MAGNETO AND THE MAGNETIC MEN #1 - April 1996

Opposites Attract

Credits: Gerard Jones (writer), Mark Waid (plot assist), Jeff Matsuda (penciler), Art Thibert w/Jaime Mendoza & Lary Stucker (inks), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters), Kevin Tinsley (colors)

Summary: In response to his brother’s construction of the Sentinels, Magneto has created his own team of robots, the Magnetic Men, to aid mutantkind. They stop Will Magnus’ newest creation, Sinistron, from kidnapping the mutant Kokoro, but soon encounter him again on the slave-nation of Genosha. When Sinistron paralyzes Magneto’s consciousness, Antimony leads her fellow Magnetic Men to discover their own sentience and break free. United, the team defeats Sinistron, and Magneto realizes that his robots are more than machines, but are his new family.

Continuity Notes: The Magnetic Men are based on the personalities of the deceased members of the Brotherhood (the original group lead by Magneto in the Amalgam Universe, killed by his brother’s Sentinels). The Amalgam answer to the Metal Men, the team consists of Antimony (Scarlet Witch and Platinum), Bismuth (Toad and Tin), Cobalt (Mastermind and Gold), Iron (Unus the Untouchable and Iron), and Nickel (Quicksilver/Iceman and Mercury). The woman they save in the beginning, Kokoro, is an amalgam of Psylocke and Katana. Sinistron is a robotic version of Mr. Sinister.

Review: The Amalgam books produced by Marvel seemed to be more “’90s” than DC’s lot, mostly due to X-artists like Roger Cruz and Jeff Matsuda. In terms of story, this reads as a traditional superhero comic, but it’s definitely not penciled in a style associated with ‘90s DC. Even though DC had their fair share of Image-style artists, that’s not the look people tend to associate with that era of the company (DC probably has more Jim Lee clones today than it did in 1996). Since most of the artists chosen for their Amalgam titles were pretty conventional, I’m guessing DC editorial specifically avoided the Mike Deodatos of the day. If the goal of Amalgam was to evoke the old school, that didn’t stop Marvel from hiring artists that could just have easily shown up on a Youngblood spinoff. Then again, this is pretty restrained for a Jeff Matsuda job, so maybe he intentionally toned things down. Personally, I find this style more palatable than his X-Factor work.

Even though I know very little about the Metal Men, I’ve always considered this a great concept. Making Will Magnus Magneto’s brother is a cute play on their names, and the Amalgam Universe is filled with these in-jokes, but giving Magneto a team of Metal Men modeled after Marvel’s earliest mutants? That’s the kind of creative thinking and continuity-melding you want in an Amalgam book. Now, if only the Metal Men had actually maintained a healthy newsstand presence following the Silver Age, perhaps I would’ve gotten more out of the actual story. I’m sure there are character bits and inside references I’m missing out on, so unfortunately much of the issue comes across as standard superhero fare. Perfectly acceptable, but not particularly exciting. The references I do get are entertaining, so I’m assuming fans of both the X-Men and Metal Men will get a lot more out of this than the average reader.

JLX #1 - April 1996

A League of Their Own!

Credits: Gerard Jones & Mark Waid (writers), Howard Porter (penciler), John Dell (inker), Chris Eliopoulos (letters), Gloria Vasquez & Heroic Age (colors)

Summary: The Judgment League Avengers face off against the JLX, a group of former members aligned with accused eco-terrorist, Aqua-Mariner. Mr. X uses his telepathic powers to distract the JLA and allow JLX to escape. JLX travels with Aqua-Mariner to find Atlantis, the ancestral home of mutantkind. They find the city abandoned, and are soon attacked by Will Magnus and his Sentinel robots. During the fight, Mr. X is forced to reveal his hidden Martian powers to defeat the Sentinels. Although they’re shocked by Mr. X’s true identity, JLX decides to stay with their ally.

Continuity Notes: The JLX consists mostly of mutant ex-members of the JLA. The line-up includes Mr. X (Martian Manhunter, posing as a mutant and wearing a Bishop-style “M” on his face), Apollo (Cyclops and the Ray), Aqua-Mariner (Namor and Aquaman), Mercury (Quicksilver and Impulse), Runaway (Rogue and Gypsy), Wraith (Gambit and Obsidian), Firebird (Phoenix and Fire), and Nightcreeper (Nightcrawler and the Creeper). In this reality, Will Magnus is Magneto’s brother, which is a play on Magneto’s original “real” name of Magnus.

Review: What does it say about 1996 that Marvel and DC gave us JLX instead of JLAvengers? Amalgam happened to occur during Mark Waid’s brief association with the X-Men, so it makes sense that he would help to develop one of the Amalgam X-teams, although I'm sure he would've had more fun with the Avengers characters. I have mixed feelings about this one. In a way, it captures the Amalgam sentiment, as the book is filled with references to imaginary storylines (The JLA has split! Angelhawk is secretly a mutant! Wraith’s darkness is slowly tainting Runaway!), and it’s hard to fault the characters chosen to be amalgamated. Martian Manhunter working as an undercover X-Man? Will Magnus creating the Sentinels? Nightcreeper -- a cool visual and funny in-joke? This is good stuff. The execution is iffy, though. Aside from Porter’s inconsistent art, the script is often a bore. I can’t tell if the overwrought dialogue is intentionally or accidentally bad, but either way it drags the book down. If this is deliberately a parody of the X-style, it’s so dry that it’s hard to read it as a joke. And were any other characters held up for ridicule during the Amalgam event? Singling out the X-Men doesn’t seem fair.

ONSLAUGHT: MARVEL UNIVERSE – October 1996

With Great Power…
Credits: Scott Lobdell & Mark Waid (plot), Mark Waid (script), Adam Kubert & Joe Bennett (pencilers), Dan Green w/Thibert, Townsend, Delperdang (inkers), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering), Steve Buccellato & Team Bucce! (colors)

Summary: The X-Men rescue Professor Xavier from Onslaught, as the Avengers and Fantastic Four arrive as backup. Onslaught uses Franklin Richards’ reality warping power to create a second sun in the atmosphere, which puts greater pressure on the heroes to finish the fight. Cable telepathically enters Joseph’s mind and uses his magnetism powers to temporarily remove the barriers Onslaught placed on Xavier’s telepathy. Phoenix, at the Hulk’s request, turns off the Bruce Banner portion of the Hulk’s brain, allowing him to attack Onslaught with no self-control. The Hulk destroys Onslaught’s armor, which creates a large explosion that somehow physically separates Bruce Banner and the Hulk. Onslaught reemerges as pure psionic energy, which can now spread out across the planet. Thor volunteers to contain Onslaught’s energy in his own body, but he’s not enough. Members of the Avengers and Fantastic Four unite and enter Onslaught’s energy field. Mr. Fantastic warns mutants not to join the other heroes, claiming that their genetic pattern could give Onslaught more strength. Iron Man forces Dr. Doom to join the rest of the heroes, while Bruce Banner leaves the unconscious Hulk behind and follows the others. Mr. Fantastic gives word to the X-Men to destroy the energy field when all of the heroes are gone, as the mental images of Xavier and Joseph rescue X-Man and Franklin Richards. Onslaught is destroyed, but Xavier predicts that mutants will be blamed for the damage.

I Love the ‘90s: Thing refers to Reed and Sue Richards as “Paul and Jaime”, a reference to ‘90s sitcom Mad about You.

“Huh?” Moment: While inside Onslaught, X-Man has a conversation with a floating word balloon that’s not attached to anyone. Later on, we see him speaking to Xavier and Joseph, who are colored with a special effect. I’m assuming that there was a production error that prevented the pair from showing up in the earlier scene.

Continuity Notes: Mr. Fantastic claims that the mutant Scarlet Witch can enter Onslaught because of her reality-warping hex power. Some fans complained about Falcon entering Onslaught, but as Kurt Busiek has often reminded fans, Falcon is not supposed to be a mutant, despite what a malfunctioning Sentinel once said. The heroes who enter Onslaught’s energy field go on to star in the “Heroes Reborn” titles. It’s later revealed that Franklin Richards created an alternate Earth when he came into contact with his mother as she passed through Onslaught. That world is represented by a blue ball, which suddenly appears next to Franklin after he’s rescued.

