What’s Covered?
Today we're diving into the Fatal Attractions X-Men crossover event, which features the following Issues:
X-Factor # 92
X-Force # 25
X-Men Unlimited # 2
UXM #304- 306
X-Men # 25
Wolverine # 75
Excalibur # 71
Roster Watch
Synopsis
X-Factor # 92: Quicksilver the Chosen
Plotter - Scott Lobdell
Pencils/ Co-Plot - Joe Quesada
Script- J.M. DeMatteis
I don't know for sure how this went down, but my guess is that Lobdell and the crew at the X-Office was sitting around and thinking about how to make it clear that the Acolytes are evil. I'm guessing someone said "How about they randomly attack humans?" "That's, that's good, that's good, but how about they attack a hospital!" "Yea, that's really evil, but we can make it worse. How about they attack a Hospice Center!" "Ok, actually, how about they attack a children's hospital? Too far, ok, let's stick with the Hospice center."
So that's what happens, the Acolytes show up at a random Hospice center and start indiscriminately killing nurses, doctors, and patients...just because they are humans. This is a little too heavy handed for me.
X-Factor shows up to stop them and after a bit of a battle, one of the Acolytes, Spoor, prostrates himself before Quicksilver. Since QS is the son of Magneto, they revere him, and this sets the tone for Fatal Attractions which is all about Magento, therefore pushing QS to the forefront of the event.
More predicting of what happened during brainstorming sessions. "Where should the Acolytes be holding their base of operations? Any ideas?" "Oh I know, how about they are working out of the Leningrad, that soviet sub that Magneto sunk to the bottom of the ocean a while back." "A soviet sub? At the bottom of the ocean? That's a ridiculous idea. Wouldn't they all have issues with pressurization and be surrounded by dead sailors. Let's do it!"
So that's where we are. The Acolytes are in the Leningrad. One of Cortez's followers is actually bringing up that they may have gone too far, killing innocent nurses and sick people, but Cortez basically says that if they are humans, then they are threats. I appreciate that they are at least addressing how ridiculous this is. So Cortez is evil, got it.
Val Cooper brings QS and Random (fitting name, because it's quite Random that he is chosen to go with, other than him being a Kewl 90's character) to a secret government institute where we see the government is now officially in the business of creating sentinels. And these aren't just regular sentinels, they are inspired by the Nimrod technology. This gives me a bit of a Terminator vibe, to be honest. Actually, one of the Sentinels kind of looks like a Terminator.
Lol, Havok calls Val Cooper "Mein Fuhrer." Soooo, things aren't looking great for the relationship between Val and X-Factor. I'm not quite sure why she decided to disclose this, to be honest. The Sentinels don't even do anything throughout this event.
I'm going to put a pin in this to see if the Sentinels show up later in X-Factor or not. With Lobdell only filling in as a gap with JM DeMatteis on his way in, I wouldn't be surprised if this plot gets dropped, but we'll see!
The Acolytes show up at the Sentinel factory and of course fight with X-Factor.
So Cortez is sitting idly by chatting with QS, telling him that he orchestrated this battle for one reason and one reason only...to entice QS to join his side. Because there's no better way to convince someone to join you than to slaughter their friends. Lobdell, my man, what are you thinking today!? Come on, man!
Poor Val. So we actually get resolution to the "evil Val" storyline. Apparently the Acolytes had been brainwashing her, which is why she was coming on to QS and lured them to the Sentinel factory, however it turns out that she was of her right mind when she agreed that the government should create Sentinels, so it's starting to look like Val's relationship with X-Factor might be over.
Maybe she was a Peter David character (I know she was created by Claremont) and now the new regime wants to create a new status quo.
X-Force # 25: The Return of Cable
Writer - Fabian Niceiza
Pencils - Grep Capullo
So after a bunch of messing with X-Force, making us guess who is really there (we should know from the Cable series), Cable makes his presence known and he is officially re-united with X-Force.
We get right to fixing things. He's like "Rictor, it was Stryfe who killed your dad, Roberto, it was Gideon. Who's next? Sam?"
