some really lovely character moments and a totally sappy Christmas story.

We open with a short scene of Illyana, dressed in fancy clothes and in a trance, being prepared to be eaten by a mysterious villain. Elsewhere and else when, Peter is letting off some steam by smashing Australian rocks. He's still unable to revert to human form, and he doesn't realize just how hot his steel skin gets in the sun until he picks up his sketchbook and it catches fire. He starts sobbing, until Ororo comes to cool him down literally and emotionally. He tells her how worried about his sister he's been, and how he can't concentrate enough to control his strength. Ororo doesn't think it's a good idea for him to break their cover with a visit, but the choice is taken out of her hands when Gateway offers Peter a portal. It turns out he sensed Illyana casting a necromancy spell from Limbo, trying to bring Peter to life, so he sends Peter there. He finds her battling S'ym for control of Limbo. Between the T/O virus from Magus and the army of rebel demons and enslaved Right members Illyana sent him, S'ym is approaching Illyana in power, and seeks to dethrone her. Peter attacks him, impervious to both his T/O and magic powers, but Illyana calls him back; this isn't why she brought him here. Earlier today, she was reading some Russian literature when some of the characters appeared in real life and kidnapped her to bring her before Baba Yaga, the Russian witch that eats kids. Illyana escaped, but Baba Yaga has cut off the mansion from magic, so she needed Peter to go save her team. He does so, beating up evil witch minions and destroying things left and right. To reach the kids, he has to use all his will to return to human form and squeeze through a gap, before reverting back to destroy Baba Yaga, whose weakness is metal. Illyana cures her friends of the precooking spells on them, and Peter compliments her on a good plan well executed. She says she doesn't deserve that, because she's evil and she only did this because she wanted to, and he tells her that's all good people ever do. She thanks him and releases him as Gateway takes him back. She thinks about resurrecting him again, but thinks about what he said and decides not to, knowing such a spell could corrupt her into Darkchilde forever. She goes back to the mansion, and S'ym monologues evilly about how Baba Yaga was one of his minions, sent to either kill or corrupt Illyana. It didn't work, but he'll only need to succeed once to take over Limbo. I liked this issue. It made me realize something; Ororo, in her attempt to become the leader and hero mutantkind needs, has placed herself above human emotion. She still loves and cares as deeply as ever, but it's a little aloof and detached, like a guardian angel rather than a mother. And of course, Logan has always separated himself from his emotions. But Peter refuses to feel any less deeply and humanly, despite being cut off from his human form. If the X-Men followed his lead- if they didn't cut themselves off from the New Mutants and X-Factor- Inferno would have been prevented. But of course, they don't know what's coming, and trying to live outside of the world has made them all the more blind to it.

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #112: UXM 228-229

The framing story for this issue is a letter Ali wrote to her friend O.Z. (maybe he was in her solo series? idk maybe I'll read that someday) back when the X-Men were in San Francisco. She talks about how Logan pushes her and is never satisfied, which pisses her off because a) she never wanted to be a superhero and b) she already was a solo hero. She doesn't see that those are the two reasons Logan does push her so much; he needs to know that her heart's in it and she can work with the team. When she sees a newspaper article that O.Z. is apparently now a werewolf murderer who was arrested in Florida she hops on a plane, refusing any help from her team. Logan follows her anyway, and as soon as the flight lands he finds someone mysterious tailing them. They search for clues and find O.Z.'s dog Cerberus hiding in his impounded truck. They then go break O.Z. out of jail when some assassins show up to kill him. He explains that he was chasing some drug dealer (he's a bounty hunter) with his dog, but the guy had some mutant bodyguard who took him down. The police arrested him and all the bite marks on the drug people from the dog made everyone think O.Z. was a werewolf, which seems like a stretch. Anyway, Logan says he recognizes the description of this mutant bodyguard and he's a Soviet spy, just before Henry Peter Gyrich shows up. He offers to drop charges against all three of them if Logan finds the Russian, who was an undercover agent working for Gyrich until he went rogue. The trio tracks him down, but in the battle Cerberus kills him. Gyrich gets mad but doesn't do anything, and everyone just leaves. We flash to the present to learn that this whole story was actually O.Z.'s flashback as he read Ali's letter in a bar and watched the news report the X-Men's death. This was a weird issue. The timeline and framing were unnecessarily confusing; I think Claremont wanted to do this story earlier but was prevented by the event schedule for Fall of the Mutants. Ali's arc in the book has been about accepting the team as her family, so this story flashes back to the middle of her personal journey, which is a little jarring and makes it fall a little flat. Also, the emotional core of the story only works if you read her solo series, but to be fair I can't blame Claremont for me not having read it. And if he was gonna do this flashback, it shouldn't have been the first issue post Fall, especially with how rushed the ending of the last issue was. That was a lot of complaints; I did like parts of this issue, especially the dynamic between Logan and Ali. The push and pull between them highlights both Logan's strengths and weaknesses as a leader. He understands what Ali needs and what the team needs from her, but he can't get that point across to her without pissing her off. It's why he makes a much better lieutenant than leader.

Our next issue opens in Singapore with an introduction for the book's newest villains, the Reavers. They're a gang of cyborgs who rob a bank and murder a whole buncha people. Claremont has shifted focus a few times in the last few years from one enemy group to another, and it's been an interesting progression. For a while, our biggest villains were Freedom Force, then the Marauders, and now the Reavers. We went from a government run team to a gang of psychos that were still following specific orders with loftier goals in mind and now to the Reavers, who have no greater purpose and just run around hedonistically stealing and murdering. The X-Men's world has been getting darker and more chaotic and their enemies reflect that. The Reavers are based in the Australian outback, where they've enslaved an aboriginal mutant named Gateway who creates portals and never talks. He sends them wherever they want on the planet, and in return they don't destroy his homeland and attack his people. They have a big violent party to celebrate all their new money, and begin to convert a woman they kidnapped into a Reaver by wiping her memory and giving her cyborg parts. But just then, the X-Men show up out of nowhere and attack. Seeing another person having their memory wiped and body tampered with sends Longshot into a rage we've never seen from him, throwing knives into people's eyes. The team, with Ororo back in full power and Peter in a new costume, which is just a speedo, make quick work of the Reavers, although a few escape. Logan and Anna want to execute the rest, but Roma shows up again to give the X-Men another gift- the Siege Perilous, an object that can rewrite someone's life to make them a whole new person. They offer the Reavers a choice between a rebirth or death, and they all choose to enter the Siege Perilous. Roma also fulfills their next request, to send the Reavers' prisoner (I still haven't learned her name) home. Roma tells them that if they ever want a happy ending, the Siege will give them one, and for as long as they choose this life, they'll be undetectable by cameras or magic, to help them keep being ghosts. And then she's gone, leaving the X-Men to their new home. This issue was... okay. I love the outback era, although unlike a lot of people I don't think it's near the best part of the Claremont run, but I don't love the way it starts. After a flashback issue, I was hoping this one would dive into the characters' thoughts on their death and rebirth as phantoms, and on Ororo and Peter's recent reclamations of their powers, but there was a short time jump and almost no inner monologuing. I do like the Reavers, but not as much as the Marauders, so I wish we could have held them off till after Inferno. But it was a solid establishing of the new status quo from an enemy's perspective; the X-Men show up out of nowhere and vanish as quickly as they came, leaving only the whispers of the victims they saved as proof of anything happening. It's very cool and myth-like without losing the ragtag feel of the post-Massacre stories.

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #111: XF issues 27-29 and XF Annual issue 3

Happy endings never last long, something X-Factor will be soon reminded of. But at the start of this issue, everything seems to be fine. The battle with Apocalypse happened right before Christmas, and to celebrate both the holiday and their new level of celebrity, X-Factor take their students to the top of the Empire State building, where Bobby replaces the spire with a festive ice sculpture. The kids then introduce themselves to the gathered reporters, and Rusty still has a mask on, which makes me realize that the woman he burned who then forgave him and ran off to teach the Morlocks about Jesus (I wonder how that's going?) never dropped the charges against him, so he's just gonna be a fugitive forever. Warren watches from a distance, talking about how Christmas is for idiot idealists and they live in a world of monsters, which is one of my new favorite edgy monologues. They then take the kids to downtown New York to look at decorations, and Scott sees the news from Dallas- including Madelyne's goodbye message to him. One issue after he finally moved on, he learns his wife wasn't dead, but now she is, along with his brother and half of his best friends, and his son is also not dead but just missing somewhere. He tells Jean he needs some alone time and runs off. Jean, heartbroken at the death of her friends who didn't even know she was alive, takes comfort in Bobby, who automatically assumes this is some fakeout superhero death and they'll be back soon. She also takes off to have some alone time, deciding privately that she'll offer to help find Scott's son. It makes her realize how much her parents must be hurting this Christmas, so she finally goes to visit them. They talk for a few hours off panel, and she promises that she'll find her sister, who's been missing since her house was firebombed. This leaves Bobby as the responsible adult taking care of the kids and Hank, who's regressed to an adolescent state of cognition. He takes the group back to their ship, where some of their new cop friends have brought them a Christmas tree and a whole buncha people have donated gifts to the kids. Leech suggests they bring most of the gifts to the kids in the hospital, and other than Tabitha, they all think it's a great idea. Not wanting to wake their exhausted teachers, they sneak out with the presents, but Jean comes back, finds they're gone, and chases after them with Bobby and Hank. They catch up and, proud of their students' kindness, help them transport everything. They have a little Christmas party in the children's ward until Scott arrives and tells Jean that he's leaving tonight to go hunt for his son. Far away, Apocalypse tells his Horsemen that the ship is actually an evil Christmas present that'll have evil surprises for X-Factor. This was a sweet issue. I think seeing the X-Men die made Jean finally come to accept her own "death" and how much it's been making her live in fear. Reuniting with her parents was a big moment for her, and I'm glad she's finally allowing herself to embrace living without constant fear of losing it all again. Also, field trip chaperone Bobby is one of my favorite Bobbys. Poor Scott still can't catch a break, but he will soon before his life turns to shit again. I do like that Simonson has been writing him trying to open up, but he still refuses any help from his friends on this next mission. It shows that growth is never linear, especially for someone as traumatized as Scott.