Which heroes actually entered Onslaught was never kept consistent, and the fact that Franklin’s world was populated by millions of people, and not just these specific characters, means that he could’ve recreated whomever he wanted to anyway. For the record, we see Human Torch, the Thing, Wasp, Giant Man, Falcon, Namor, Captain America, Black Panther, Scarlet Witch, Crystal, Iron Man, Dr. Doom, Bruce Banner, Mr. Fantastic, and Invisible Woman enter on-panel.

Remember the psionic armor that was brought up in several tie-in issues? The plot element that was used to justify Excalibur and Iron Man’s inclusion in the crossover? Would it shock you if I told you it plays no role in the final installment at all?

Just to be thorough, here’s a list of the hints that preceded the revelation of Onslaught’s identity:

X-Men Prime – A shadowy figure attacks Mystique, declaring, “It begins”. Forge speculates that whoever did this didn’t want to kill Mystique, but make a statement. This was originally supposed to be Onslaught, but someone changed their mind and the mystery villain became the X-Factor character Hound. Even in the context of later X-Factor issues, Hound’s actions don’t make a lot of sense, either.

UXM #322 – Juggernaut lands in New Jersey, and claims he was punched in Canada by Onslaught. It’s later revealed that Onslaught attacked him because of Xavier’s resentment of his abusive stepbrother, which is fair enough. However, Onslaught isn’t supposed to have a corporeal form at this point; that happens after X-Man makes Xavier’s astral form physical in X-Man #10.

Cable #21 – A shadowy figures steals data on Cable from Blaquesmith. Moira MacTaggert learns that someone (possibly the same person who leaked her Legacy Virus infection to the media) has been stealing her files on Cable, also.

X-Men #44 – A powerful force is interfering with the psionic plane. This is later revealed to be X-Man, but the emergence of Onslaught could’ve also caused the disturbance. The X-Men’s Australian base has been used by another mystery figure, who is never revealed. I’m sure this was supposed to be another Onslaught hint, but it’s hard to say given the number of mysteries dominating the titles at this point.

X-Force #46 – A mystery man kidnaps Mimic behind the scenes. It’s confirmed that Onslaught did abduct him, but Mimic drops out of the storyline very quickly with no explanation.

X-Force #47 – Cable accuses Xavier of hiding information from X-Force regarding a mission, which he denies. This could work as an Onslaught hint, especially since their mission involved Mimic. However, it’s not portrayed as a shocking revelation, and nothing in the story infers that Xavier is lying.

Wolverine #93 – Two Landau, Luckman, and Lake agents send Juggernaut to another dimension because he “knows too much”. This was probably meant as a reference to Onslaught, yet L, L, & L end up playing no role in the storyline.

X-Men #46 – Onslaught kidnaps fifteen scientists working on a Sentinel project. Since Onslaught does use Sentinels later on, this at least makes sense. It’s important to Senator Kelly that a scientist named Evan Donner is missing, but this goes nowhere.

X-Men #48 – Xavier begins to shut his feelings off after Sabretooth nearly kills Psylocke. Xavier’s disappointment over failing to help Sabretooth is later used to help justify Onslaught’s creation (which doesn’t explain why Onslaught was active before this happened).

X-Men #49 – Onslaught kidnaps Chamber, for still unknown reasons.

X-Men #50 – The strongest indication that Xavier wasn’t originally supposed to be Onslaught. Onslaught uses Gateway to kidnap four X-Men so that he can observe them. How much more information on the X-Men could Xavier possibly have? Other nonsense from this issue includes Gateway trying to abduct Xavier for Onslaught, the implication that a strange landscape is the source of Onslaught’s power, and Onslaught’s claim that he’s preparing the X-Men for “the coming”.

X-Force #52 – Blob, whose powers have been enhanced by Onslaught, is sent to steal Nimrod technology. This is another Sentinel connection, although Nimrod is supposed to be a highly advanced Sentinel, and he never shows up in the storyline (although Nimrod prototypes do attack Cable a few months later when he revisits this base). Blob and Mimic are soon forgotten as the crossover begins.

UXM #331 – Archangel questions if Xavier would use his powers in unethical ways, which looks like a hint that the creators were at least considering him as an Onslaught candidate at this point. Cyclops revisits the location Gateway took the X-Men to in X-Men #50. He’s shocked that there’s no debris, and the landscape doesn’t match its previous appearance. Never explained.

Cable #31 – It’s inferred that Onslaught is the one who stole Blaquesmith’s data on Cable in Cable #21 (originally, a silhouette of the X-Cutioner was shown to be the culprit). Whatever information Onslaught wanted is never revealed, and Xavier/Onslaught would presumably have all of the information he needs on Cable already.

UXM #332 – Xavier threatens Zoe Culloden in order to get information on the missing Wolverine. The story hints that Xavier’s beginning to break from the strain of recent months, which works as a clue.

UXM #333 – The creators have now firmly cast Xavier as Onslaught, as he begins to act irritable and snarky around the X-Men, which sets up next month’s revelation. The story also claims that Onslaught abducted thirty-one scientists, which more than doubles the number listed in X-Men #46. This issue has a June 1996 cover date, which means that as recently as May’s Cable #31, actions were ascribed to Onslaught that make no sense given his true identity.

Review: For what it’s worth, I really liked this comic when I was sixteen. It seemed like a respectable goodbye to the heroes, and Adam Kubert’s rendition of the Marvel Universe was great. I was upset that Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld were going to be rewriting the histories of the FF and Avengers, so the fact that this issue already paved the way for an in-continuity explanation for the new reality was a welcome relief. Looking back, it seems like the entire issue is a series of in-continuity justifications for real world business decisions. “Jim Lee wants to use Hulk in Iron Man? Well, split him and Banner up so we can have him, too. At least we get to keep the mutant characters. Oh yeah, Scarlet Witch is a mutant, isn’t she? Okay, I’m sure we can get around this somehow. Hey, are we keeping Quicksilver or not? Spider-Man? We can just say he didn’t make it to Central Park in time. Same thing for Daredevil. No one missed him in Secret Wars, anyway.”

As for the story itself, there are a few nice exchanges between the characters as they say goodbye, but the action scenes are disappointing. The heroes spend a lot of time ganging up on forcefields and bubbly energy patterns, but none of the characters are really able to use their powers in distinctive ways. Onslaught remains a generic “destroy everything” villain, who can do nonsense such as creating a new sun. This adds nothing to the story, and it seems like the heroes quickly forget about it as soon as it appears (I guess it’s supposed to be the source of the wind that constantly surrounds the characters, but it’s not clear). I assume the scene was used as foreshadowing, to show that Franklin’s powers can create planet-sized bodies. Marvel’s editors had already decided that Franklin would be the means of returning the characters to the Marvel Universe when “Heroes Reborn” was over, which was at least some level of future planning. Even so, in this issue it’s a strange plot development that goes nowhere.

As the conclusion to a storyline that had been building for over a year, this is undoubtedly a disappointment. Almost none of the clues leading up to the villain’s reveal match up, and characters who where supposed to be Onslaught’s faithful servants have disappeared by the time the event begins. At the very least, Mimic and Blob could’ve replaced the omnipresent Sentinels in any of the numerous tie-ins. The Punisher fighting the Blob could’ve been fun; instead we got an issue that barely used the Sentinels as the setup for an unrelated story.

There’s a sense of half-heartedness surrounding the entire event, which is the exact opposite feeling the Age of Apocalypse storyline evoked. AoA managed to create an entirely new world, keep a remarkable amount of consistency amongst the various titles, and actually have a point outside of shock value. Charles Xavier’s importance to the world was demonstrated by showing what would’ve happened without him, which is a legitimate premise for a long-term storyline involving a large cast of characters. Now, Xavier has been turned into a villain because of the events of an unrelated storyline published three years earlier. He becomes the most powerful threat the Marvel Universe has ever known, and then proceeds to do absolutely nothing over the course of a dozen titles. He’s never given a plan or a motive, until the very end of the storyline when he just decides to kill everybody. It doesn’t make anything resembling a statement about the character, and Onslaught never even becomes an interesting opponent for the heroes to fight. The initial tie-ins got some material out of the heroes’ response to the events, but after that the characters do nothing except fight Sentinels, chat with each other, and develop futile plans for stopping Onslaught. Like so many other crossovers, it just becomes a waste of time.