So it's Sam's turn to give him shit. And Cable starts getting all mushy, apologizing, telling Sam how much they mean to him, and you can tell it's starting to work. Also, Sam and Boomer are holding hands, so there's that confirmation that they are dating (which I had been looking for in earlier blogs).
I'm glad these two made up, because I like Cable in this series, however I REALLY liked seeing Sam as the leader. He did great. I am keeping him as the Leader in my graphic and I hope that sticks, but it kind of looks like they are setting it up for Cable to take back over.
Cool looking Exodus shows up, speaking for Magneto, with an offer for Sam and Roberto to come with him. The original New Mutants want to come too so Tabitha, Rictor, Rusty, and Skids all come with too.
Exodus gives the youngins a tour of Magneto's new home, Avalon. An orbital space space station, put together from pieces of Asteroid M and Graymalkin (More on that in 99: XF 19 - 24 (No Cable).
Magento is able to cure Rusty and Skids brainwashing due to...powers. And of course they choose to stay with him. Sooo they get a retcon and second chance, and immediately throw in with another "evil" mutant. Cool. So they are still being written out.
Cable and the rest of the team show up on the ship and Cable uses his knowledge of Graymalkin to try to take over the ship, yet Magneto interferes.
Magneto uses his power to take Cable apart! Damn, homey! Cable teleports himself to the shuttle and will be down for the count for a little.
X-Men Unlimited # 2: All about Magneto
Writer - Fabian Niceiza
Pencils - Jan Duursema
Alright so here we are, back with another X-Men Unlimited. Has it really been 3 months (of publishing) already!? So this one takes two forms and it's all about Magneto.
Most of the comic is spent with Gabriella Haller (Legion's mom/Israeli ambassador/Professor X baby mama) recounting the life of Magneto. Most of the content is stuff we already know, however there are a few huge pieces of information that change (or retcon) Magneto's story. First of all, we learn that Magneto's full name is Erik Magnus Lenshurr. So if you've been confused about him being called Erik in the movies but Magnus in the comic, here you go. We also learn that Magneto was in the concentration camp growing up because of being a Gypsy, NOT as a Jew. I REALLY don't know how I feel about this. Why? Why would they do this? I'm pretty sure this gets retconned back one day, but this is another weird decision.
The second part of this story focuses on a guy named Ute Eskalt. His brother was supposedly killed by Magneto, so he's spent his life working with the German Government dreaming of revenge. He is responsible for creating a special suit that would make him immune to Magneto's power. At the end of the issue, Eskalt has a chance to kill Magneto but we get a revised accounting of his brothers death and learn that maybe it wasn't all Magneto's fault, therefore he is not killed (shocker).
UXM #304: Magneto (and Colossus) gone and lost his mind
Writer - Scott Lobdell
Pencils - Brandon Peterson
Exodus pops in to tell the Acolytes the truth about Fabian Cortez. Upon learning that he is a fraud and tried to kill their chosen one, the expected mutiny takes place.
The decline of Professor Xavier's mental state begins. Or continues. Either way, he's really struggling with the death of Illyana, among other real of perceived failures.
His eternal boo, Lilandra, shows up via projection to give X a little morale bump. However, she's becoming a bit of a tyrant herself so maybe she's the wrong person for him to be getting counsel from.
For the first time in an X-Men comic, we're presented with the impressive Avalon.
Ooooooooooooh, is this a call back to my third favorite X-Men moment of all time (UXM # 183)? Remember when Storm and Kitty were featured in an X-Men title? Those were the good old days.
Kitty (and everyone, but mostly Kitty) is still bumming around about the loss of Illyana so Storm decides to take Kitty into the sky to cheer her up for old times sake.
While up in the sky, Kitty notices that Peter is turning pretty Emo and burning all his paintings. This guy is going through some messed up grief and is not handling it great.
Bishop and Banshee set up for Illyana's funeral, and Bishop makes a comment about Banshee being the Custodian of the Next Generation. I've never read Generation X, but I know about it to know that it's coming in 1994 and Banshee opens up a school for truly troubled mutants along with Emma Frost. Is this a coincidence or did the X-Office really know this far in advance that that comic was coming? Pretty interesting.