Scott takes off to the airport, leaving Jean and Bobby the only functional team members when Apocalypse's revenge plan starts to make itself clear. The ship has a mind of its own, and starts changing shape and attacking both our heroes and other boats in the harbor. Scott, sitting in the airport waiting for a flight to be scheduled to Dallas, sees the news of what's happening and runs back. He arrives in time to save his team from a rocket launcher that the ship makes to attack them, but Jean is acting cold towards him, saying they need to learn to live without him. I really admire the way Simonson wrote this conflict, which is very in line with their characters. They built their relationship on the basis of Jean's telepathy. It gave Scott an excuse to not learn to communicate and made Jean believe she would always be able to understand Scott. But now that that's gone, they need to actually learn to understand each other, and neither one wants to admit that. Jean as a person is usually pretty confident that she's right, and she very often is, but when she's not she won't admit it and takes it pretty hard. Jean losing her telepathy was introduced by Layton to be a cheap source of drama and make things as similar as possible to early sixties comics, but Simonson turned it into a great allegory for how these people have changed since high school without their relationships changing too, and now they can't figure out how to connect. Anyway, back to the book. Across town, Warren goes to find Candy and discovers she's missing, the only clues being a poison dart on her carpet and a letter from Trish Tilby. Meanwhile, the kids are in the run inside the ship until they find its brain, which has been enslaved by Apocalypse. They free it, and the ship thanks them and stops fighting. But then it says Apocalypse planted a bomb, which X-Factor defuses just in time. Scott and Jean both apologize and explain where their heads are at, taking an important step towards actually healing their relationship, although they're still lost as to what to do next. But they now have a sentient flying ship on their side, so things are looking up a little.

In issue 29, we're introduced to the new villain Infectia, who made a teaser appearance on the last page of the previous issue. She can give humans superpowers, but the first one we see her do it to burns out his power and disintegrates pretty quickly. Across town, reporters have come to ask about the ship and the bomb that almost blew up the city. Bobby takes point on this press conference, which is nice to see and a good use of his talents. He, and the ship itself, assure the reporters that X-Factor will soon be taking to the sky in order to attract less violence to the city and to be better prepared to respond to crises anywhere else. Infectia sees this on the news in a bar and gets upset, wanting the ship for her own mysterious purposes. A sleazy guy says he'd do anything to help her, so she takes him back to her apartment and zaps him to turn him into a powerful monster. Inside the ship, Scott storms away from the press conference to have a breakdown, and Jean follows him and tells him directly that she and the rest of the team will be taking the ship to go find Scott's son with him. This is actually a huge step forward for them. Jean is pretty rarely this honest and up front with Scott, because she never had to be when she could talk to his brain. And Scott needs that kind of clear communication because he can only see the worst when he tries to read between the lines. Of course, the moment is ruined when the news replays Maddie's message to Scott and Jean yells that she's a hypocrite for not contacting Scott before this. I've been on Jean's side for most of this book, but now she's hurling petty insults at Maddie out of jealousy, so fuck you Jean. Bobby walks into the middle of this lovely scene from his press conference and makes a joke about their lover's quarrel. Bobby is becoming my favorite character in this book, which I did not expect before I started. I've read a lot of the big arcs in this book before but never in order and never with all the filler issues. And Bobby's arc is the most subtle; you can't see it in the big moments, but when you read the whole thing you see him slowly become the only chill rational adult in the soapiest X-book. Just then, Infectia shows up with a whole lotta monster minions, which she throws at the ship. Up on a nearby rooftop, Hank and Trish Tilby were having a conversation, their first in a while. It's interrupted by Warren, who learns from Trish that Candy was her informant on Hodge and the Right until she stopped calling. Warren flies off to go find Hodge, even though Trish tells him he died in a plane crash (which we saw in New Mutants but Warren doesn't believe). Back to the fight on the ship, Jean's inner monologue lines up exactly with what I was saying earlier about her and Scott's relationship, which makes me feel very good about my own literary analysis skills. Our heroes beat up all the monsters and Jean and Scott embrace. I know Jean cares about Scott, but this whole issue, including their reunion conversation here, she's been bashing Maddie and calling her selfish for not tracking down Scott. I really don't like the presentation of Maddie as Scott's crazy ex. They had a deeper and more real connection than Scott and Jean ever really did, and the breakup was almost entirely on Scott. But I am glad Jean isn't holding it against Scott's son. To wrap up this issue, Infectia watches from afar and schemes about how she's gonna use Bobby to steal the ship. This has been a great run, proving that Simonson can keep up the momentum the book has had lately even in the aftermath of a big event.

This annual is part of the Evolutionary War, an event that happened when Marvel realized they could turn all theirs annuals into crossover issues to sell a bunch of copies without the scheduling headaches that come with crossovers in ongoings. But the event doesn't interrupt the plots of the main books and each issue is pretty standalone so it's pretty inoffensive. It's about the High Evolutionary and some big plan he has to... I don't know, evolve the Earth? I've never been super clear on his motivations. Anyway, it affects X-Factor when his minions are exterminating the subterrestrial creatures that live with Mole Man and one of them lets out a psychic scream that both Jean and Caliban feel. One of the subterraneans is a mutant with psychic powers, and he's rallying his people to fight back. X-Factor goes to investigate and is attacked by the frightened and confused creatures. Meanwhile, alerted by Caliban, Apocalypse goes to confront the High Evolutionary. Apocalypse doesn't like people who force evolution, preferring to nurture it and fan the flames of war, so he and the Evolutionary start fighting. They have some philosophical debate which is fun but kinda nonsense because they're both insane. There is kinda an interesting dichotomy; Apocalypse sees himself as a force of nature motivating change, like a classical god. The High Evolutionary wants to be an Abrahamic God, in complete control and using his own judgement to change the world. Eventually they teleport down to see the subterraneans and are surprised to see X-Factor has made contact with the psychic subterranean, who's rallying his people against the would be exterminators. Apocalypse laughs at the Evolutionary, saying that by trying to control evolution he's actually pushed it forward the way Apocalypse likes. The Evolutionary leaves in a ponderous mood and the psychic guy thanks X-Factor. It was an okay story. It was nice to see Apocalypse's philosophy a little more fleshed out. I don't get what happened with the subterraeans? Anyway, after I finished there were still like 20 pages and lo and behold, there's another story in this annual! It's about the kids. Or so I thought when I started reading it. They're just hanging out on the ship when they find Hank's old photo album and narrate the history of the original X-Men for each other. It's a cute little story. I know these recaps used to be important before the internet, but I know all this stuff so I'm not getting much out of it. Then there's one more backup story that's some Evolutionary War thing that appears in all the annuals, which I'm not reading. And we're done!

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #110: NM issues 65-66

The other kids, and especially Max, are unconvinced that Forge deserves to die. Illyana ports off to Scotland, hoping her beloved Kitty will agree with her, but she doesn't, leaving Illyana more hurt and angry than before. But when she returns to the mansion, the other kids jump on her before she can port again, and they all find themselves in Limbo. It's worse than ever before, reflecting Illyana's hatred and rage. The team decides to go with Illyana to protect her; none of them are convinced she's right, but the most important thing to all of them is staying together right now. Illyana takes the soulsword from its place in Limbo and ports the team to Forge. In the absence of both Illyana and the sword, S'ym plots some evil plans, while on Earth, Destiny has foreseen this attack and has brought Freedom Force to protect Forge. There's a big fight that lasts most of the issue. It's not bad action, and I suppose the book needed it after a few months of sad conversations, but it's not terribly interesting to me. There are some good moments, like when Rahne leaps into danger to protect Illyana and when Sam knocks Illyana down to stop her from getting to Forge. Eventually, Dani projects Destiny's greatest fear- an invasion of demons that she says will stem from Illyana's actions this issue, unless the other New Mutants heed her warnings. Illyana isn't fazed, motivated by nothing but hatred, and she grabs Forge and prepares to strike him down.

I don't think I've mentioned Bret Blevins, the penciller who's been working with Simonson. He's not my favorite or least favorite, although he does draw a truly terrifying angry Illyana. I mention him because the layouts are different this issue, big and blocky instead of the organic panels he usually uses. I don't know why. It doesn't look bad, just a little jarring, like suddenly I'm reading something from the 2000s. Anyway, the New Mutants try to stop the battle between the two sorcerers unsuccessfully. Forge has the upper hand on Earth, so Illyana drags them all to Limbo, where she reigns supreme. The land comes alive and traps the New Mutants while Illyana and Forge battle. Forge tells Illyana she's what he was like at her age; how through magic, they should both have had foresight, but got drunk on their own power. Forge summoned the Adversary in the first place, and Illyana took Peter to Dallas. Forge is tired of other people suffering for mistakes he didn't think through, so he lets Illyana stab him, disrupting his magic. But before she can kill him, Dani shows her her own fear- herself as a full demon. It shakes Illyana out of her rage, and despite the demons of Limbo encouraging her to finish her enemy, she instead saves her friends from the vines that are suffocating them. Rahne begs her not to lose her own soul, and Illyana throws Forge back to Dallas and takes her friends home. She tells them she's too dangerous to stay on Earth, but can't go back to Limbo full time. Cut to space for a teaser; an spider alien named...Spyder...is telling her minion Gosamyr that she's gonna go kidnap and enslave Lila Cheney.

After a few issues for character stuff, this was a solid two parter that continued those themes while having the action a superhero book is technically supposed to have, pushing the plot forward and setting up Inferno. I have mixed feelings about Forge, because I know he didn't want any of this but it is pretty much all his fault. Rahne's love for Illyana, born out of the fear she used to have of her, is very sweet and will be crucial in saving the world soon. I'm glad Inferno is being set up slowly, but honestly this story had a little to much Illyana focus for me. In X-Factor, the big Right and Apocalypse stories were centered on Warren, but the ensemble felt very balanced. Maybe it's because the cast was smaller in that book, but Illyana always feels like she's hogging the page rather than sharing it while moving the plot. Oh well. It's good stuff, and I do love Illyana, so I'm not too upset about it.