With Avengers, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and Captain America licensed outside of Marvel’s offices for over a year, a new status quo was created within the Marvel Universe. Marvel could’ve pretended that the Lee/Liefeld books were still in the Marvel Universe and just ignored any continuity problems, but I suspect this was unthinkable at the time. An entire storyline had to be created to explain where the heroes have gone (one which unfortunately cannibalized an existing X-subplot and made it even more nonsensical), and the characters Marvel still controlled had to react to the loss. This did create an interesting new scenario, where more obscure heroes had to take the place of the missing icons, as mutant heroes where blamed for the heroes’ deaths. I seem to recall Marvel getting some mileage out of this, although it’s clearly a case of making the best of a bad situation.

“Heroes Reborn” became a commercial success, as much as that could be judged in the post-boom period of comics sells. Critics hated most of the titles, but the stunt was successful in renewing interest in characters that Marvel has been neglecting for years. The story that went around at the time was that losing so many of their characters embarrassed Marvel’s employees, and inspired them to try harder when the rights reverted to them in 1997. This lead to some of the X-artists being assigned to more traditional titles like Fantastic Four and Captain America, while Silver Age revivalists such as Kurt Busiek and Mark Waid were hired to do new stories that also brought the characters back to their roots. Rather than making the Avengers more like the X-Men, the goal now was to make readers realize what made the Avengers cool in the first place.

In some ways, the post-“Heroes Reborn” era began the X-line’s descent as the industry’s dominant commercial force. The biggest artists weren’t automatically assigned to the X-books, which sent a message to readers that Thor could be just as important to Marvel as X-Men. Soon, second-string titles like Daredevil were getting high-profile relaunches (as part of a deal with Joe Quesada’s Event Comics, which resembled the “Heroes Reborn” deal but didn’t place the characters in another reality) and rivaling the X-titles in sales. The success of Quesada’s relaunches (and, allegedly, anger over editorial’s inability to capitalize on the success of the first X-Men movie) allowed him to replace Bob Harras as Editor in Chief in 2000. Joe Quesada once said that he couldn’t keep the various X-characters and their spandex outfits straight, a sign that he didn’t hold the numerous mutant characters in the same esteem Bob Harras (who had been editing various X-titles since the ‘80s) did. The X-franchise still holds weight, or else Marvel wouldn’t be publishing so many spinoffs, but the commercial appeal has obviously dwindled under Quesada. The majority of the titles are now mid-level books that turn a profit and have a fanbase, but don’t set the sales charts on fire. It’s common to see low-selling X-books cancelled these days, which would’ve been unthinkable during most of the ‘90s. Without the commercial success of “Heroes Reborn”, and the Onslaught storyline that preceded it, it’s conceivable that the comics landscape would look very different today.

X-MEN #56 – September 1996

Twilight of the Gods
Credits: Scott Lobdell (plot), Mark Waid (script), Andy Kubert (penciler), Art Thibert (inker), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering), Joe Rosas & Malibu (colors)

Summary: Joseph tells Captain America the story of Dr. Doom’s arrival in New York. He asks why Doom is helping out, and Captain America responds that he’s making sure the Earth exists so that he can rule it one day. Meanwhile, Onslaught tries to absorb X-Man’s powers, but he manages to resist. Onslaught reads his mind, and is angered when he learns that the mutants who ruled X-Man’s world also destroyed it. He then absorbs X-Man into his body, forcing him inside with Franklin Richards. Xavier secretly leaves the rest of the heroes to personally confront Onslaught. Onslaught destroys his wheelchair, and tells him that neither humans nor mutants are fit to rule, so everyone must be destroyed.

Continuity Note: Onslaught claims that his minions, such as Holocaust, Post, and Havok, served their purpose and brought him X-Man. No, they didn’t. Onslaught captured him personally in X-Man #19.

Creative Differences: This is Mark Waid's final issue, scripting over a Scott Lobdell plot. When Waid's departure was announced, Scott Lobdell told Wizard, "I think I write the plot around the characters, whereas his tendency is to try and shoehorn characters into the plot". Waid and Lobdell continued to take public shots at one another for a few years, but Lobdell did eventually issue an open apology (which I can't find online, unfortunately). When asked in 2002 about why he left the book, Waid responded, "Creative differences. As in, I wanted to be creative". To throw more snark in, this is Mark Waid's response to Bob Harras' firing in 2000 (via Rich Johnston):

The only bad thing about this is that it happened after convention season was over. Otherwise, the entire freelance community would be drinking on me all summer long.

And that, my friend, has nothing to do with my own personal head-buttings with a man who's a weasel and a liar. It has everything to do with the fact that his legacy in this business will be as the man who always went the extra mile for ten years to keep the industry's highest-profile books COMPLETELY IMPENETRABLE TO A NON-FANATIC AUDIENCE--an ESPECIALLY grievous crime this summer of ALL summers--*AND* taught his lackeys to do the SAME. (The "X-Men Sampler" piece of shit in TV GUIDE is something I will use forevermore in my classes and teachings as an example of HOW NOT TO DO COMICS THAT CAN BE UNDERSTOOD BY NON-FANS.)

Review: It seems that quite a few of these tie-in issues mainly consist of the heroes talking to each other while they’re waiting for their next strike on Onslaught. Waid handles Joseph’s conversations with Captain America and Xavier well, but eventually you just want the heroes to stop standing around and do something. There is a fun scene that has Dr. Doom (incredibly rendered by Kubert) destroying a Sentinel with one blast, which serves as a reminder that the story at least had some potential, even if it’s just seeing the various Marvel characters united against a common foe.

The story of Onslaught himself is advanced here, and not for the better. X-Man’s ability to resist Onslaught is played up for the first few pages, but suddenly in-between pages, Onslaught is able to casually absorb him with no explanation. The knowledge he gains from X-Man shifts him from a “mutants must rule” motivation (which wasn’t even clear in his previous appearances), to a nihilistic “kill everything” goal. This is just boring judged on its own merits, but knowing that Lobdell had actually given him a far more coherent motivation (reprinted in the Road to Onslaught special) makes it seem even worse. The original idea, which exaggerated Xavier’s goals and had Onslaught forcing everyone into a peaceful Collective Intelligence, at least is a logical progression of Xavier’s way of thinking. Abandoning that idea, which never even made into any of the actual stories, and just turning the villain’s plot into “everything must die” is horribly misguided.

I have no idea what was happening behind the scenes during this era, but after Onslaught reveals himself, the stories aren’t given anywhere to go. Onslaught sends Sentinels to attack New York and the heroes respond, but this is just followed by issues of Onslaught in his citadel threatening Franklin Richards. He doesn’t do anything once he emerges, and none of the stories ever gets around to explaining why exactly he’s attacking New York. I know that the Onslaught storyline was hijacked in order to provide an in-continuity reason for the Fantastic Four and Avengers to disappear (as the characters had been outsourced to Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee), but I don’t see how that precluded anyone from writing a few lines of dialogue to clarify the villain’s motives. Now that the storyline is drawing to an end, it seems as if the creators have given up on any legitimate motivation for Onslaught, so now he just wants to kill everybody.

ONSLAUGHT Crossovers Part Two – September 1996

Amazing Spider-Man #415 (DeFalco/Bagley/Malhstedt/Milgrom/Comicraft/Sharon/Malibu) – This installment doesn’t advance the Onslaught story at all, as it just uses the Sentinels as villains while the book continues its ongoing storylines. It’s amusing to read the first page of this issue, as the narrative captions recapping the past few years of storylines provide a list of events Marvel soon dismissed (MJ pregnant, Aunt May dead, Peter Parker’s a clone, etc.). This was published during the awkward period when Marvel pretty much admitted that Peter Parker would be back as Spider-Man, but his return would have to wait until the Onslaught crossover was over. The story involves Peter evading Sentinels with Mary Jane, as Spider-Man (Ben Reilly) takes on another Sentinel. One of the Sentinels heavily infers that Mary Jane’s unborn child is a female mutant, which I’m sure was supposed to be a big revelation at the time. Reading any Spider-Man comic from the past twenty years or so gives me an odd feeling now, as I have no idea what’s supposed to be in-continuity, what was never in-continuity, and what was once in-continuity but has since been retconned within continuity. Consequently, I really don’t care (and it’s not just the continuity headaches that bother me, it’s Marvel turning its back on the idea that Spider-Man comics are supposed to be about the continuing life of Peter Parker). Even if it was published during a strange period in the character’s history, it is a fairly enjoyable story about Spider-Man fighting Sentinels. DeFalco does a nice job of depicting the Daily Bugle’s reaction to the crisis, and helps to convey the seriousness of the event more than some of the main Onslaught chapters have.