Storm gives a fantastic speech with X-Men (Gold and Blue), X-Factor, Excalibur (at least Kitty and Kurt), and X-Force in attendance.
Magneto decides this is a good time to do some recruiting.
This actually really bothers me because Magneto had a good relationship with Illyana from his time as Headmaster. To think he would disrespect her in that way is really upsetting. But this is only the beginning of a series of decisions by Magneto that are very far out of character for him and DO NOT sit well with me.
The Acolytes show up, now perfectly loyal to the real Magneto, and of course get in a little skirmish with the X-Men.
Scott tells Wolverine to stay calm and says "You're the drop-dead-last person I want slugging it out with Magneto." Foreshadow much?
Magneto freezes Wolverine in his tracks and even forcibly retracts his claws. He is showing an even more impactful power set than we've ever seen.
Alright, so Magneto calls attention to Senyaka and is like "Hey Asshole, did you really kill a bunch of innocent humans at a Hospice Center?" At this point I'm thinking...ok, maybe I can forgive Lobdell for him desecrating Illyana's funeral, at least he's going to be a noble villain, as we've always (since the Claremont era) counted on him to be.
QS makes sure we know exactly what nasty stuff Senyaka did.
What..the fuck...is this shit? Magneto isn't pissed that Senyaka killed innocents, but just that he did it without Magneto's permission. Excuse me?
First, Magneto is ok with him killing innocent humans? Since when?
Second, Senyaka didn't know Magneto was alive until today, so how could we have asked permission. That doesn't even matter. This is NOT the Magneto I know.
Third, Magneto murderizes Senyaka. I don't like this.
Jubilee throws up in her mouth a little watching Senyaka turned inside out by his own tendrils.
More homicidal ramblings. Dumb.
More shit I don't like. Charles brings up that Avalon was built using Shi'ar technology. This means that he was never reformed, because he got access to that while serving as Headmaster.
Lobdell, X-Office, what are you doing? Why are you undoing years of AMAZING characterization of this villain? He was fascinating because he was nuanced. I am not ok with this.
Claremont must be rolling over in his retirement home (which was paid for based on sales of X-Men # 1, which included a nuanced Magneto going out in style).
Charles and Magneto are meeting head to head.
Rogue tries to appeal to him, but this dude is evil now I guess so give it up.
Bishop is about to attack Magneto but is struck down by...Colossus. Oh no, Colossus. No, no no.
Now this is a character moment I'm ok with. We spent many issues showing Piotr darkening and this is earned.
Nobody is more terrified than Kitty, rightfully so. Glad she's here. Heartbreaking.
In a final battle, Magneto was trying to bring Avalon into orbit to do something...Maybe kill a bunch of people? Charles takes over his mind and forces him and his ship to jettison out to space. This is the end of the threat...for now.
UXM # 305: Professor X's waning conscience
Writer - Scott Lobdell
Pencils - Jan Duursema
Iceman is hanging out with Opal, who appears to be under attack. First, hasn't Opal broken up with Iceman like 1000 times by now? She kind of does again here.
Second, these soldiers blow up when taken down. This is setting up the next event (yes, already), the Phalanx Covenant where a bunch of creatures are infected by the good old Techno Organic Virus. (That's not a great explanation because I have never read it before. Lol, I'll do better later).
Oh, and Rogue touches one and then turns into ropes or something. She's fine later so it's all good.
Storm and Professor X meeting with a human benefactor to their cause. The point here is that we learn that Chuck has an "Underground Railroad" of humans who are mutant sympathizers. We'll see a few more soon too.
Alright, so remember that anti-Magneto suit I mentioned above in X-Men Unlimited # 2. Well, Professor X has Storm sneak in and steal it. She steals the plans for it, but leaves the suit for the humans to defend themselves.
Storm is like "Hey Chuck, go Fuck yourself. I did this one thing, but don't you ever ask me to do your dirty work for you again." Professor's judgment is...clouded...lately and Storm wants nothing to do with his Shenanigans.
UXM # 306: The next event, already?
Writer - Scott Lobdell
Pencils - John Romita Jr.