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #109: NM issues 62-64

Before we get into the full fallout that the Fall had on the kids, they get a letter from Amara and the story jumps to her. The Hellions kinda hate her still, ganging up on her in training sessions and calling her a mutie, which is an interesting touch. The Hellfire Club has always been a stand-in for minority capitalists who sell out their community for a chance to move up in the world. And despite their new alliance with Max, that philosophy isn't far from the surface, and it's clearly bleeding onto their students. In a truly creepy twist, Empath is the one who hates Amara the least, and he's reluctant to use his full powers on Amara. Her mental training under Xavier is strong enough to repel his half-hearted attempts, and Emma isn't sure what would happen if he used his full power on her. Amara's father sends her another letter asking her to come home, and Emma tells Empath he's going with her to brainwash Amara's father into being a Hellfire ally. So the two of them head off unsupervised for a private plane. As they approach Nova Roma, they pass through a storm and the plane is damaged. The pilot is killed in the resulting crash and Amara is knocked unconscious, but Empath pulls her from the wreckage and they spend the night in the jungle. Part of Empath's attraction to Amara was her aristocrat background, which he can relate to, but the differences between them become more apparent as Amara enters her element, having spent a while before her intro to the book living in the rainforest. She forages and hunts for food, and we get some time to get to know Empath. He can never fully turn his powers off; even when he's not controlling anyone, he can feel all of the emotions around him. He can tell that Amara doesn't really want to make it to Nova Roma because she'll be married off. He tries to do one nice thing in his life by going to pick a flower for her, but he's attacked by a panther and has to be saved by Amara. This freaks him out enough that he tries to force his fear on Amara to get her to make an earthquake to signal for help. She aggressively kisses him while making the ground shake, and neither of them knows who's emotions were who's. The signal works, though, and they're saved by Amara's father. She introduces Empath as her friend and the issue ends. This was so creepy. Amara joining the Hellions was such a good story idea, and I hate that Simonson is focusing so much on her relationship with Empath rather than all the other Hellions. How do they feel about Doug's death? This could have been a great issue to explore that, but they don't find out about it. Also, I'm just not interested in feeling sympathetic for Empath. Ugh.

This one is an Illyana issue, focused on a dream she's having. In her dream, she's having totally platonic tickle fights with Kitty, who accidentally phases them down into Peter's room. He's scandalized, and they fly back up to their room. She starts talking about her magic armor, and the first time she met Warlock, and suddenly that's where the dream is. In this version of events, Warlock infects her arm, so she cuts it off with her soulsword and wakes up back in her room. But then the X-Men burst into the the room- the X-Men as they were before Illyana was aged up. Kitty says she doesn't recognize her, and the X-Men lock her up. She tries to teleport out, but her powers aren't working. The X-Men show up and start attacking her, but they don't seem to be in control of their own powers either. Lockheed shows up and grabs Illyana and flies off, apparently the only one who remembers her. He takes her to a weird building filled with advanced technology, and she starts wandering through it. Eventually, she finds a window and discovers she's on a spaceship high above the Earth. She's attacked by a Brood with Max's voice, and tries to fight it off with an alien gun until her powers suddenly start working and she ports to Limbo. She ports back and finds Lockheed and the Brood have vanished. She puts on alien armor and is attacked by the X-Men. She runs off and finds Lockheed, about to be infused with a queen egg, imprisoned by the Brood!Max, who tells her these X-Men are clones who think he is Xavier. Suddenly the Brood!Max is also Forge, and the X-Men burst in and attack him. They kill the composite villain, and Illyana takes them to Limbo, where she suddenly has the power to destroy the eggs in them. She puts them back on the ship, where they sail off into space and Illyana is suddenly back with Kitty. But then she wakes up from that and decides that, in this life, she'll destroy Forge, the monster that killed the X-Men. There's a whole lot going on here. For starters, even though it's still not explicit, this is the deepest we've dived into Illyana's feeling for Kitty. She's the one Illyana is telling about this, her closest confidant, but she's also the one who sells her out in the Brood part of the dream. But Lockheed is the one who stays beside her and saves her, a part of Kitty. Illyana's feeling for Kitty are very complicated; the way I read it, she's in love with her, but too emotionally stunted to understand that, plus all the guilt of having feelings for her brother's ex. But Lockheed, the silent, primal pet of Kitty, defends Illyana and stays loyal to her even when Kitty herself has left Illyana, in the dream as a Brood slave and in real life by getting injured. On the other side, I think Kitty has feelings for Illyana, but not as strong as the vice versa, and Kitty has plenty of other romantic options while Illyana is stuck pining after her. That's part of the abandonment, I think, and a complication on Illyana's feelings about Doug and Peter, her romantic rivals. I also read Illyana as asexual, which complicates things more for her, but that's my own personal interpretation and I won't claim it's central to the symbolism here. It does fit in well though; Illyana is alone except for Lockheed most of the dream, trapped in a world she doesn't understand with people who don't recognize her for who she is. I'm not sure what this part symbolizes, but I think it's very interesting that the one who started this whole sequence was Warlock, the only person Illyana knows who's more alien than her, and who a couple issues ago was the only one who made her feel like a normal person. He's also the only New Mutant in this issue, showing her disconnect from her own team.

(Now is the time for me to complain about the text block limit, although I guess I should be grateful that this issue is interesting enough for me to go over.) Illyana deeply wishes that things were different, and that she could go back in time and fix them, and in this world the X-Men that she saves are the ones she first met as a child and the ones she saw die growing up. It's heartbreaking. Also heartbreaking is the way her subconscious equates Max with the Brood as an imposter leading the X-Men to doom. Illyana is projecting her guilt and anger over the Fall onto Max, when in reality he was the father figure she needed, not Xavier. She's also projecting onto Forge, who does deserve it. But that's a story for later. Simonson knocked it out of the park with this issue, a symbolic solo character study on par with her Scott vs. Master Mold issue. There's probably a lot more to talk about here that I didn't pick up on, but for now I'll move on.

This issue takes place on the morning of Doug's wake. Rahne has been in the Danger Room all night, reliving the battle and finding all the different ways she could have saved Doug. Berto finds her and stops her. I think Rahne's desperation reminds Berto of when he failed to save his girlfriend in his first appearance, but Berto copes (or tries to) by pushing forward and projecting his issues onto new problems. But Rahne, Little Miss Christian Guilt, can't move on, and is stuck in that horrible moment finding new ways to blame herself. Illyana is too, watching news reports of the X-Men's deaths over and over and losing control and turning to Darkchilde. Sam tries to calm her down, but she ports off. All the New Mutants have experienced tragedy before, but Sam is the only one who's lost someone and had to keep going like normal. So right now, he's back in "man of the house" mode like he was after his father's death, trying to hold this family together single-handedly while not falling apart himself. Elsewhere, Dani and Warlock are watching a zombie movie, and Warlock starts to hope Doug could also come back to life. His hope is so strong Dani loses control of her powers and makes zombie Doug show up, but then it turns to Warlock's greatest fear as Doug blames Warlock and attacks. Dani hasn't lost control like this since her parents disappeared. I'm glad Simonson is willing to show her breaking down like this; I love the way Claremont wrote her as a girl trying to grow up too fast, but the truth is that she is still a kid and she can't always keep that up. At the funeral, Doug's mom, who was told Doug died in a hunting accident on a camping trip, breaks down in Max's arms while Rahne runs off sobbing. Sam tries to comfort her by talking about their own religious beliefs, and how Doug will be in heaven now. It's Warlock's first, very confusing experience with religion, and later that night he goes back to the church. He thinks Doug will be lonely in heaven, and wants to bring him back, so he tries to give some of his own energy to Doug's body. When it doesn't work, Warlock theorizes that Doug has forgotten how to use his body, so Warlock decides to puppet it around until he remembers. He first brings the body to Doug's house, but when his mom freaks out at the ghost in the window, Warlock gets confused and decides to take Doug to Rahne. She's horrified, as is the whole team, but once they realize what Warlock is doing they're just sad. They explain how the body is just a shell, and Doug won't really be trapped under the ground when he's buried. They bring the body back, and the next day attend the burial, where Warlock and Rahne say goodbye together. That night, Illyana tells the team what really happened to the X-Men- Forge killed them with a spell. They can't save Doug, but they can avenge their mentors. I loved this issue. Every character reacted to the tragedy differently, all of them in character and very affecting. A lot of writers trying to write aliens reacting to grief end up writing them like children, but Simonson nails Warlock's alien nature on the head with a sad and unsettling story. These past two issues have brought her New Mutants run up to the level of her phenomenal X-Factor run.

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

fall of x has really been bumming me out but then this trailer reminded me that Gail Fucking Simone is gonna be writing these 3 all in the same book for the first time ever so maybe it's all worth it

what if I started crying right now

[kurt-wagner-official]

what if I started crying right now

#x men 97

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #108: UXM issues 225-227

Finally, we've reached the flagship of the Fall storyline. We open with Peter, who's only recently been released from the hospital on Muir Island and is visiting Scotland. He's sitting near the site of the recent Juggernaut battle, drawing the X-Men while some local kids reenact the battle. Most of the kids are rooting for the X-Men, which lifts Peter's spirits a little, but there's one little asshole talking about how X-Factor are cooler (this is before the big identity reveal). Peter breaks up the fight and sends them all on their way, and is approached by a mysterious woman, who offers to read his palms in exchange for a sketch. He accepts, and after drawing a picture of her, she gives a scary accurate reading of his past. When he asks her how she knows, she vanishes, leaving behind a statue of Colossus and the sketch, which has transformed into a similar but clearly different face. Then, the asshole kid throws a firecracker at him, which startles him into transforming. The kids who liked the X-Men see and are terrified of the hero they were role-playing as just before. So basically these kids are performative liberals. The weird lady, meanwhile, has teleported back to her home, and place beyond dimensions where she lives as the Lady Roma, a goddess of order and life. She watches over a chess board covered in pieces that look like the X-Men and Freedom Force, which match the one she left Peter. The board is overturned by the sudden appearance of the Adversary, who tells her he's removed Ororo and Forge from the board and won the game. Back on Earth, a melancholy Peter wanders around outside the city, unable to change back to human form due to his injuries. He flirts with the idea of giving up, but can't bring himself to abandon a world that still needs the X-Men. This is, I think, what makes Peter unique amongst his friends; He doesn't do the job for the adventure, or the fulfillment, or even for the family, although he does love them. He had all of those things back in Russia. He does this because he can't bear to not save people as long as they need saving. He's only been able to walk for a couple hours, and already he's ready to go back to work, so he calls Illyana, who says she can scry for the team and bring him to them. The X-Men are in Dallas, searching Forge's home, Eagle Plaza, for clues to Ororo's location, when they're attacked by Freedom Force. Mystique came to save the X-Men, but before she can do anything a fight breaks out. Longshot is thrown by Spiral, who seems vaguely familiar and also really hates him. Peter arrives in the middle of the battle and joins right in. Anna, Betsy, and Ali are all KOed in the battle, but so is Mystique, and the remaining X-Men take her hostage and retreat into the building. As they enter, Destiny is overcome with horror. All timelines are ending, and the only thing she knows for sure is that at dawn, anyone in Eagle Plaza will die. As if on cue, a hole rips open in the sky above Dallas, covering the city in sinister light.