Avengers #402 (Waid/Deodato/Palmer/Kalisz/Oakley) – This is actually the final issue of the first volume of Avengers, so it’s sad that it’s dedicated to an X-crossover and not to any of the title’s own storylines. In this issue, Iron Man finishes the psionic armor that’s going to be used against Onslaught, and the team is soon attacked by Post and Holocaust, who want to destroy it. Waid tries to make the story more about the characters than the event, as he focuses on the Avengers’ reactions to the chaos in New York, and emphasizes the toll that it’s taking on Captain America. Predictably, Cap eventually figures out a way to defeat Post and Holocaust, as the citizens of New York cheer the team on. The ending’s certainly cheesy, and it seems like something tacked on to make the final issue seem more sentimental than it really is, but the majority of the story works pretty well. The art’s improved from the previous issue, and the action moves at a steady pace. “Heroes responding to a massive catastrophe in a major city during a crossover” is probably its own subgenre at this point, and while this issue doesn’t do anything new, it’s still a decent read.

X-MEN #55 – August 1996

Invasion
Credits: Mark Waid (writer), Andy Kubert (penciler), Dan Panosian (inker), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering), Joe Rosas & Malibu (colors)

Summary: Onslaught’s Sentinels begin to invade New York, as the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men unite to formulate a plan. The Avengers arrive with Joseph and Rogue, as Mr. Fantastic explains that Onslaught has kidnapped his son and is planning to use his reality-bending powers. The teams split up to cover New York, while Mr. Fantastic takes Giant Man, Iron Man, and Bishop to his lab to create weapons to fight Onslaught. Meanwhile, Onslaught uses his young Charlie persona to try and deceive Franklin Richards into voluntarily joining him. As the heroes fight the Sentinels in New York, Gambit accuses Joseph of having a role in Onslaught’s creation. Their argument is interrupted by the appearance of a new citadel nearby. Onslaught emerges from the tower and sends an electromagnetic pulse, destroying buildings and killing electricity throughout the city. Mr. Fantastic’s work is destroyed, and the team of X-Men returning from Muir Island watch as the Xavier Protocols short out, and their jet loses power. Elsewhere, Ozymandias is horrified when he creates a statue of an even more gruesome Onslaught standing on the Earth’s ashes.

Review: We’re now at the “every hero teams up to fight” stage of the crossover. You’d think Andy Kubert drawing all of the Marvel heroes fighting Sentinels in Manhattan would’ve created a memorable issue, but unfortunately this one turns out to be pretty unremarkable. More time is spent on recapping other chapters of the crossover, and giving the heroes assignments that turn out to be futile, than on the action. Kubert does create some impressive drawings, especially the double-page spread of the heroes united on top of the FF’s headquarters, but he’s given surprisingly little to work with here. I might be too biased since I also dislike most of the Avengers’ outfits from this era and prefer Kubert’s previous inkers over Panosian, but I was expecting more from the artwork. Waid tries to inject some personality into the dialogue and give the narrative captions an epic feel, but most of the issue remains fairly dull. Giving Onslaught Magneto’s powers has always bugged me, too. Even if a part of Magneto lived in Xavier’s brain, that wouldn’t biologically give Xavier Magneto’s powers. It’s already a stretch to say that Onslaught can do things Xavier couldn’t because he’s “psionic energy” unleashed, but this is a harder sell.

ONSLAUGHT Crossovers Part One -August 1996

AVENGERS #401 (Waid/Deodato/Palmer/Oakley/Kalisz) – Following Uncanny X-Men #335, Gambit joins the Avengers as they track Magneto's energy signature to the Southeast. The rest of the issue mainly consists of Rogue and Joseph fighting off the Avengers, who think that Joseph is still his old self. Rogue's afraid that if Joseph finds out about his past, he'll revert into Magneto again, so she spends a lot time yelling at the Avengers and telling them to shut up. The conflict ends when the Scarlet Witch recognizes that Joseph isn't the man she knew, and convinces everyone to calm down. This is the classic "heroes fight over a misunderstanding" issue, but Waid's characterizations keep it from getting too dull. As far as crossover tie-ins go, this isn't so bad. There's some nice work with the Scarlet Witch, and a few amusing interactions during the fight scene. Pairing Mike Deodato with Tom Palmer is an odd look, and Palmer's influence unfortunately doesn't tone down some of the more egregious '90s poses and anatomy.

Fantastic Four #415 (DeFalco/Pacheco/Wiacek/Starkings/Comicraft/Lenshoek) – Carlos Pacheco was taken off of Excalibur in order to draw these final two issues of the original Fantastic Four series. This issue contributes to the plot by re-establishing Franklin Richards’ latent mutant power (which is described as the ability to “restructure matter”) and sending Onslaught after him. Onslaught reverts to Xavier’s form and tries to convince the Richards into sending Franklin to his school, as a team of Avengers and X-Men members arrive to stop him. There are also a few pages dedicated to resolving storylines from DeFalco’s utterly bizarre run on this title (although editorial restraints seem to have calmed him down by this point). The rest of the issue is mostly a large fight between Onslaught and the various Marvel heroes. There’s a clever bit that has Onslaught clouding Franklin’s mind while he plays a card game as the battle goes on around him, but Pacheco’s art is the only real redeeming aspect of the fight. If Onslaught is such a devious, cunning foe, it seems like he would’ve had a better plan than just knocking his way through any heroes who happened to be in the FF’s headquarters that day. Since he’s supposed to be the most powerful telepath on Earth, he could’ve used his mental powers in a variety of ways to easily get Franklin away from the team.

ONSLAUGHT: X-MEN – August 1996

Traitor to the Cause
Credits: Scott Lobdell & Mark Waid (writers), Adam Kubert with Pascual Ferry (pencilers), Dan Green with Art Thibert (inkers), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering), Steve Buccellato & Team Bucce! (colors)

Summary: Xavier summons the X-Men to his office, where he begins to discuss the team’s failure to make the world a better place. Phoenix, who knows his secret, tries to enter his mind but can’t. She notices a shrunken Juggernaut inside the Crimson Gem of Cytorrak, sitting on Xavier’s desk. When Phoenix tries to warn the rest of the team, Xavier disappears and is replaced by Onslaught. Onslaught explains to the X-Men that Xavier created him by suppressing all of his darkest desires. When Cyclops tells him that he sounds more like Magneto than Xavier, Onslaught gets angry and attacks. He telepathically forces the team to stand still and flies away, saying he has other matters to attend to. Gambit uses his kinetic energy powers to disrupt Onslaught’s psionic grip and frees the team. Phoenix theorizes that Gambit was allowed to do this because Onslaught isn’t totally in control of Xavier. The team splits up to download Cerebro’s files and destroy any information Onslaught can use. Meanwhile, inside the headquarters of the Fantastic Four, Franklin Richards plays with his new friend, Charlie. Everyone else thinks Charlie’s imaginary, but he’s able to throw a glass of milk against the wall. Elsewhere, X-Man warns the Avengers about the threat he believes Xavier poses. Soon, Onslaught returns to the X-Men’s mansion and attacks the team. The Dark Beast, who is still disguised as the Beast, pledges his loyalty to Onslaught. When Onslaught momentarily collapses from weakness, he decides that he needs a servant. While Onslaught is distracted, Phoenix runs to the psi-shielded chamber and calls the other mutant teams for help. Onslaught interrupts her message and prepares to kill her, as the rest of the X-Men attack him from behind. Onslaught aims a blast of psionic energy at the team, which Bishop miraculously manages to absorb. A weakened Onslaught leaves with the Dark Beast. The X-Men recover and plan their next move. Inside a Sentinel manufacturing plant, a Sentinel awakens and says Onslaught’s name.

Gimmicks: I guess this issue is notable for not having a gimmick cover. Marvel started releasing non-enhanced versions of the gimmick covers a year before this, but this is the first event comic since 1993 not to have a gimmick cover in the first place. At this point, the tide had turned against the novelty covers, and the exorbitant cover prices that went along with them. It seems like Marvel was trying to make a conscious effort to make the readers feel as if they were getting a better value for their dollar. The cover price is $3.95, which is reasonable given that it’s a forty-eight page story with no ads and slick paper.