Warren and Jean are flying around, laughing, reminiscing about the good old times. Warren's like "Oh man, remember how I used to be in love with you? That was funny, right?" And then Jean's like "Yea, totally. It's too bad I never loved you." Then Warren's like "It's cool, I was about to ask you to bang because Candy Southern was the only I always loved. Too bad she's dead." And then Candy Southern shows up.
Professor X and QS do a little sparring session in the danger room. They turn the gravity off (that technology doesn't exist, BTW) so that QS can't speed around and Professor X isn't at a disadvantage by that whole not walking thing.
Of course, these two talk philosophy while they fight and QS says:
"You are not my father, sir! Nor do you have to become him in order to defeat him."
Everyone is catching on that Professor X is getting a bit radical and needs to cool his jets.
I like this. This is very real. Essentially Forge is like "I'm sorry for being a dick. How about we just try to be friends and see what happens." Storm is probably thinking "I've been banging Bishop, but I love you. My true husband is the X-Men. Let's give this friendship thing a shot."
Candy is not sure how she's back, but she believes she's the real deal. Spoiler, she's part of the whole techno phalax thing and will die this issue again. Poor Warren. Where's Charlotte?
OMG, Cameron Hodge again? Fine, let's deal with this tool. He's also techno virused out.
Hodge and Southern are defeated and destroyed!? (This plot is annoying to me, so let's just move back to Fatal Attractions. Maybe I'll revisit these issues when I'm ready to get into the next event.)
X-Men # 25: The battle
Writer - Fabian Niceiza
Pencils - Andy Kubert
Alright, so the humans put up this Anti-Magneto protection which involves a bunch of lazers around the globe, stopping him and his ship from entering the earth's atmosphere.
The New Magneto team has Exodus at his side, along with the Acolytes and Rusty and Skids. Colossus too, though not pictured here.
In an effort to show those humans who is boss, Magneto essentially sets off a worldwide EMP. We'll see the effects of this across the entire Marvel Universe for quite some time.
Oh, and this just like kills thousands, maybe millions of people. Anyone in an airplane, dead. Driving on the expressway, probably dead. Fuck you X-Office, why are you making Magneto a willing mass murderer! You're lucky I read this in 2021 instead of 1993 or I would be sending hate mail.
X-Men Blue and Gold together to thwart Magneto.
The Prof pops out in this special suit allowing him to walk. Ok. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be suit he had Storm steal. It probably is, right. Modified with Shi'ar tech or something, right?
He decides that he's going to bring a small strike force with him. I'll tell you why he (Lobdell, not Charles) choose each team member:
Rogue since she has her romantic past
Gambit to get awkward when Rogue gets awkward around Mags
Wolverine so he can get his spine ripped out.
QS because he's Magneto's son.
Jean...so she can almost be killed again? Because that's her thing. Maybe Charles excuse (I need Jean to amplify my psychic powers because I'll be using so much to help me walk) is the real reason.
Speaking of the whole Rogue/Magneto relationship thing.
The strike team gets on board Avalon and is able to teleport everyone but Magneto away.
Magneto barrels through and begins the battle.
With our psychic powers combined...!
Oh snap diggity dog. This is it. One of the most iconic X-Men moments and without doubt the biggest moment of this event. Magneto forcibly removes all of the adamantium from Wolverine's body. Dang.
And with the culmination of "bad Charles" coming to fruition, Charles attacks Magneto psychically, essentially leaving him as a vegetable. I did NOT know this happened, so I'm curious where this goes.
Colossus informs them that he's staying, you can't teleport him, and he will care for Magneto.
Wolverine # 75: Saving Wolverine
Writer - Larry Hama
Pencils - Andy Kubert
After the Prof scrambled Magneto's brain, the away team scrambles home on a jet (piloted by Bishop), rushing home to get Wolverine in his mangled state to some proper medical attention.
Larry Hama shows us that Wolverine is delirious, living in a dreamscape of horror while he's in this terrible pain.
Wolverine's body is trying to heal itself, but the damage is so severe that they aren't sure what will happen. We've seen a lot of mixed displays of his power. Sometimes he takes 20 bullets and keeps walking. Other times he gets one little stab and says it will still take him a few days to get back to normal.