The teams are at an impasse. Mystique begs the X-Men to surrender and survive, but they refuse, while Freedom Force waits outside for them, too scared to enter. The building starts to collapse, and the X-Men are suddenly busy surviving that while their captive teammates wake up and continue the brawl. Elsewhere, Ororo and Forge wake up in a serene and peaceful landscape, and Forge tells her that the Adversary has imprisoned them in an alternate Earth of his own making. Back in Dallas, the X-Men and Freedom Force call a truce when time starts melting. The white hole in the sky is shining over the middle of the city, and everywhere it touches timelines are bleeding together, bringing things from the future and the past to cause chaos. Mostly dinosaurs, cause they're cool and artists like them. The two teams spread throughout the city to save lives. My favorite team-up is Longshot and Pyro. I really love Pyro and I don't think I've talked about it that much. He puts on a jackass front to fit in with the team but when he's not with them he's a pretty friendly guy, genuinely trying to save people and being chummy with Longshot while doing it. Claremont doesn't do much with him but eventually he gets a cool backstory and a great death. Reporters follow the mutants through the city, broadcasting their battles to the world that's still debating if they deserve to live. Back on other Earth, Ororo and Forge travel to Forge's mountain where he was battling the Adversary, and find it's been reduced to rubble. Forge tells her it was a dimensional nexus, and the Adversary wants it out of the picture for now. The only reason the two of them are still alive is that the Adversary thinks this is all a game, and he's constantly changing the rules to make it more challenging and fun. Forge tells Ororo that there's no way back, and that he still loves her, but she won't turn her back on the world they left, and goes off on her own. On the original Earth, the mutants continue fighting to save lives, while on Ororo's Earth, months have past, and she's somehow walked to Kenya? I really do not understand. Even without her powers, she felt connected to the world when she was there last time, but this time she feels nothing. This world is empty of all life energy save for hers and Forge. So she just. Walks back to him, and finds that in the year that has passed he's invented solar energy. They kiss and decide to work together to find their next step. On Earth, meanwhile, some of Forge's tribe have arrived in Dallas to help him and are immediately murdered by some racist Dallas natives. This was clearly intended as a parallel to how the mutants are fighting for people that hate them, but Jesus Christ it was so tone deaf. Destiny tells Peter that she never saw his presence here, and it offers a small hope for the future of the world, but not of the X-Men. Betsy scans his mind and is shocked to find that he met Roma, who she knows from her Captain Britain adventures. She tells the team that Roma is the guardian of the omniverse, and she must have sent Peter here to give them a chance. Peter says he's been feeling drawn to Eagle Plaza's penthouse since they arrived, so the mutants head inside to find the whole building has been timeshifted to the Vietnam War. In their own personal Earth, Ororo and Forge are rekindling their relationship, but she says she can't leave their old world behind. He tells her he's spent the last year coming up with a plan in case she said that. In Eagle Plaza, Logan sends Freedom Force outside, telling Mystique that someone needs to protect civilians and Freedom Force will have their trust. Even the racist reporters start to cry a little at how willing the X-Men are to die for them. Logan tells his team one more time that this is volunteer only, and all of them, including Maddy, stand with him. Anna and Mystique bid farewell, calling each other mom and daughter in their heads but keeping things professional on the outside.

(Continuing) In the other world, Forge tells Ororo that he's found a way to reverse his power cancelling machine, and with Ororo's lightning, she can activate his mystical portal back to Earth. He asks her one more time if she truly wants this, because they could also stay here and be happy, and though she loves him, she tells him she loves him for his heroism, so return they must. He zaps her, and she soars into the air once again. As a hurricane suddenly manifests over Dallas, the Adversary smiles at how worthy his enemies are and blows up Eagle Plaza.

The other two Fall stories climaxed in the double sized part 2 with the third as an epilogue, but this one still hasn't peaked. We start from the perspective of the one reporter still in Eagle Plaza, which although it blew up on the outside is still full of Vietnam on the inside. The Viet Cong are under attack not from Americans, but from demons, which the X-Men are fighting off. Maddy, unable to contribute, retreats into the jungle, where she sees a young Forge on a pile of bodies, casting a spell. He summoning demons to avenge his fallen comrades, but he reaches too close to the sun and brings forth the Adversary, consuming the souls of the fallen. In a moment of clarity from his blind rage, he calls in an air strike to try to clean up his mess, but the damage is done. In the present, Forge and Ororo find themselves in Roma's Starlight Citadel, where the Adversary holds Roma captive and delights in what he sees as a sure victory. He mashes the dimensions of Eagle Plaza and the Citadel together, and the X-Men see it appear above their heads. The Adversary has turned Ororo's newly returned powers against her, and is surrounding the Citadel with winds that the X-Men can't penetrate. Ali has an idea- throw Longshot into the wind like a kite and hope that his luck and hollow bones can lead the team through. Ali, by the way, is currently blind; Spiral did a spell on her before the truce and was unable to reverse it due to all the chaos energy. So this kind of trust really is a big deal for her. The plan works, and the X-Men ride the wave up to the Adversary. Since he's partially in the physical realm, he's kept Naze as his avatar- an avatar weak to metal and vulnerable to Anna's touch. This is why Roma chose Peter as the trump card; his attack is able to destroy Naze and leave the Adversary as a spirit. Anna, who absorbed some of his magic, opens a portal to cast him out, but is unable to seal him there. Forge says the only way is to recreate the original spell and consume nine souls- the X-Men and Maddy. Nobody protests, and Forge kisses Ororo goodbye while Maddy delivers a goodbye to Scott through the reporter still with them. He pulls the lifeforce from the heroes and merges it into a tiny star, which he throws at the Adversary, balancing his sins and returning Dallas to normal. He takes the reporter back to Earth, where he tells the story of the X-Men's sacrifice. Across the world, Kitty and Kurt, who has just now woken from his coma, watch the news in horror. Mystique calls Forge a murderer, to which he has no response. But up in the Starlight Citadel, Roma resurrects the X-Men, telling them they've saved reality and earned another chance. She says she can send them to any world and any life they want, including their own, but Logan and Ororo decide that this is the opportunity they were looking for to fake their own deaths and find the Marauders from the shadows, free of the Mutant Registration Act. The team agrees, and Roma accepts their request, sending them back to Earth secretly. This issue was a little disappointing, to be honest. Tying into the event meant there were only three issues, one double sized, for probably like 5 normal issues of story. The first two were very well paced but this one was pretty rushed. I wish Ororo getting her powers back was a bigger moment for her, I hate that such a huge part of her story was a one page excerpt in a huge event. And also at the end none of the X-Men got any page time to grapple with their sacrifice before they did it and got resurrected, and the decision to go back as undercover dead people and never see their families was just an instant agree from everyone. If this had been double sized I think it would have been perfect.

All that aside, it was a great story. Probably my least favorite of the three prongs of the Fall though. This one was a fantasy epic, and a fun, exciting one, but the new Mutants one had a lot of time for character moments that this one didn't. And somehow the X-Factor story did both perfectly. There's definitely a tragedy to the fact that the first time the X-Men's heroics were fully on camera for the world to see and root for, they died and went into hiding immediately after. Especially since their friends in X-Factor are finally embracing happiness and light. This story does set up an amazing status quo for the team, it's just a little heavy handed in getting there. It's nice to have Peter back in the book, I didn't realize how much his presence was missed. And Ororo has her powers back! Like I said, I wish we had seen more of how that moment affected her, but we'll see how she feels about the change over the next few issues. I'm also glad she and Forge were able to come to terms with their feelings for each other and set the animosity behind them. That said, I don't think their relationship should have continued beyond this story. Forge does love Ororo, and in an empty, peaceful world, they can be happy together, but he can't handle life with her in her own world, and I wish they had realized that here instead of down the line when they have a messy reunion and breakup. Nobody else really had anything new character wise, just more chances to prove to the world what we already know- that they're the greatest heroes on the planet.

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #107: NM issues 59-61

Fall of the Mutants part 2! This is the smallest scale one and the one with the most tragic consequences. The New Mutants and Bird-Brain arrive on his island, where they're confronted by a whole lotta animal people. Bird-Brain gives them the burgers he brought, and they all dig in. Their human master watches on his hidden cameras and acts really evil. A lot of villains have been doing that lately, they used to come right out and monologue. He places a call to Cameron Hodge, who he's allied with in some mysterious way, and tells him to stay away from the island while he deals with these mutants. The other Ani-Mates finish the burgers and get suspicious of these human looking creatures, since the only human they've ever seen is their tormentor. They attack them, including Bird-Brain, who they think is a traitor, but Rahne transforms and that makes them pause. Back at the mansion, Berto and Warlock finally return in the middle of the night and wake up Max. He's angry they ran away but overjoyed they're back. But when they go to wake up the others to tell them the good news, they find them missing. On the island, the Ani-Mator (that's the evil guy) decides to start the testing and blasts out some hypnosound on the island speakers that summons all his creations, including Bird-Brain. Our kids go with him to get to the Ani-Mator and stop him. The first phase is a maze filled with traps and monsters, who subdue our heroes and take them to the Ani-Mator. Now it's time for his evil monologue, which is some deranged nonsense about how he's God and his creations are Adam and Eve, and he sees the outside world as the apple that will ruin their purity. He decides that for not killing the outsiders, all of Bird-Brain's friends are ruined, and he must destroy them all and start fresh.