Creative Differences: Mark Waid confirmed in a recent CBR article that the addition of Magneto to Onslaught’s origin was a last minute idea. This would also mean that Onslaught’s visual was designed at the last minute, since his resemblance to Magneto’s armor is an actual plot point.

Continuity Notes: Jean’s message to the other X-teams is a direct reference to the scene from Bishop’s future in Uncanny X-Men #287. When Bishop first saw her message, large parts of the audio cut out, leaving the identity of the X-traitor unrevealed. The missing dialogue is filled in here, revealing that Xavier-as-Onslaught is actually the X-traitor. Bishop stops Onslaught from killing all of the X-Men, which presumably creates a large diversion from his own timeline. (The narrative captions go back to the idea that he’s from a hundred years in the future, even though seventy-five years had become the standard date given by this point).

The weak spells Onslaught experiences are due to Xavier fighting back within him.

Onslaught tells Bishop that his knowledge of the Age of Apocalypse will help him to map his conquest for this world. I don’t think anything comes from this, and it really seems like a forced attempt at creating the illusion that all of these storylines were planned out in advance.

Onslaught tells the Dark Beast that he was the one shielding his thoughts from the telepathic X-Men. Why exactly he did this is unrevealed, although I suppose it fits into the idea that Onslaught was curious about the Age of Apocalypse.

X-Man met the Avengers in Avengers #400, which I’m sure was one of their proudest moments. I assume that he’s warning them about Xavier because he’s still suspicious of him after their encounter in X-Man #10, and not because he knows anything about Onslaught.

Production Note: There are numerous lettering mistakes in this issue, mostly notable is the one that has all of the issue numbers in the footnotes printed in unreadable dark colors. The font also changes size for no reason during the Avengers scene, and Cyclops’ font style changes for no reason in another scene.

“Huh”? Moment: Franklin Richard’s milk is incorrectly colored as if it was orange juice, even though the script refers to it as milk four different times.

Review: I remember enjoying the two big bookshelf Onslaught comics at the time, while I found the various tie-in comics to be fairly weak. I can see why I liked this specific issue at age sixteen, but it doesn’t hold up that well. I think most completists feel that the more storylines referenced in an issue, the better that issue must be. This issue concludes the Onslaught mystery, references Bishop’s knowledge of the AoA, reveals the identity of the X-traitor, connects the Fantastic Four’s mutant son to the X-Men for the first time in years, and advances the “imposter Beast” storyline for the first time in months. This all felt like a big deal at the time, as if these disparate threads were all supposed to come together all along. The fact that the revelation of Onslaught’s identity didn’t make sense in light of the character’s previous actions didn’t really matter to me at the time. I rarely reread my back issues, so it wasn’t as if I had memorized every action that had been attributed to Onslaught or one of his followers. And if a detail didn’t exactly match up to what I remembered, I was still willing at this point to give the creators the benefit of the doubt until the story was totally over (and by the time this crossover limped to its conclusion, I had probably forgotten most of the lingering questions anyway).

Trying to view the issue as objectively as possible today, it seems like the majority of its appeal just comes from the “fan service” elements. The plot itself consists of Onslaught attacking the team in fairly predictable ways, disappearing for a few pages, then coming back for another fight, and then disappearing again. There really aren’t any character moments, although I suppose the interactions amongst the team during the fights aren’t bad. A lot of the dialogue just consists of explanations of who or what Onslaught is supposed to be, which was interesting at the time in a “are they really doing this?” kind of way, but now that the shock has long worn off, it feels tedious. The art still holds up, however, as we get to see Adam Kubert’s imaginative take on the various X-Men. He begins to develop a more angular and simplified style here, which was probably due to the increased number of figures he had to draw, but it’s still an interesting look. The panel that has Onslaught turning Cyclops’ powers against his own face always stuck with me over the years. Cyclops’ exaggerated facial expression foreshadows the cartoonier look Kubert’s developed in the subsequent years. Since the story itself isn’t particularly interesting, the art picks up a lot of the slack.

X-MEN #54 – July 1996

Inquiring Minds
Credits: Mark Waid (writer), Andy Kubert (penciler), Dan Panosian (inker), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering), Joe Rosas & Malibu (colors)

Summary: The X-Men search the grounds for Juggernaut, while he secretly meets with Phoenix in a psi-shielded chamber underneath the mansion. When Phoenix closes the door, Cyclops’ mental connection to her is gone. He visits the Professor and asks him to search for her. He also informs him that Phoenix didn’t tell him about her encounter with Onslaught because of his recent erratic behavior. Cyclops leaves, as Xavier broods. When he watches television footage of one of Dennis Hogan’s killers bragging that there are a million more like him, he erupts in anger. Meanwhile, Phoenix unlocks the secret of Onslaught’s identity inside Juggernaut’s mind. She tells Juggernaut to run away, and once he senses Onslaught inside his mind, he runs to Xavier’s office. Inside, he finds Onslaught, who rips the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak out of his chest. Xavier, whose mental image is entwined with Onslaught, calls the X-Men to his side. Elsewhere, the Beast escapes from his prison, but is confronted by three mysterious figures.

Continuity Notes: This story continues directly from Uncanny X-Men #334, but the continuity doesn’t exactly work. Cyclops’ meeting with Xavier’s mental projection is totally ignored, so he now has two contradictory meetings with Xavier that foreshadow the Onslaught revelation. In the last chapter, Cannonball was disturbed by Xavier’s outburst against him because he knew it was a sign that something was wrong with him. Here, Cannonball is taking the insult personally and seeking advice from Cyclops (in the last chapter, he told Storm directly that something was wrong with Xavier). Phoenix is also wearing the same outfit she wore in the previous issue, even though she changed clothes twice in Uncanny X-Men #334. The editor’s footnote acknowledges this and makes a joke about it.

Dennis Hogan was the young mutant killed by a mob in X-Men Prime while searching for the X-Men.

The psi-shielded chamber Phoenix takes Juggernaut to is the one Xavier used to hide in while preparing a defense against the Z’nox way back in Uncanny X-Men #65. Phoenix claims that she’s still the only X-Man who knows about it. Juggernaut implies that Xavier might've had ulterior motives in only telling her that he was faking his death, which bothers her.

Looking at old Usenet discussions, I notice some fans pointing out that Juggernaut actually threw the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak into space in the final issue of Marvel Team-Up. The idea that the gem somehow lives inside of him seems to be Waid's invention in this issue.

I Love the ‘90s: The narration jokingly says that Cannonball will have the nerve to confront Professor Xavier on Thanksgiving 2005.

Review: Well, it’s another issue set at the mansion that’s building up to the Onslaught revelation. Xavier is finally revealed to be Onslaught, even if the official revelation was a little vague for me at the time (I wondered if perhaps Onslaught was some outside entity that had possessed Xavier). Since this month’s issue of UXM already covers most of the same ground, it’s hard not to view this one as pretty redundant. The continuity screw-ups are also annoying, since both UXM and this title have the same editor and are supposed to be sister titles. Scott Lobdell briefly addressed some of these complaints on Usenet at the time; essentially chalking them up to the increased workload of Marvel’s remaining staff after the layoffs, and Marvel’s desire to keep the X-titles on schedule. This script could’ve definitely benefiting from a rewrite or two, even if you’re willing to forgive the continuity mistakes. Why exactly Phoenix tells Juggernaut to physically run away while they’re protected inside a psi-shielded vault makes no sense. The fact that she doesn’t even tell him who Onslaught is, which just leads to the Juggernaut running straight to him anyway, is outright silly (I realize that Onslaught’s identity was being withheld for the end for dramatic reasons, but logically there’s no reason for Phoenix to keep the info from Juggernaut). And why on earth didn’t the Juggernaut put his helmet (which protects him from telepathic attacks) back on while he was running away?

It’s also amusing to me that during a montage of all of the traumas that Xavier has undergone in recent months, the death of his son is ignored. Actually, I can’t think of single reference to Legion’s death after X-Men Omega, which is strange. If all of Xavier’s pain and frustrations were supposed to lead to Onslaught’s creation, certainly Legion’s death would’ve been a legitimate area to explore. I wonder if the nonsensical nature of Legion’s death scene lead to Marvel’s decision to just ignore it. There are still a few nice moments, such as Phoenix’s interaction with Juggernaut, and Kubert’s dramatic interpretation of Onslaught emasculating Juggernaut. It really is a happy accident that Juggernaut was chosen to be Onslaught’s first victim before anyone at Marvel had decided that he would turn out to be his stepbrother. The idea that Xavier subconsciously waited his entire life to become stronger than Juggernaut and get payback for his childhood bullying is a clever angle for Waid to take.