The plane is kind of crashing, so most of the issue is spent trying to keep the plane in the air. Here we see Quicksilver using his super speed (kind of like data from Star Trek) to manage the computer system.
This is one of my favorite panels of this event. Storm is worried about Charles. Jubilee, of course is worried about Wolverine. Kitty is freaking out about her mentor:
"Logan! What about Logan!"
Scott obviously wants to know what's up with Jean.
So there's a real cool scene here (and nod to the birth of Phoenix) where Jean is sacrificing herself to keep the plane in the air. Here she is accidentally sucked out of the hatch.
Jean is saying her goodbyes, telling everyone not to look back. (I'll pretend for a second that she can use her telekinesis to fly so that I can live in the moment and enjoy the tension.)
Charles is strapped in. Everyone else is flying around the cockpit. Wolverine is flatlined. Looks like this is the end of Jean...
Oh...Hell Yea. The person who catches Jean is...Wolverine. He's essentially dead. There is even a scene where Charles is in his mind and Wolverine is basically saying he's ready to die. But when it's Jean's life on the line, Wolverine not only wakes up, but he's the one to catch Jean. I'm not gonna lie, this is good. I really like this. I am going to open up my "Favorite's" Google Doc right now and add this to my favorite moments of all time, which I'll update again once I get to 1995.
After getting home, Wolverine is surprised to learn that he can still pop his claws. They are made of bone! I didn't realize we didn't know this at first, but now I understand why that would have been a big deal.
This event causes Wolverine to leave the X-Men for a time. I believe he's gone for a solid year (in publishing).
Excalibur # 71: Can Colossus be saved?
Writer - Scott Lobdell
Pencils - Ken Lashley, Darick Robertson, Matthew Ryan
For some reason, Spoor is alive. Also for some reason, he is attacking Nightcrawler. Ok.
The Prof, Jean, and Scott show up overseas to meet up with Excalibur, which is currently down to Kurt, Kitty, and Rachel.
Head's up, this is dumb too! Professor X is like "Colossus couldn't have possibly gone bad on his own, so Kitty why don't you lie to him to lure him here, then we'll capture him and "fix him." I'll tell you right now that they fix him and Colossus still sticks with the Acolytes. I'm happy about this, not because I want him to stay with the bad guys, but because I hate when someone genuinely makes a bad choice but we come up with some "He was brainwashed" idea. Like why couldn't Rusty and Skids have just gone a bit bad? It's not like any writers have big plans for them, just make them bad apples! I'm getting off topic in my raging.
Kitty sends a message to Colossus that she wants to join him and the Acolytes.
Colossus knows Kitty would never lie, so she believes him.
This is fun! Jean opens up a little to Rachel and tells her that:
"You stand a really good chance of being born sometime in the immediate future."
I'll forget that this makes it sounds like Jean is pregnant, which she is not. Or that this baby couldn't really be Rachel. I'll just enjoy this moment because it made me feel warm inside.
So I'm really curious what's going to happen with Excalibur. As mentioned before, they are down to just Kurt, Kitty, and Rachel. Captain Britain disappeared and is believed dead, but I believe he will be coming back to the series soon (I think that's even hinted at this issue). Meggan is currently catatonic without Brian (which seems a bit sexist, to be honest). I'm sure she can function just fine without her man! Cerise was already written out. Apparently Kylun is going to spend the rest of his time with his family. Feron...who cares. Micromax is out as well. I had never read any comics before with Cerise, Kylun, or Micromax. I thought they were kind of cool. It took a long time for them to show up and I didn't realize they would be gone so fast. What the hell is going to happen with Excalibur? I think Rachel leaves for an extended period of time too. We haven't even seen Lockheed in quite some time. Are we just gonna rock with 4 or 5 characters for a while? Will new characters be introduced? Honestly I wish Kurt and Kitty could just re-join the X-Men, but not yet.
Cable shows up for whatever reason and battles Rachel. I've read a bit ahead on Cable's backstory so I'm not sure what we've learned yet, but I know it's quite ironic that Cable acts like he doesn't know her when she had such a big impact on his upbringing. Perhaps this is setting that in motion.
Rachel temporarily turns into Cap, so we must be setting up his return.