He sends the New Mutants off with some of his loyal creations for experimentation. When one of them attacks Doug for speaking, Rahen is overcome with rage and transforms, attacking before being subdued. She's overcome with guilt for giving in to her animal violence, thinking it makes her an evil thing no better than any monster. The Ani-Mator decides he's also going to destroy his current batch of baby Ani-Mates and start over after dissecting the New Mutants, and he orders his creations to start killing them. Helpless and terrified, the captive New Mutants hope Max will come save them. Max, meanwhile, has flown off to the Hellfire Club to use their Cerebro, and orders Berto and Warlock to stay put. That lasts until they find the maps their friends used to plot their course, and they leave a note and fly off. On the island, the Ani-Mator gets a call from Hodge and a backstory dump. He was a doctor thrown in jail for unethical experiments until the Right broke him out. They set him up on the island and tasked him with figuring out how to destroy mutation. But since he's unhinged, he's instead spent all the money they give him to mutate animals. He tells Hodge that he'll kill the intruder mutants as soon as he finds them, when really he wants to replicate their powers for his own slaves. Hodge suspects he's hiding something and heads for the island. The Ani-Mator tells the New Mutants that he'll use their DNA to create New Ani-Mates with powers that will serve him as slaves when he rules the world. Dani uses an illusion to scare the monsters into breaking the glass cages the heroes are in, and they start fighting. Illyana, finally able to use her powers again, ports back to the school, which is of course empty now. But she just thinks Max doesn't care about them and ports back angry. They turn the tide and beat the Ani-Mator, and Doug shuts down his computers so he can't escape or destroy the facility. But then Hodge and the Right show up. They tranq the mutants and start killing the Ani-Mates. The surviving Ani-Mates flee and hide, but Bird-Brain finds them and encourages them to stand up for themselves and fight. They rescue the mutants, whose tranqs have already worn off I guess, and start battling the Right. Berto and Warlock show up and turn the tide in the heroes' favor. The Ani-Mator, who the Right had also taken captive, escapes and grabs a gun, hoping for vengeance on the mutants who ruined his plans. He takes a shot at Rahne, but Doug tackles her out of the way. She tells him to stay safe and hidden and runs off to fight someone else, not realizing that Doug took the bullet. Doug lays in the middle of the chaos bleeding out while the heroes finish off the Right and the Ani-Mator moves on to attack Bird-Brain. Bird-Brain defeats his former master and takes his weird headpiece thing, declaring himself the new leader of the island. Everyone celebrates until they see Doug lying there on the beach, dead. Illyana wants to kill the Ani-Mator, but Rahne begs her to be better than him, so she tosses the Ani-Mator into Limbo to be food for the demons as a compromise while Sam tells the Ani-Mates that Doug died for their freedom. What was briefly a celebration of victory is now a moment of grief and loss.

Even in their pain, the mutants don't get to rest, as one of the smile-face Right soldiers wakes up and starts shooting. Warlock grabs everyone he can and shields them, terrified to lose another friend. Illyana starts tossing every one of the soldiers into Limbo to be corrupted and transformed by the demon horde, and as she does so her demonic side comes out and transforms her appearance. Dani talks her down, telling her that part of her isn't who she is deep down and the New Mutants love her. The kids decide it's time to go back home, and bid a solemn farewell to Bird-Brain, who wants to stay on the island and make it a home for the Ani-Mates. Meanwhile, Max has arrived at the Hellfire Club, where the other Inner Circle members show him news footage of X-Factor fighting Apocalypse and revealing their secret and of the X-Men fighting dinosaurs in Dallas (we'll get to that part soon). But he doesn't care about any of that, only his students. Speaking of which, the kids all split off to deal with their grief in their own ways. Illyana and Warlock wait with Doug's body, and she confides in him about how she needs Max to come back soon, since he's the only one who's ever made her feel safe in Limbo. I knew that was an important moment for her a few issues back, but I didn't realize how important. Also: Illyana and Warlock! the most underrated duo on the team. He's really good for her; he's so unconditionally loving, and also so weird that he makes her feel normal. Rahne runs off crying and Sam follows her. She blames herself for Doug's death, but Sam says he blames himself. Although he's coleader of the team, Sam usually lets Dani take the driver's seat. But one area where he won't let anyone else take the lead is protecting the team. Rahne tells him it's not his fault, which helps her realize it's not hers either. She tells him how important the team is to her, since she's never had any siblings, and Sam tells her that as of this moment he's officially adopting her as his little sister. It's a very sweet moment for both of them. Berto and Dani are heading to the phone to call Max, and she's filling him in on the adventures they had while he was gone. When he picks up the phone to call, he can't do it. It took him a whole miniseries to forgive himself for hurting Sam, and now he's blaming himself for Doug's death because he was the reason Warlock wasn't there to be his armor. Berto collapses to the floor moaning about how Xavier didn't trust him and Max doesn't like him and he deserves that from both of them, and Dani tells him he's being a bitch and he needs to snap out of it. She tells him she should have stopped the mission, but she didn't want to disappoint the younger kids so she agreed to it and Doug payed the price. It's a rare moment where Dani drops her walls completely. Even though she takes charge naturally, there's a part of her that's still terrified of disappointing her friends and becoming an outcast like she was before she learned to control her powers. It's an interesting parallel to Sam and Rahne, and good reminder that even though Dani and Berto act tough, they're also kids and need love and support as much as anyone. Everyone's feeling a little bit better than before and reunites in the kitchen so they can all call Max together, but then they see a breaking news story on the TV- the X-Men fighting in Dallas. Max shows up right then, and when he sees Doug dead he has a breakdown, yelling at the kids for disobeying him and getting their friend killed. They try to turn his attention to the TV, saying the X-Men need their help, but he tells them he refuses to let them leave the mansion or use their powers again. Illyana tries to teleport to Dallas but finds a magical barrier keeping her out. Max tells the kids that humans killed Doug, and the X-Men may be dying trying to save humans, and he's done with Xavier's dream. Illyana says she was wrong about him and runs off to the attic, and the others follow. Max is left alone with Doug's body and falls down weeping.

(Stupid new Tumblr paragraph limit. This is still about issue 61.) He feels trapped in a loop; the Mutant Registration Act reminds him of the years before the Holocaust and he doesn't know how to tell Doug's parents that he failed their son. And now his students, the only thing left that he cares about, hate him because they don't have that perspective. Up in the attic, the New Mutants decide that it's up to them to carry on Xavier's dream in their own way, and they assemble their own new costumes from the mix and match parts in storage. Thank God, cause their original graduation costumes sucked and these are much better. They think Max has failed, they still don't trust X-Factor, and they fear the X-Men might be dead. But Doug's death robbed them of any innocence they still had, and they decide it's time for them to save the world.

The Ani-Mator was such an interesting villain for this arc. He and the Right were opposing forces both trying to destroy the mutants and Ani-Mates caught in the middle. His whole thing was that he thought he was God and the mutants were the serpent trying to corrupt his slaves, but really he was the serpent and the kids were Adam and Eve. They went to the island as hopeful dreamers confident they could save the Ani-Mates, and were confronted with the harsh reality of evil. They've fought gods and aliens, but what killed Doug was a human with a gun. And even now, they have hope for a better tomorrow- they just know that the only way to get there is to fight for it. There's really not much more to say; unlike the X-Factor story, which tied together a lot of themes, this story was mostly character moments, which I talked about as they came up. One meta observation: Simonson came in to fill in until Claremont came back, and she immediately wrote Amara out of the book and killed Doug. I don't know that Claremont really had anything planned for Amara, but I know he was gonna have Doug infected with the T/O virus, and he's already dropped some hints. That's just kinda funny, and I'm surprised Claremont wasn't more pissed. I love Doug, and I miss him, but I think he was the right choice to die. Amara didn't have his innocence, which is what made it so powerful, and it would have been a really unsatisfying finish to Xuan's story. But Doug, who came into this life excited to be a hero, and who was told over and over that he didn't have the power necessary to be one, died saving his friend and freeing a civilization from slavery. Also, my absolute favorite stuff with Doug is the Zeb Wells run, which wouldn't be possible if he hadn't died here, so it'll be good for him in the end. Now, on to the final prong of the Fall in Uncanny.

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #106: XF issues 24-26

Finally we're here, starting with X-Factor. They've just been teleported onto Apocalypse's ship, where he greets them and says he's been watching them and is planning to test them. Scott tells them to go with plan 383 and they attack. Simonson often writes Scott in battles like this, like a coach calling out plays. It's a small detail that for me adds a lot both to Scott's personality and to the history and familiarity between these people. As he takes them all down, Apocalypse monologues about how he's been sowing destruction in the world for thousands of years to push evolution forward. He commends X-Factor for sowing hatred between humans and mutants. They're appalled that a villain is so proud of them and declare once and for all that they'll give up the mutant hunter ruse. Honestly, I think that development has been too dragged out, but I get why Simonson wanted to wait until the Fall of the Mutants to make it happen. Apocalypse brings out the Horsemen, minus Death. As Hank faces Pestilence again, Apocalypse tells him that her touch, combined with the experiments Artie's dad did on him, are slowly increasing his strength while damaging his mind. Although she didn't know it here, Simonson is setting the direction for Hank's character for the entire 21st century- a genius driven by the fear of mental regression. Finally, Apocalypse reveals Death. Scott is disgusted, saying that Warren stood for peace and life, and Death's wings are an insult to his memory. But then Death takes off his mask and reveals the truth. Unable to fight their friend, X-Factor is quickly defeated by him and imprisoned until they agree to serve Apocalypse. Caliban takes the offer, joining up with the villain in exchange for the same power enhancements he gave Warren, so he can kill the Marauders. The rest of our heroes watch helpless as Apocalypse sends the Horsemen out into the world to destroy Manhattan.