After several strong issues in a row, the art is a little disappointing. I’m assuming that this can be chalked up to Dan Panosian’s inks, which lack the earlier energy of Matt Ryan’s and the polished look of Cam Smith’s. Many of the lines now look sketchy and half-finished, which doesn’t suit Kubert’s style. It’s still a nice-looking comic, overall, it just lacks the visual impact of the preceding issues. The cheaper paper stock doesn’t do the title’s look any favors, either, as we’re back to the days when black shadows aren’t very dark, and none of the colors are particularly vibrant, even with computer enhancement.

X-MEN #53 – June 1996

False Fronts
Credits: Mark Waid (writer), Andy Kubert (penciler), Cam Smith w/John Dell (inks), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering), Joe Rosas & Malibu (colors)

Summary: Jean Grey goes shopping in Salem Center. When she enters the store’s changing room, she’s physically taken to the Astral Plane and greeted by Onslaught. He takes her on a journey to expose human hypocrisy. They travel to Graydon Creed’s campaign headquarters, which amuses Jean since she feels that these humans are very open about their beliefs. Onslaught exposes the thoughts of Creed’s campaign manager, who is only interested in gaining political power and doesn’t care about Creed’s anti-mutant crusade. Jean responds that she knows about hypocrisy and surrounds herself with people she can trust. Onslaught takes her to the X-Men’s mansion, where he plans on exposing Professor Xavier. Jean, confident in her relationship with Xavier, leads Onslaught into his mind to prove his innocence. Onslaught unlocks a hidden memory of Xavier’s, which has him declaring his love for a teenage Jean Grey. Onslaught reveals to a shocked Jean that this is one of many emotions Xavier has locked away over the years. They return to the Astral Plane, where Onslaught offers Jean the power she once felt with the Phoenix Force. Jean rejects him, and demands to know who he is and why he’s playing games with her. He tells Jean that she already knows, and then sends her back to reality. She reemerges inside the changing room. When she passes by the nearby mirror, she sees the name “Onslaught” telepathically burned into her forehead. Meanwhile, Joseph makes his way to South Carolina, Beast discovers draining water flowing into a trap door in his cell, and Juggernaut emerges from the shadows at Archangel and Psylocke’s cabin. A mental block prevents him from revealing a secret in his mind, so he heads to the X-Men’s mansion for help.

Continuity Notes: This is the first actual appearance of Onslaught. The continuity is already a little fuzzy, as Jean doesn’t recognize him at all, even though she recognized his mental projection in Uncanny X-Men #333 as the same one she saw in X-Men #50.

The flashback scene that has Xavier declaring his love for Jean comes from Uncanny X-Men #3. Andy Kubert even faithfully recreates the odd clothing Jack Kirby thought teenagers wore in the ‘60s.

Juggernaut’s emergence from the shadows is vaguely tied in to Psylocke’s new powers (which haven’t been revealed yet). Psylocke claims that “something drew him here” and that there’s a connection between the two. I don’t think this was ever resolved. Really, Psylocke’s “shadow teleportation” power is just being used to justify Juggernaut’s return from the Malibu Universe.

Review: This is one of those issues that gave me false hope that Onslaught might turn out as a decent crossover. It certainly shows that Mark Waid was bringing a different approach to the series, as he tries to realistically convey what life would be like for a telepath. The drama in most of the titles at this point involves mysterious threats growing in the background, potential traitors on the team, deadly viruses, or some soap opera-style relationship entanglements. Focusing on what a telepath feels just walking down the street wasn’t exactly the type of story the X-office was putting out during this time. Waid opens the issue by showing what Jean Grey senses if she lets her guard down around people. Predictably, a polite man is having dirty thoughts about her, an overweight woman is jealous, and a teenager is curious about the weirdos at the Xavier school. It’s only a one-page scene, but it’s very memorable and it helps to set up the point Onslaught is trying to convey to Jean. Onslaught himself receives a vague portrayal, as he’s given no motivation outside of exposing hypocrisy because there’s “no room” for it in his new world order. There is an implication that Onslaught is more than just a physical opponent, but one who can tempt the X-Men with their darkest desires, which sounds a lot more interesting than what he turned out to be.

Aside from revealing Onslaught for the first time, the most significant aspect of this issue is the acknowledgment that Xavier was once in love with Jean. Claremont briefly referenced this early on in his run, but it remained forgotten until this issue. It’s important to note how carefully Waid treats the subject. Onslaught is quick to say that “it’s not a torch he’s been carrying…he locked it away long ago...forgot about it”. Even though Marvel is a month or so away from(sort of) making Xavier the villain in the summer’s big crossover, there’s still an effort being made to protect his character. In fact, Onslaught says that Xavier has spent his entire life “repressing every fear, every rage…every black thought he’s ever experienced”. In contrast to his recent portrayal, Xavier is still presented here as an upright moralist, who won’t even allow himself to entertain dark thoughts. Now, we’re supposed to believe that he’s been enslaving a sentient being and covering up the deaths of his students for years. To put it mildly, it’s hard to reconcile the two characterizations. I’m not trying to defend the Onslaught storyline, which was certainly gimmicky and poorly conceived, but at least there was enough foresight to know that Xavier should still maintain a level of integrity throughout the story.

I have mixed feelings about bringing up the “Xavier secretly loved Jean” issue. I can see why Waid used it, since it’s an established part of continuity that shows that Xavier has human desires like everyone else. However, that scene was written very early on in the series’ history, before it was firmly established that Xavier was a middle-aged man who had known Jean since her childhood. As some readers have pointed out, the implication in the early issues of the series was that Xavier wasn’t much older than his students. He claimed that his parents worked on the first A-bomb project in UXM #1, which could’ve made Xavier as young as twenty-something in 1963. I believe it was Kurt Busiek who also defended the scene by saying that a girl in her late teens marrying a thirty-something wasn’t uncommon in the early ‘60s, either. So, something that originally seemed innocuous is now made tawdry thanks to the passing of time (and added continuity). Even ignoring the age issue, I suppose you could argue that as a teacher Xavier had no business looking at Jean in that way, but I still think it’s safe to assume that Stan Lee wasn’t trying to make Xavier a pervert in the original issue. He also dropped the subplot after that brief panel, which means that it was never something used to define Xavier’s character anyway. Reading the dialogue, which has Xavier declaring that he can’t help but to worry about Jean but can never tell her his feelings, I’m reminded that these are the exact thoughts Cyclops often had about Jean in the early issues. I wonder if it’s even possible that Stan mixed up which character was supposed to be secretly in love with Jean for a panel.

Looking at the overall context of the scene, I wonder if it’s something worth ever mentioning again, even if it does work with the story Waid’s telling. Just for shock value’s sake, though, I know the scene works because my friends and I were floored when we read this. One of my friends even dug up a reprint Marvel did a few years earlier of UXM #3 to confirm that the scene was real. This is one of the few comics from this era that had any real impact on me, not just for the “shocking” revelation, but for Waid’s clever interpretation of Jean and the potential Onslaught displayed. It’s too bad things start to go downhill so quickly.

X-MEN #52 – May 1996

Collector’s Item
Credits: Mark Waid (writer), Andy Kubert (penciler), Cam Smith (inker), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering), Marie Javins & Malibu (colors)

Summary: Gambit orders Bishop to grab the front of the runaway train. As Gambit loads the train with energy, Bishop absorbs it until he can’t contain any more. The energy Bishop finally unleashes cancels the train’s momentum with a kinetic backlash. Gambit congratulates the weakened Bishop, and the two are soon ambushed by Mr. Sinister. Gambit, Bishop, and Beast (who is still Dark Beast in disguise) wake up restrained inside one of Sinister’s labs. He explains that he created the mutating virus to infect humans because he was running out of mutant subjects. He thinks that he’s now able to make the mutating effects permanent, but he’s more interested in Bishop, the only X-Man he knows nothing about. He performs a psi-probe and learns that Bishop is actually from the future. Dark Beast grows worried, as he knows Bishop has memories of the Age of Apocalypse, which he’s trying to hide from Sinister. Gambit cries out in pain, leading Sinister to believe that he might’ve been infected with the mutating virus. When Sinister unlocks his restraints, Gambit reveals that he was faking and escapes. He charges a playing card and destroys Sinister’s sample of the virus. A revived Bishop attacks Sinister with the electricity he’s absorbed from the lab, forcing Sinister to teleport away. Meanwhile, Rogue rents a room in South Carolina, and the mysterious Bastion confiscates video of the train’s damage at Penn Station.