Rachel gets a little delirious and calls him Askani'son. So ok, we're definitely setting up the whole Cable backstory thing.
So Colossus does come and he's captured, and he's fixed...meaning that he can go back to human form now.
He's still going back with the Acolytes, phew. He is going to try to reform them from within.
Kurt announces a new status quo with Excalibur running out of Muir Island for the time being. This marks an era where Excalibur will be run out of the X office and much more closely tied to them.
New outfits for a new era!
My Connections
I need to come right out and proclaim "Fuck you guys for doing this to Magneto!" Claremont spent YEARS making Magneto one of, if not THE, most nuanced, complex and interesting characters, but someone in the X office decided it was time to make him a fucking run of the mill psychopath. Not cool! Grrrrrrrrr.
Ok, now that we got that out of the way, we can begin. I have never read Fatal Attractions before. I don't know how 10 year old me didn't buy the comics with the 3D trading card on the cover, but I didn't. There is so much to dive into and I barely know where to start from an overview perspective, so I'm just going to point out point of analysis for each comic line.
In X-Factor, the Acolytes are just too evil. The dudes are literally indiscriminately killing nurses and dying patients. We get it, they are bad dudes. Is this really the best writing we can put forward?
Cable returns in X-Force. I've commented before about how it's good for comics to change up the status quo, but if they do it for too long, it can be negative. Here are a bunch of examples of stories that ran too long:
A de-powered Storm
The disbanded X-Men
X-Factor being on that other random planet for a whole year (Judgment War)
So X-Force had it's leading man, Cable, disappear for a bunch of issues. And this opened up space for another leading man, Cannonball. This worked, I love Cannonball in ways I never did before. Dude's a legit leader. Now Cable's back. This is good. I like this. Well done.
In the 3 issues of Uncanny covered here (304 - 306), we see Professor Xavier slowly unraveling, utilizing more and more radical strategies. While this is pretty out of character, I'm actually ok with it (Unlike Magneto). It's compelling to see a character go from good to bad (or at least flawed). Colossus breaks bad as well, and I think the X Office did a wonderful job of shitting on him long enough to make this believable.
X-Men gives us the final erasure of Magneto's mind in an effort to stop him. I had no idea this was coming so I was pretty shocked. I'm fascinated to see how long this sticks. We also had Magneto ripping all of the Adamantium from his body. Even though I had never read this, I definitely knew about it. Must be one of those things you just pick up, like my in laws knowing Luke is Vader's son without ever watching Star Wars.
This was probably the most interesting issue of Wolverine I have read to date. That's not good, because it was only good since it was tied to the event. It took 75 issues and it barely counts. It was really good though!
No clue what's going on with Excalibur. They are down to 3 members and changing their status quo to Muir Island. I'm a little pissy about Kylun and Cerise being written out after so short of a stay. I didn't like the comic when it was just the original 5, so I hope I don't go back to dreading this comic. Please don't let that happen. Maybe them being more closely tied with the other comics will help.
Creators
It's notable in X-Factor that we have begun to pass the torch from Lobdell to JM DeMatteis. I haven't ready any future X-Factor books, but I know DeMatteis had a lengthy run so I'm interested to see what he does with the comics.
I've been talking about Larry Hama and that while I like his stuff better than Claremont's, it's still not great. This issue is great, but too little too late. I'm still tentatively planning on stopping my Wolverine solo reading for the time being. We'll see if it sticks or if I get dragged back in.
So now we're on to Lobdell (Uncanny and Excalibur) and Nicieza (X-men and X-Force). These two have let me down. I'm pretty sure I read somehwere that the editorial staff demanded that Magneto become evil again. I'm going to tell myself that's true, because if these two thought it was clever writing to undo 20 years of character growth for Magneto then they have lost my respect. I've been talking for a while about how Lobdell has my support (contrary to the X-Men media commonly being against him) and the jury is still out on Nicieza. This puts Lobdell back in the skeptical category and Nicieza is on watch. However, I am really enjoying X-Force at the moment so that's good. I will say that Lobdell seems to be able to write the shit out of characters. I think Nicieza tries to mimic Lobdell and Claremont, but he's just not good at it. Lobdell will show us a scene that tells us so much about how each character is processing a moment. Nicieza is just telling us emotions through exposition. "Warpath loves Siryn but can't tell her. Boomer is worried about whether Sam loves her back." He literally writes this shit. I'm glad we're getting characterization, but he can do better.