Apocalypse keeps on monologuing, taunting the heroes with how Hodge manipulated them. He says that what made him finally come out of the shadows was the Mutant Registration Act, which he views as a call to war between humans and mutants. He believes Xavier's dream has failed and they must give it up to survive. Unfortunately for him, when he designed the shackles that hold X-Factor he didn't realize how much Hank and Bobby's powers have been growing, so they break free and start fighting again. Apocalypse, a petty bitch, is like "fine if you love your humans so much go save them" and hits a lever that makes the floor disappear. Hank and Bobby manage to hold on, but Scott and Jean plummet to Manhattan below, where they see the Horsemen. They kiss and spring into action. Because we have to set up tie-ins in all the other non-X books, Pestilence flees into the subway tunnels and they lose track of her. Famine beats Jean pretty badly, and as a reward Apocalypse teleports her to the Midwest so she can destroy a bunch of farms. During that brief fight she reveals her backstory, which is that her parents gave her an eating disorder so now she wants the whole world to starve, which is an absolutely wild motivation that probably should not have made it past the editors. Meanwhile, Scott is doing better against War while they debate philosophy, soldier to soldier. Simonson is really on a roll with Scott recently. He forces War into a retreat across the sky on his flying horse machine and reunites with Jean. Up on the ship, Hank and Bobby continue their attack on Apocalypse in vain, but manage to destroy the ship stabilizers. It begins to fall through the city, destroying buildings. Scott and Jean head towards it to try to stop it and run into Death. Jean begs Scott to try to reach Warren, but Scott has turned off his emotions to deal with the pain, and forces himself to view Warren as just another enemy soldier. When the ship crashes into the Empire State Building, Power Pack shows up. Jean and whichever PP member has the gravity powers (I don't remember if they switched again) hold up the antenna while Scott and the others fight of Pestilence, who's come back (she was just hanging out in a Power Pack tie-in that I guess continued directly into this). Death comes along and slices the antenna in half, making Jean lose grip. Half of it smashes into Pestilence, killing her. Scott tells the kids to go out and save lives in the city while he and Jean take Pestilence's horse back to the ship, where Apocalypse, impressed with Hank and Bobby's displays of power, has brought War and Death back up to fight them. Now with their second wind, X-Factor takes out War pretty quickly, but can't- or in Jean's case, won't- get any clean hits on Death. Bobby has an idea, and makes an ice statue of himself that Death shatters. The shock is able to shake Apocalypse's brainwashing off and bring back Warren, who turns on Apocalypse. Bobby's whole thing recently is he wants people to judge mutants by their actions, not their identity, and here he forced Warren to judge himself by his own actions instead of his vague philosophical rambling. Apocalypse is pleased with Warren's strength of mind and the conviction and ingenuity of X-Factor, so he grabs War and Caliban and flies off, leaving his ship as a gift for his enemies, which he believes will force them to continue evolving. X-Factor don't know how to fly it, but they manage to steer their crash landing to land on their own headquarters, destroying it. They invite Warren back to the team, but he tells them that he didn't attempt suicide, and Cameron Hodge actually planted the bombs on his plane. He hoped that his friends would come to find him, but instead it was Apocalypse. A bunch of reporters show up and are like "what the hell" and X-Factor officially reveals their secret. After 20 issues of buildup, half of which were basically just stalling till they could make it official, the mutant hunters organization is finally dead and buried. Thank God.

Never a moment to rest, X-Factor springs into action when a fire breaks out in a nearby building, except for Warren, who's going full edgelord and flies off dramatically. The cops approach Apocalypse's ship, which they just left there, and find that force fields prevent any humans from entering it. From one of his backup secret bases, Apocalypse, along with War, Caliban (the new death), and Famine, who has returned after fighting Captain America and friends in a tie-in, watch on their big evil screens and laugh evilly. X-Factor is racing through the city, saving lives as the structural damage from the Horsemen battle continues to take its toll. Warren swoops in occasionally, silently saving people and then vanishing back into the sky. Hank's mental reasoning is rapidly falling as his strength increases, but he refuses to sit by when his strength could save lives. Scott saves a red haired woman and is reminded of Maddie, and he and Jean finally have a civil discussion about that marriage. Scott says he never truly loved Maddie and never really wanted to retire from the X-Men, but felt pressured to give her the happiness that he felt was out of his reach. It's a necessary retcon after the terrible character work from the start of this book, but I don't like it. I actually do like the part about him never really wanting to retire from Xavier's dream, because I still think he should have stuck around as a mentor for the New Mutants who stayed out of the field when his son was born. But I hate that his relationship with Maddie is reduced to settling for what he could get, because under Claremont's pen it had blossomed into something unique and healthy for Scott. But anyway. Hank and Bobby run into Trish Tilby, the reporter who discovered their secret right before shit hit the fan. She tells them that she hated X-Factor, and now that she knows the full truth and they've gotten rid of the stupid ruse, she wants to help them get their story out. Bobby agrees that she'll get an exclusive when the city is more stable. As X-Factor continues through the city, they're getting a lot of attention, but not the kind they're used to. People love them and support them, including the mayor, who tells all the cops to lay off them. When they're too exhausted to continue working, they decide to head back to the ship and make it their new headquarters. Scott and Jean decide to no longer let any ghosts stand between them, and they spend the night together. In the morning, Bobby runs into their room telling them that a grateful tailor in the city has made them new costumes. They put them on and head out into their city, where a parade is being held in their honor. It's the first real victory in the war against human hatred for mutants, and for a moment, X-Factor gets to enjoy it.

And that's that, the first prong of Fall of the Mutants over. This is by far the most optimistic of them. It's a tragic parallel to what's going on in Uncanny; as X-Factor steps into the light and finds open arms, the X-Men descend further into the darkness. It's also a really interesting role reversal, as X-Factor becomes the true mutant superhero team. For the first time, it seems like Xavier's dream might not be dead, and his first students are the ones who with keep pushing it forward into the future. It's a happy ending for most of our team; Scott and Jean finally put aside their baggage and start planning their future together, and Bobby finally has a direction in life that feels fulfilling for him. Warren's off on his edgelord quest, but at least he's free now. And of course Hank gets the short straw, losing his mind and becoming the beast he always feared he was. But that'll be good for him in the long run, and besides, the book would be boring if they were all happy at the same time. The characters were raised by Xavier to be child soldiers, fighting for his dream but never benefitting it. But now they've all grown up and grown apart. There's been a lot of tension in the team, and that will continue, but they've found a way to start fresh with each other and make the dream their own. They can be public heroes, proud of their mutant heritage and not constantly apologizing for it. Circling back to Bobby, it hasn't really been clear to me until this point but Simonson has been crafting a really interesting arc for him. He was always the fun loving one who thrived on being a superhero, but he never had a really strong personality. He's always been a follower, and though he's grown since he was a kid and now wants more out of life, he was never able to find his own path. But in this arc, he was the one who led Warren to his freedom, and now he's playing a more active role in the team direction. I'm really proud of him. And of all five of them, they deserve to allow themselves to be happy and they finally are.

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #105: UXM issues 223-224

These are the last couple issues before the Fall of the Mutants officially begins. It starts with Freedom Force accepting their newest members, those weirdo old guys who were hunting Ororo for sport. Including Super Sabre, who survived that avalanche. The old and new team members start bickering, but it's interrupted by Destiny letting out a blood curdling scream. She was trying to see Anna's future, and saw only a void for all the X-Men. Out somewhere in Colorado, Ororo and Naze continue their hunt for Forge, but Naze begins to fall ill with a mysterious magical infection. And in New York, in a bar, some guy is complaining to a journalist about how much he hates mutants, but how he's not racist, cause he has a black friend. Idk if that guys gonna come back and be important, and I refuse to go back and edit this later so maybe this'll read really dumb. Finally, in San Francisco, Logan is training Anna, Ali, and Longshot, trying to toughen them up for the next Marauders fight. Cutting back to Ororo again, Naze tells her that she needs to drink a special soup to prevent her getting the same illness as him. She does, and later has a vision of being attacked by monsters and beasts led by Forge. To survive, she kills him before waking up and realizing it was a dream. Naze says it could be real if she doesn't kill Forge, and she agrees. But then he smiles evilly, in case you forgot he's possessed. Then we cut again back to San Francisco where Alex finds Maddy standing on top of a cliff contemplating jumping. But he talks her down, promising the X-Men will protect her and help find her son. I really like Claremont's Alex. Under his pen, Alex wanted to escape the X-Men to avoid Scott's shadow, and now that he's forced back into it he's not interested in leadership, just being a good supporting player in and out of combat. His arc in this book blends really well into how Peter David writes him finally embracing the leadership role and feeling like he's coming up short. I also really like his fucked up relationship with Maddy, and how after the Inferno reveal, he's the only one who still sees her as her own fully unique person.

Ororo and Naze reach the base of Forge's mountain, and he tells her she must go up alone so Forge doesn't recognize his magical aura. Before she leaves he kisses her, which is very weird. And from his evil cackles after she's gone, we can finally put his plan together; he was telling the truth about Forge being destined to stop the Adversary, but the full story is that Forge and Ororo working together are what's needed to stop him. So the Adversary possessed Naze to pit them against each other. Elsewhere, Val Cooper goes on the news to announce that Freedom Force's top priority now is to capture the X-Men to enforce the newly passed Mutant Registration Act. Anna is watching her on tv when Mystique shows up and tells her that the X-Men- including Ororo- will die soon in Dallas. She begs Anna to come with her to escape their fate, but Anna refuses to walk out on her new family. In downtown SF, Alex and Longshot go to the movie theater and watch the movie that Longshot was a stuntman on back in his mini. He doesn't remember any of that, but he does think it's cool how they have the same name. It hasn't really been clear until now that Longshot got a full memory wipe after his mini, which does make his actions make more sense. I like Alex and Longshot's friendship. Alex just really likes taking care of misfits, and this blank slate of a man lets him be the big brother for once. And Longshot likes hanging around angsty people so he can try to cheer them up. The boys' night out is cut short by some carjackers, who they stop before heading back to HQ, where Anna tells the whole team about Mystique's warning. They decide the only way to fight the future is to face it, so off they go to Dallas, along with Maddy, who says she still has a better chance of surviving with them than without. Personally I think she's still a little suicidal, but Logan doesn't know her well enough to pick up on that and allows her to be their pilot. In Wyoming, Ororo finally makes it to the top of Forge mountain, where she sees Forge staring up at a black hole in the sky chanting at it. She fights through hordes of demons to get to Forge and stab him, only for him to tell her he was trying to close the portal. She begins putting the pieces together just as they're both sucked into the portal. Off in the distance, Naze does yet another evil cackle and proclaims that the world is his now. The whole Ororo Naze thing kinda went on way to long, to be honest. I would have preferred one issue focused fully on their journey right before Fall of the Mutants. But at least we're through it now, and ready for the big finale.