Continuity Notes: Bastion makes his first cameo appearance, wearing a trenchcoat with his face covered in total darkness. He’ll go on to be the major villain in next year’s big crossover, which means the 1997 crossover is being set up before the 1996 crossover has even begun.

Sinister is extremely curious about who Bishop is in this issue, even though they met before in the “X-Cutioner’s Song” crossover and he didn’t seem that interested in him. Uncanny X-Men #325 established that Threnody was monitoring the X-Men inside their mansion for Sinister, so if he had that kind of access, you’d think he would’ve known about Bishop’s past by now (it’s virtually all Bishop talks about anyway). Now that I mention it, the idea that Sinister was spying on the X-Men inside their home should’ve been treated as a bigger deal than it was.

While reading Bishop’s mind, Sinister claims that he came to this era to stop the X-Men’s traitor. That’s actually not true; he came to this time to abduct Fitzroy and his band of escaped convicts. He had no intentions of meeting the X-Men, and even thought they were imposters when he first encountered them. I think this mistake has been made a couple of times over the years, almost making it a quiet retcon of Bishop’s backstory.

After overhearing Sinister tell Gambit that he wouldn’t expect an attack from him, and Gambit’s revelation that he knows that Sinister’s lab is in St. Louis, Dark Beast suspects a connection between the two. He claims that he’ll use this to his advantage, but I’m sure nothing comes of this.

Production Note: You guessed it…nineteen pages.

We Get Letters: A letter writer points out how absurd the revelation that Dark Beast had never heard of this world’s Beast was. The editorial response is that Dark Beast is so arrogant, “it never for a moment dawned on him that there could be another person out there like him”. They also claim that his work underground with the Morlocks prevented him from monitoring our newscasts. Good lord.

Review: Andy Kubert returns with this issue, which at least brings some kinetic artwork to a fairly thin story. Not an awful lot happens in this issue, as the previous installment’s cliffhanger is resolved (with some questionable pseudo-science), the team is captured, and then escapes relatively easily. I guess Sinister catching a fleeting glimpse of the Age of Apocalypse, and Dark Beast learning of a connection between Gambit and Sinister could’ve provided fodder for future stories, but since I'm fairly certain neither of those ideas went anywhere, it makes this issue seem even more inconsequential.

The idea that Sinister could’ve been fooled by Gambit playing sick, which is such an old trick it even felt like a cheat when it was used on the old G. I. Joe cartoon, is hard to swallow. There’s also some confusion over what exactly Gambit’s done to his research. When I first read this issue, I assumed that Gambit had destroyed all of Sinister’s mutant DNA database, and suspected that it might lead to another arc involving Sinister recollecting his research. I thought this because Sinister showed off his collection of DNA records earlier in the story, calling it his life’s work. After Gambit causes an explosion, Sinister accuses of him depriving him of his…life’s work. Then, at the end of the story, Sinister brags, “You may have destroyed my virus…but I have many other plans in motion”. So I guess it was just the virus? Looking back, the DNA files are colored oddly, with any outline lines knocked out. I think this is supposed to indicate that he was actually showing off a hologram and not the real database. Plus, it was inferred after Threnody trashed one of his labs that he had backups of his research, so Gambit’s actions wouldn’t have ruined his life’s work anyway (although this wouldn’t explain why he doesn’t have a backup of his virus info). This is really too much confusion for such a simple plot. The issue still looks nice and has some decent character interaction, but it doesn’t feel like much of a resolution to the storyline.

X-MEN #51 – April 1996

Deathbound Train
Credits: Mark Waid (writer), Pascual Ferry (penciler), John Dell, Mark Morales, & Vince Russell (inkers), Marie Javins & Malibu Hues (colors), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering)

Summary: Cerebro detects a spike of mutant activity in a commuter train, and Bishop, Gambit, and Beast leave to investigate. Inside the train, they discover that the civilians have been infected with a contagious virus that mutates them into monsters. Gambit and Bishop head to the engine to stop the train before it arrives in New York City, while Beast is left to subdue the passengers. Elsewhere, while Cyclops and Phoenix visit the Grey family, Graydon Creed announces his candidacy for President on television. Inside the train, the Beast creates an anesthetic out of brake fluid and knocks most of the passengers unconscious. Mr. Sinister suddenly appears, upset that his experiment has been compromised. Gambit and Bishop realize that the train’s controls have been destroyed, which leads Gambit to charge the entire train with kinetic energy. A confused Bishop asks him why he’s turned the train into a bomb.

Continuity Notes: Professor Xavier is still repairing Cerebro on the first page, referencing its destruction in the Phalanx storyline, even though it’s been used since that story (to search for Cyclops after Avalon’s destruction, and presumably to locate the new mutant in X-Men Unlimited #8).

Professor Xavier calls Louis St. Croix, a member of his Mutant Underground, to discuss ways to stop Graydon Creed’s Presidential campaign. I’m pretty sure nothing comes of this.

Production Note: Nineteen pages. Again.

Creative Differences: Phoenix makes a reference to Cyclops being born forty years old, which leads to Cyclops to respond, “Jean, I’m twenty-fi--!” Mark Waid posted on Usenet at the time that this line was added by editorial, apparently because they were afraid that someone would interpret Phoenix’s joke literally. It’s interesting that editorial deemed Cyclops twenty-five, when X-Men #19 inferred that Beast was about to turn thirty, and Beast’s high school girlfriend was labeled thirty in X-Men Unlimited #10.

Review: This is the start of Mark Waid’s brief run, which lasted roughly until the end of the Onslaught crossover. Unlike most of the stories of this era, which tend to have the X-Men hanging around the mansion while a threat grows in the background, Waid writes a more straightforward, action-oriented story. There’s still characterization, but it comes in the context of the characters interacting with one another during the action. Pairing the Dark Beast with Sinister is a nice way to connect a mostly stand-alone story to an ongoing plotline, also. It’s interesting that Waid uses Cerebro as the catalyst for the story in his first issue when you consider how often it was just ignored during the Lobdell/Nicieza runs. This is a more traditional superhero approach to the X-Men, and while it feels a little trivial, it’s entertaining enough. Pascual Ferry does a fine job as fill-in artist, turning in a much more attractive job than most of the fill-ins from this era. He’s still drawing with a slight Madureria influence at this time, but he exhibits enough of his own style so that he doesn’t come across as a bland clone.

X-MEN UNLIMITED #10 – March 1996

Need To Know

Credits: Mark Waid (writer), Frank Toscano & Nick Gnazzo (pencilers), Art Thibert (inker), Matt Webb & Malibu (colors), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering)

Summary: The Dark Beast, using chemicals to alter his appearance, travels to the Beast’s hometown to learn about his past. He speaks to his elementary school principal, his high school girlfriend, and his priest. Throughout the course of the conversations, he learns about Hank McCoy’s childhood curiosity and the incident that gave him blue fur. After speaking to his acquaintances, the Dark Beast kills them and anyone else in the area. When Dark Beast later visits Hank McCoy’s parents on their farm, he finds that he can’t bring himself to kill them. Meanwhile, the Beast continues to alienate himself from his fellow X-Men while studying the Legacy Virus. He realizes that his computer system has been hacked, and traces the perpetrator to the abandoned headquarters of the Brand Corporation. The Beast enters and sees a holographic display of a virus matrix he was trying to unlock. He’s suddenly encased in a restraining device and greeted by the Dark Beast. Dark Beast explains that he’s going to hide from Mr. Sinister in plain sight by posing as the Beast. Beast breaks free and fights back. When he learns that the Dark Beast murdered his childhood acquaintances, he’s ready to kill him. Dark Beast taunts that if he kills him, he’ll never learn where he came from. Beast hesitates, which enables Dark Beast to break free. He knocks the Beast out and chains him up. He then lays bricks and creates a wall to conceal his prisoner.