Character Beats
So the point of this section is to see how the comic run featured in this blog continued the development of each character. Sometimes, no one evolves. Most of the time, one or two characters move forward. Let's see how this event affected the individuals, broken down by series.
X-Factor
Havok, Polaris, Strong Guy, Wolfsbane, and Multiple Man were all largely stagnant.
Quicksilver was largely featured throughout this entire event, due to being the son of Magneto. Not only was the X-Factor entry focused on him, but he was part of the chosen "away team" and therefore popped in all of the other series as well (except XF and Exc). I would say the biggest character takeaway is that QS IS an asshole, but he's not a madman, so that's something! I also put the dreaded red box around him in my graphic because he physically left the team to work with the X-Men. I'm not sure if he'll pop right back with X-Factor or if this starts a period where he leaves. I'm pretty sure he leaves eventually, I'm just not sure if this is where it happens or not.
The other big X-Factor moment has to do with Val Cooper - We got a resolution to the "evil Val" sub-plot. Apparently she was brainstormed by the Acolytes. There is some speculation out there that this is not what Peter David originally had in mind, but I guess it doesn't matter now. Brainwashed Val brought the team to a Sentinel factory, which pissed off the team, even leading Havok to call her "The Fuhrer." It appears as though she will no longer be associated with the team, so she got the red box too.
X-Force
Cable's back and he seems to be largely transformed due to recent events. He seems softer and more committed to doing right by his team. I really enjoy this as we've seen all the examples where he was a big jerk to his team-mates (in the Cable solo series so far), so I like that he's doing things differently. Oh, and Cable is near death, but I barely blinked at that because we just got done with the whole "Is Cable Dead" thing, and I KNOW they aren't dumb enough to play that game again. Or are they?
I've been talking about Sam really growing into a "Cyclops level leader" so I'm very curious to see who leads the team now that Cable is back. Cable already got him to admit that being a leader is weighing on him. Is that his out, to sit back and let Cable lead? I don't know. I'm very curious to follow this.
There is not a lot of forward momentum with the rest of the team.
X-Men Gold and Blue
Storm finally gets some love, from Lobdell in addition to Bishop and Forge. We see that there may be some hanky panky going on with Bishop. Forge and Storm are talking again and that seems to make her giddy. Storm also has a big moment when Prof. X asks her to steal and she does it, but basically puts him in his place telling him never to ask her again.
The biggest shaker is obviously Colossus. After months of being shit on (Brother, parents, sister dying), he finally cracks and joins Magneto and the Acolytes. I think this is quite well done as it was sufficiently built up to. I'm very eager to see how this unfolds because even though he's a "bad guy" now, he will be a voice of reason amongst the Acolytes.
I've already said a lot about Magneto so I'll just re-iterate that he has crossed a line he can never come back from. He attempted to kill Cable and Wolverine, disrespected Illyana's funeral, encouraged murder in his Acolytes, and killed millions with his EMP blast. You already know why this makes me mad, moving on.
Professor X gets a little too obsessed with stopping Magneto, willing to do just about anything to stop him, including using Magneto's own tactics. He steals government property, uses his powers on humans in ways he typically doesn't, puts his team in death's way, leads his own assault mission, and ultimately scrambles Magneto's brain.
Wolverine has a major moment where he gets his adamantium ripped from his body. After recovering, it becomes clear that he is leaving the X-Men. I believe he stays off the team roster for at least a year, giving him the red box in my graphic as well.
Jean hints at asking Scott to marry her. Rogue still has feelings for Magneto. Jubilee is sad about Wolverine leaving.
Excalibur
Kylun, Feron, and Micromax are written out of the series.
The team is down to 3 and will be based out of Muir Island from now on.
My Rating and Review
5/10
While a lot of cool shit went down, I am so pissed about Magneto that I'm giving Fatal Attractions a 5/10.
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