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #104: UXM issues 220-222

We open with a little dream sequence, implied but not confirmed to be Ororo's. It's about two birds soaring through the air, until one suddenly turns to a machine and attacks his mate. She's mortally wounded and falls to the ground, unable to fly. In the real world, Ororo is talking to Logan. She tells him that she's going to find Forge and beg for her powers back. When last she saw him, she said she'd be back for revenge some day, but after everything she's lost since, she's given up her pride so he can get back the power she needs to protect her team. She tells Logan she needs him to lead the team until she returns, and he reluctantly agrees. Ororo leaves Dallas, and finds Forge's home abandoned. She enters to search for clues, and finds his holograms and security systems still online. They start replaying the night she was there, and she's forced to live through the trauma of her brief, tragic love with Forge once again. She goes to his lab, where the holograms are playing what happened after that day. Forge went mad from the guilt of what he had done to her, turning his room into an Ororo shrine and eventually fleeing to who knows where. As she turns to leave, Ororo runs into Naze, Forge's mentor who showed up to fight Dire Wraiths way back when and summoned some demons to help them. He also got murdered and replaced by one of the demons, but Ororo doesn't know that. He tells Ororo they both need to find Forge, who's been kidnapped by a demon called the Adversary, and he can help her track him down.

It's finally time for the Marauders rematch. To kick things off, we meet Mr. Sinister, the mysterious leader of the Marauders who orders them to go kill Madelyne once and for all before the X-Men or X-Factor find her. Back at the mansion, Ali is in the Danger Room training against a simulation of Anna, which pisses her off when she finds out. But their argument is interrupted when Logan gets a call from Maddy, who packs up the team and takes them to San Francisco. They arrive at the hospital at the same time as the Marauders, because how else would we get the fight scene? There's no time for a nice reunion with Maddy, as Logan orders Anna to evacuate her while the rest of the team fights the Marauders. In an open area, this battle is more evenly matched than the last one- but it turns out they're just keeping the X-Men busy while Malice sneaks around waiting for her opportunity. She finds one when Anna flies off with Maddy, and throws a skyscraper at them, knocking them into the bay. Ali jumps in after them and saves them, finally putting her rivalry with Anna behind her. But it may not last long, as Malice hovers over the water and prepares to finish the job.

Before she can, though, Alex, who's too far away to recognize her, blasts her. Anna goes to find Maddy, who was separated in the water, while Ali guards Malice until Betsy and Alex catch up. Alex is understandably surprised to see Lorna again, who reveals she was faking being unconscious and attacks him. Across the country, "Naze" is taking Ororo on a vision quest to find Forge. They're attacked by malevolent spirits, who they fight and defeat. Naze tells Ororo that it's Forge's fault; he had some vague destiny about protecting the world from demons, but the arrival of these may mean he's defected to the Adversary's side. Ororo says if that's the case, she'll end him, and Naze smiles evilly. In SF, Malice monologues to Alex about how this is what Lorna's always wanted, deep down, and even Betsy can't free her. Meanwhile, Anna is unable to find Maddy, and both she and the Marauders believe she's dead. Rather than stay and finish the battle, the Marauders clear out. As he watches Malice fly off, a heartbroken Alex tries to put her out of her misery, but is unable to penetrate her magnet shields. It seems like another failure for the X-Men, but lucky for them, Longshot stumbled across Maddy when he got thrown off the Golden Gate Bridge earlier in the battle and hid with her. This was a pretty good fight, but doesn't really hold a candle to the first Marauders fight. It's technically a rematch, but since most of the X-Men are either new or not present, it doesn't have as much weight, and it doesn't have the brutality of the last fight to make up for it. The stuff with Malice was good though. Claremont didn't do many Magneto stories before he turned good, and it's nice to have a reminder of how dangerous these powers are. Plus, it gives Lorna and Alex new and unique roles in the franchise, which Claremont was never able to find for most of the original X-Men. Something that isn't mentioned- has Alex not called Lorna since he rejoined the team? I'm gonna headcanon that Malice was just answering the phone in character, but it's weird that it's not mentioned. Also, starting from this story, Maddy goes from MacGuffin to character for the first time since like. That Alpha Flight mini. She's mourning her son, who's still missing, her relationship with Scott, and her entire life, which has been erased from all records. This is some really impressive coordination from Claremont and Simonson; Scott and Maddy's loneliness are made a lot more potent by them being in different books, but if you're reading both it adds to the tragedy.

#wes reads xmen

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #103: NM issues 55-58

While her X-Factor run keeps getting bigger and better, Simonson's New Mutants run is just getting started. Issue 55 opens with much lower stakes, as the kids are getting ready to go to a launch party for Lila's new album. I love their idea of punk rock outfits. When he sends them off, Max tells them their curfew is 1 am, which they're all disappointed at but it's later than any curfew I've ever had and proves that Max is a cooler teacher than Xavier. At the party, Rahne and Doug flirt a little. It's cute, and probably wouldn't have happened if Warlock was there, but he's still chilling with the Angels at this point. Sam is having a miserable time, feeling out of place and inadequate in Lila's world. Some of Lila's alien friends offer him some pills that'll help get his confidence back up, and he takes them, because even team leaders are dummies sometimes. Little does he know one of these guys is Lila's ex, and he's been trying to convince her to come back to the thieving game. Their big plan is to drug Sam, kill him, and dump his body in the river, which they hope will get Lila to come back to their gang. Kinda a weird plan. Anyway, it doesn't work, cause Sam's teammates see them fly off with his unconscious body and chase after him, ending in a battle in the middle of the city which causes some property damage to a tower on an island in the bay. Lila shows up and explains the situation and renounces her former friends, and she and Sam get a nice little happy ending. This was not a super great start for Simonson. I think what she's doing is trying to bring back the coming of age vibes from the beginning of the book to make Fall of the Mutants hit even harder, which isn't a bad idea, but if you're gonna do that you should fully commit and not toss in some random homicidal aliens. Also, over in X-Factor she's been preparing for Fall by continuously ramping up the stakes, which makes this story seem more lackluster. And I don't think this issue says anything about the Sam and Lila relationship that wasn't covered in the Sam Goes Home issue. Simonson does have a good voice for the whole cast, though, and once she finds her footing things will get better.

This is the first Amara focused issue since her initial introduction. Simonson has a much better take on her than Claremont did, to be honest. Under her pen, Amara is struggling to find a place to call home. She's recently gotten a letter from her father saying she needs to come home and get married, but she doesn't want to give up the freedom she's found here. She left home to find her place in the wider world, but she still hasn't really found it. Unfortunately, she's changed enough that her old home doesn't appeal to her either. In Claremont's run, Amara was just good at everything, and then he got distracted by Illyana and didn't do anything else with her. Simonson takes that characterization and says "okay, what's underneath that?" The answer we see is that Amara is good at adapting to her surroundings, so everyone assumes she's comfortable, but on the inside she's never really happy. Recently, she's been drawn to the Hellions as a possible new home, in particular to Empath, who she has a sick crush on. She'll have to confront that soon, when the kids see on the news that a creature named Bird Boy was being held captive in a tower in the city that they damaged in their fight against those aliens last issue. They decide to go track him down to fix their mess. Across town, the Hellions haven't yet left the city, and they see the same news report and assume it's some plan by the New Mutants that they should foil. The two teams find Bird Boy at the same time and start chasing him and fighting. I have already written and accidentally deleted this post like three times now, so I'm gonna gloss over the finer points of the plot, which isn't that interesting anyway. In the end, the Hellions hold Dani hostage. Amara demands her release, and when Empath tries to control her, he's shocked to see she can resist him. It's enough to persuade him to let Dani go willingly, right before Sam catches up to Bird Boy and Illyana ports everyone home. It seems like a happy ending, until Amara tells the team that she's transferring to the Hellions. A team member defecting from one team to the other is a no-brainer for a new direction for the rivalry, and Amara is a great choice for the one to do it. I do wish she had feelings for James instead, who apart from not being a rapist seems like he'd be more her type. But other than that it's a great story.

The next issue starts the next day, when Max discovers Bird Boy. He scans him with their little Cerebro scanner thing, which identifies him as neither a human or mutant. The New Mutants want to investigate further, but Max makes them go study for midterms instead, which is much less fun. They do get a break to say goodbye to Amara, who tells them she needs to find a new direction and a new challenge. They're sad to see her go, but take a little comfort in the fact that the Hellions are technically their allies now. Bird-Boy, who they rename Bird-Brain for some reason, seems to have human intelligence but absolutely no sense of how human society works. Rahne is obsessed with him, which makes Doug jealous and unwilling to try to communicate with Bird-Brain. The kids have the brilliant idea of taking their new friend to the mall, which backfires immediately and gets them grounded. But for Rahne's sake, Doug finally talks to Bird-Brain, and is able to sort of communicate, although his language doesn't resemble to conventions of any human language. Rahne is thrilled and hugs Doug, which makes him very happy, and Max allows Bird-Brain to join the team.

Very slowly, Rahne and Doug are able to start teaching Bird-Brain English. They discover he loves burgers and hates any images of zoos. After a bunch of wacky misunderstandings, Bird-Brain looks up at the full moon and breaks out the window. He steals a bunch of junk food and starts flying towards the ocean, until the kids are able to stop him. Doug is finally able to put the pieces together: Bird-Brain was created on an island along with other creatures like him. The full moon is the night of his and his friends' final test, and if they fail they're fed to monsters. Bird-Brain escaped, but he wanted to go back to save his friends, or at least feed them. The New Mutants decide they can't let him go alone, so Illyana ports them all to Bird-Brain's island, where they're immediately confronted by monsters. Oh also, at some point during this issue, Illyana teleported her brother to the X-Men to team up with them, which we'll see in Uncanny 225. It was not mentioned here but it becomes important in a couple issues. It does suck that there's not a seamless crossover, but that's to be expected now that the books have different writers. And now that Simonson is writing it, New Mutants and X-Factor will start to enjoy the synergy that this book used to have with Uncanny.