Continuity Notes: Someone must’ve realized how ridiculous X-Men #49 was, because they’re now backtracking. Dark Beast’s inner monologue in this issue reads, “As a transplant to this timeline, I have long known that this world must boast its own Hank. Until now, I have been too consumed with other matters to give McCoy much thought.” This isn’t very consistent with the previous scene that showed that he was shocked to discover that he had a counterpart here, and his dialogue chastising himself for being an idiot.

Some rationale is given for Dark Beast’s fear of being discovered. He claims that he served a “rancorous subservience to Mr. Sinister” in the Age of Apocalypse reality and that he’s trying to avoid that here. Since Sinister left Apocalypse at the start of the AoA storyline, we didn’t see a lot of interaction between him and Dark Beast. It seems odd that a character as physically powerful and proudly evil as Dark Beast could be a stooge for anyone, but that’s the explanation they’re going with.

Iceman appears in this issue, easily able to switch between his human and ice forms. Since his injury in X-Men #50 plays a large role in Uncanny X-Men #331, the issue that explicitly takes place after this one, that means that the Beast in X-Men #50 was secretly the Dark Beast. I don’t think Lobdell had that in mind when writing that issue, but it’s the only way for the continuity to work.

The high school yearbook Dark Beast is using to investigate Hank McCoy has a cover date from the 1960s. Even in 1996, that would put the Beast in his mid-40s, so that has to be dismissed as a mistake. Later on, Beast’s high school girlfriend is described as a thirty-year-old female, which naturally puts Beast in the same age range. I’ll again point out how strange it is that Marvel seems okay with the original teenage X-Men growing up, but Spider-Man graduating high school was apparently the worst mistake ever made.

Review: I really liked this issue when it was first released, and it still holds up today if you’re willing to overlook some terrible artwork. This is a strong story that does tie into the ongoing storylines in the other titles, so it’s exactly what X-Men Unlimited was originally supposed to do. Waid uses the issue as a character study on the Beast, examining how his insatiable curiosity could be twisted in dark ways on another world. The dialogue is witty and sharp, and characters feel real in a way most of the other writers at this time can’t pull off. Dark Beast’s belief that someone always has to die is played for an appropriate dramatic effect, especially in the scene with Beast’s parents. The entire story has been building up to the Dark Beast killing them, and the way Waid keeps putting if off by giving him a giant log or an axe for props is pretty clever. Dark Beast’s inability to kill his parents, even on another world, is interesting and adds at least a little depth to a one-dimensionally evil character.

The scenes from Hank McCoy’s childhood are also fun, and it helps that they’re grounded in an everyday reality that the other X-books continue to move away from. I’m not sure if Frank Toscano or Nick Gnazzo drew the flashbacks, but they have a nice, cartoony charm to them that reminds me of Tom Grummett’s work. The majority of the issue is unfortunately drawn by a generic-looking Image clone. Like Luke Ross’ previous fill-ins, he’s trying to combine a little bit of manga with the early ‘90s look, and results are extremely unattractive. The figures are poorly constructed, the faces look bizarre, and there are a million little lines over everything. It drags down an otherwise fine comic.

X-MEN #49 - February 1996

Eyes of a New York Woman

Credits: Scott Lobdell (plot), Mark Waid (script), Jeff Matsuda (penciler), Dan Panosian (inker), Kevin Somers & Malibu Hues (colors), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering)

Summary

Bishop, who is growing increasingly unhinged, confronts waitress Pamela Greenwood. Beast, disguised by an image inducer, tries to stop him from tearing the restaurant down. Bishop slams him into a mirror and knocks him unconscious. When Bishop almost collapses, Pamela takes him home with her as the police arrive. When Bishop wakes up on her couch, he repeats his claim that she’s a spy. Dark Beast watches the events through the eyes of Pamela, who is secretly Fatale. He decides that allowing Bishop to live is too risky because he might regain his memories of the Age of Apocalypse. Fatale responds to Dark Beast’s order and knocks Bishop out of her window. Meanwhile, Beast turns off his image inducer in order to intimidate the police into letting him escape. He catches Bishop after he flies out of the window, and is quickly attacked by Fatale. She ruptures a gas line and escapes. Dark Beast watches in amazement on his monitors as he realizes that he has a counterpart in this reality. Elsewhere, both Gateway and Chamber disappear from Xavier’s school in Massachusetts. M tells Banshee that she only sensed the word “Onslaught” on Gateway’s mind before he disappeared.

Continuity Notes

As I’ve mentioned before, the waitress in this issue is supposed to be the woman Bishop recognized at Harry’s Hideaway in UXM #299. She looked familiar to him because Dark Beast “scraped” his mind and came up with Bishop’s image of the ideal woman. He claims that he wasn’t able to figure out Bishop’s “chronal blisters” (i.e., his memories of the AoA) the same way.

Miscellaneous Note

According to the Statement of Ownership, average sales for the year were 332,889 with the most recent issue selling 394,189 copies.

Review

This issue is infamously dumb, and it’s just as weak as I remembered. It’s impossible to ignore just how ridiculous the Fatale retcon is, but I’ll try for a few seconds to talk about other aspects of this issue. Jeff Matsuda provides the fill-in art, and while it’s shaky on a few pages, it is an improvement over his unsightly X-Factor issue from this era. I’ve always thought that the splash page that digitally places Dark Beast’s face over his monitor’s image of the original Beast was nicely done, even if it is illustrating one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read in a comic. The plot of this issue, even ignoring the retcon, doesn’t exactly work, since we’re supposed to believe that Bishop has suddenly gone from “troubled” to “outright insane” (although I guess this is closer to the way he was portrayed in X-Men Prime). The plot is mainly an excuse to get Bishop and Fatale alone together for a few pages, so that the Dark Beast reveal can be pulled off. Knowing that, I have to wonder why they bothered to move the action to “Pam”’s apartment, since there’s really no reason for Dark Beast to wait that long to give Fatale the execution order. The Onslaught subplot in this issue is pretty strange, since it involves the cast of an entirely different title. These two pages couldn’t have been done as an epilogue in Generation X?

Moving on to the notorious retcon, I’m not even sure where to begin. As many others have mentioned over the years, Beast is a celebrity in the Marvel Universe due to his past membership in the Avengers (plus, X-Factor was also a popular superhero team during his stint). The idea that Dark Beast has been on Earth for twenty years and has never seen him on TV before strains credibility pretty far. I guess you could argue that this is just continuity anal-retentiveness, since Beast’s role as a celebrity hadn’t been mentioned in a few years at this time. Even if you buy that, this still doesn’t work. Beast is also a world-renowned research scientist, who has appeared on television several times in that capacity. In fact, the plot of UXM #299 involved the X-Men watching him debate Graydon Creed on television at Harry’s Hideaway. And what else happened in that issue? That’s right, the “mysterious waitress” subplot began. Fatale only now notices Beast and brings him to Dark Beast’s attention, even though he was on television while she was serving Bishop drinks in her first appearance? Aside from the continuity points, there’s also the common sense mangling you have to go through to get this to work. Dark Beast is supposed to be one of the smartest men alive, but it never occurred to him in twenty years that he had a counterpart in this reality? Even though virtually everyone he knew clearly did? Really?

The plan for Fatale is also nonsensical. She was supposed to disguise herself as a waitress, rent an apartment, and…do what exactly? I guess she was supposed to get close to Bishop over the ensuing months, so that Dark Beast could find out how much he knew about the AoA. If so, why didn’t she? Why didn’t she make an actual effort to get close to him? They went through all of this effort to set up a new identity for her, one that includes a job, an apartment, and even a cat, all in an effort to make her seem normal, and then she doesn’t actually bother to talk to Bishop? This is beyond stupid. Plus, it opens up another plot hole – if Dark Beast knew enough about the X-Men to send someone to spy on Bishop in the first place, why is he only now learning about Beast? Really, no aspect of this waitress subplot worked. Even if you were just relieved to get a resolution (like I was as a teen), you couldn’t possibly view her three appearances as a coherent story. She showed up once in 1992 and had a panel devoted to introducing a potential mystery about her. She’s never mentioned again for three years, and conveniently shows up again as Bishop is dealing with memories of the AoA (a storyline that hadn’t even been conceived when she first appeared). The next issue after that, she’s revealed to be a spy, apparently living a complete double life while simultaneously appearing as an assassin in a separate X-title. There were no clues, no foreshadowing, nothing at all to connect the resolution to anything presented in the preceding issues. This goes beyond bad writing, it’s outright appalling.