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[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #102: XF Annual issue 2 and XF issues 21-23

This annual is written by Jo Duffy and guest stars the Inhumans and Power Pack. It opens with Franklin telling the other Power Pack members about a dream he had about the moon blowing up and Quicksilver saving him. They tell him it's probably nothing and continue their day of chilling at the park with Artie and Leech, with X-Factor there to supervise. The dream starts to come true when Quicksilver does show up and try to kidnap Franklin, but Leech slows him down long enough for X-Factor to come intervene. Leech moves away so they can use their powers, but Quicksilver quickly summons Lockjaw (the giant teleporting dog Inhuman) to teleport him, Franklin, and our heroes to the Inhuman city on the moon. It quickly becomes clear that Quicksilver and Lockjaw are under someone else's control and not in league with the rest of the Royal Family, who try to apprehend them. But Quicksilver and Lockjaw escape with Franklin and now Medusa in captivity. Refreshingly, X-Factor and the Royal family don't have a big misunderstanding fight and instead immediately team up to find Maximux the Mad, who Black Bolt believes is controlling Quicksilver and Lockjaw. Along the way, Scott learns that Quicksilver is estranged from the family since he and his wife Crystal separated and both left for Earth, leaving their daughter Luna in the care of the other Inhumans, which brings out the sad in him. Jean is also angsty because they're very near to the place that Phoenix died, and the rest of her team remembers it. They brush it off and go with the others to find Maximus, whose evil plan is to strap Franklin into a machine and unlock all his latent powers to boost Maximus's mind control powers. There's a big fight and the heroes win in the end. Before they head back to Earth, Jean asks Scott to show her where the Phoenix died so she can pay her respects to her. This was a fine story but there's not really a reason for X-Factor to be here. The first half was from the POV of Power Pack and the second half was all centered on the Inhumans and Franklin. And it ends before we see Jean visit the Phoenix's death site for the first time, which would have been nice to show on panel.

Back to the main book, the hunt for Hodge proves easier than expected when he shows up on their front door for Warren's will reading. He denies the Phoenix holograms, but Scott still says he's fired for how he's been using his position to spew mutant hatred. The kids are hanging out with Hank, who's still recovering from Pestilence's touch (it wasn't mentioned in the annual, but he didn't really do anything in that so I'm gonna handwave it). They're all worried what this means for X-Factor, but Hank promises that Warren will have left them his fortune. The adults head to the will reading, minus Caliban. Caliban is feeling a lot of frustration, both for being unable to pass as human and for his lack of physical power that left him a sitting duck in the fight against the Horsemen. When the others get to the will reading, they learn that Warren did leave his money to the X-Factor organization- but Hodge was named as the executor of the funds and the new head of X-Factor. As they angrily leave, a reporter named Trish Tilby, who's been hounding them for a while, tells them that Hodge was the one who signed over Warren's power of attorney to the surgeons who took his wings, and she's figured out their secret- but before the conversation goes any farther, a bunch of guys in power armor with smiley face helmets fly out of the sky screaming for the death of all humans. Our heroes are forced to use their powers to defend themselves and the people around them before fleeing, their cover now blown. Hodge then goes to the press and tells them this was an act of dangerous mutants. The students back at HQ watch the scene on the TV in horror, but they have their own problems when the same guys burst into the room and attack them.

The kids fight back but are quickly overpowered by the villains, who put power dampeners on them. Caliban rushes in and tries to stop them but gets clobbered. He's not on their list so they pump him full of tranqs and leave him to take their other prisoners off. Tabitha chooses this moment to finally return from the Fallen Angels, and she sneaks off after the villains, eventually tracking them to their plane and sneaking on before they take off. X-Factor returns soon after and bring Caliban to the infirmary before the tranq overdose does more damage. Caliban overheard the villains mention Arlington, Virginia, so the whole team heads for their own plane to go find the kids. Tabitha has a head start, and sneaks off the plane after landing to see her friends loaded on school buses and taken to a science museum. She sneaks in, where it seems to be a normal museum, but the villains are in an underground compound and have mutant detectors that she sets off. She escapes into the ventilation shafts and begins her search. She frees Rictor, who tells her that this is the same organization that held him captive, but when they try to find the others they run into the Right's leader- Cameron Hodge.

X-Factor arrives, following Caliban's senses, and attack the Right's compound, but when they try to question the guards they learn they all have bombs implanted in their chests that kill them when captured. Watching the action from afar, Apocalypse commends the Right for testing the strength of X-Factor. He then tells the Horsemen it's time for them to battle each other to decide their leader, and finally unveils Warren's new Death persona. He now has blue skin and metal wings with razor sharp feathers that he can fling at people. Before the other Horsemen can even react, he's taken them out and been declared Apocalypse's right hand. X-Factor presses on through the compound while the kids manage to escape and meet them halfway. Hodge arrives in ruby quartz armor tailor made to fight Scott, but with teamwork they manage to take him down- only to learn it was a robot there to delay them while Hodge escaped and set the building to self destruct. They escape with the kids just in time, but Apocalypse decides his time has come and teleports X-Factor up to his ship to face his Horsemen. This book has been less focused on long action scenes since the Massacre, but this issue was basically one long fight scene, and the Simonsons proved they can write and draw a great one. The next issue is part of the Fall of the Mutants event. This one is different from Mutant Massacre; each of the three X-books has an independent plotline, with the thematic link of each team having major losses and status quo changes.

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[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #101: XF issues 17-20

Bobby has been gone for a few issues guest starring Thor, and in this one he returns on the morning of Warren's funeral and hears the news. They all head off to the funeral together with Leech and Caliban and find a mob of protesters and reporters, and inside the church graffiti on the coffin reading die mutant scum. Bobby's powers have been acting up since he fought some frost giants with Thor, and he almost looses control and freezes a reporter, but Leech bails him out and Cameron Hodge distracts the reporter by talking about how Warren hated dangerous mutants. It's the clearest example yet of how much damage to mutant perception the X-Factor ruse is doing. When they get back to HQ, they get a message about a threat from "the X-Terminators" to level San Francisco. They decide to go investigate as the X-Terminators rather than X-Factor. Skids and Tabitha go to get Scott (this takes place before Tabitha leaves for Fallen Angels) and find him yelling at hallucinations of Maddy and Warren, wishing they had given him a chance to save them. Jean comes to calm him down, while Tabitha wanders off and gets picked up by Ariel to go do all that stuff. Our heroes head off to California, along with Caliban to help find the mutant. On the plane ride, they offer Caliban a uniform and official membership in X-Factor, which he accepts. They track the mutant energy signature to a skyscraper and inside find a young mutant named Rictor strapped to a machine. He tells them that he was kidnapped by a group of humans called the Right, who are using his mutant earthquake power to frame the X-Terminators for terrorism. Bobby is able to freeze the entire building to disrupt the device and they escape with Rictor. Bobby radios the news helicopters nearby and tells them that they were framed by humans and saved the city. Back in New York, the leader of the Right is revealed to be Cameron Hodge, who cackles evilly about his plans to destroy X-Factor.

Our heroes return to HQ with their new student, and are met with Hodge grinning an evil grin. Bobby collapses on the ground and freezes solid, so Hank takes him to analyze his new weird Asgard powers. Scott says some more weird vague comments about how he thinks Maddy is the Phoenix, and Skids says here best quote ever, "Rusty, what's with Scott? He's been acting weird ever since his wife was killed!" No shit Skids. Then she kisses Rusty, then she thinks maybe they should just be friends so they don't end up like Scott and Jean. Scott goes to Hodge to confront him about all his anti mutant marketing and gets brushed off, and Bobby decides to go find Tabitha as an X-Terminator, renouncing the X-Factor ruse. Rictor starts to be suspicious of Hodge, whose voice sounds similar to the leader of the Right. Scott goes way off the deep end, blasting the X-Factor compound apart and accusing Jean of being Phoenix and Maddy, all the same person. He tries to prove his theory by taking off his visor, and when his optic blasts come out, he thinks only Phoenix could be holding them back, like she did last time. But he turns around to find Leech and the other kids scared out of their minds, and realizes that was just another delusion. He runs off in anger and sees another Phoenix hallucination- but Jean follows him and sees it too, and they realize Hodge has been following him around with the security systems projecting holograms to drive Scott insane. This is not the first or last time this exact thing has worked on Scott, by the way. He's gotta start being more skeptical when his dead exes start floating around. In our cliffhanger, we find Warren- alive on Apocalypse's ship. Apocalypse tells him that he'll be his fourth and final Horseman, and in return will get his wings back.

Scott and Jean search the damaged X-Factor building for Hodge, who's fled. Scott has even more guilt now; his absence killed Maddy and Warren, or so he thinks, and his presence almost killed Jean. But she tells him it's not all his fault and he needs to keep going. Not knowing any of this, Bobby, Hank, and Caliban are searching the city for Tabitha, who's currently off planet. Apocalypse is watching from his evil flying lair and decides to test out his first three Horsemen on the trio while he stays and continues his genetic and mental manipulation of Warren. Jean and Scott see the battle on TV, and Scott says he's in no mental shape to be in a fight and he'll probably hurt someone, but Jean insists they're a team. She has clearly not made progress in her psychology night classes. Even when they arrive, their whole team is struggling against the Horsemen. Scott is having trouble aiming and focusing until he stops leaning on himself and starts acting like a leader, ordering Bobby to do another big fancy Asgard freeze which traps the Horsemen, who Apocalypse quickly teleports away. Scott tells the team it's time to track down Hodge, and off they go.

But first, back to HQ, where Leech powers Bobby down and he feels weaker than ever. Hank got tagged by Pestilence during their fight, and is rushed to the infirmary where he's in intensive care. Rusty decides that he's gonna fix the X-Terminators' reputation by melting the big block of ice Bobby left in Central Park and sneaks out, but gets beat up by a gang as soon as he gets there. Artie has a vision and warns Skids and Rictor, who overcomes his fear of losing control of his powers and heads off with them to save Rusty. They save him from the muggers, and Rusty goes back to his plan of melting all the ice. Instead he immediately sets the ground on fire, but Rictor is able to control his own powers to shake some snow around and put it out. He then gives his new friends his tragic backstory- when his power first manifested, he caused an earthquake in his home town in Mexico and was kidnapped by the Right, who brought him to San Francisco and tried to make him do it again. Then, working together, he and Rusty melt most of the ice, leaving a small amount spelling out a message that mutants fixed the damage. This issue was a step down from the last issue featuring the kids, mostly because Rictor does not feel as developed as the others. He will be eventually, but for now he's just having the same arc Rusty did, only less interesting this time cause we've already seen it. And the plot definitely did not need to be a whole issue.

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