What’s Covered?
UXM # 388, XMV2 # 109 - 110, Cable 85 - 92, X-Men Unlimited # 30 - 31, Gambit & Bishop: Sons of the Atom 1 - 6, Wolverine 159 - 166, X-Force # 110 - 115
Roster Watch
Colossus dies :(
Kitty, Cable, and Nightcrawler quit the X-Men
Gambit, Jean, Wolverine, and Cyclops (not pictured) stick around.
Rogue, Thunderbird, Storm, Psylocke, Bishop, Beast, and Sage (not pictured) bow out, getting ready to form the X-Treme X-Men lineup.
X-Men Fantasy Draft
The theme of this blog is that the table is being cleared to make room for the new era. I envision Chris Claremont, Grant Morrison, and Joe Casey sitting around a table having a fantasy draft filling out their respective rosters. Here's how I imagine the draft order and conversation going:
Editors: Ok, here's the rules. You can have any characters from X-Men or Generation X, except Cable. He's just going to run solo for a while. You only get one character to duplicate from someone else's team, so choose wisely.
Round 1
Grant Morrison - Cyclops
Editor - Cyclops comes with a friend request. You get Jean too.
Claremont - That's bullshit!
Grant - Splendid.
Chris Claremont - Rogue.
Claremont - Don't I get Gambit too?
Editor - No, you do not.
Claremont - That's bullshit! Can I change my pick?
Editor - No. Grant, you're on the clock?
Joe Casey - Wait, isn't it my turn?
Editor - No, you pick when Grant and Chris are done.
Round 2
Morrison - Beast
Claremont - Beast!
Editor - Ummm, that's the character you want to duplicate?
Claremont - What's wrong with Beast?
Round 3
Morrison - Emma Frost.
Claremont - Wait, she was an option!?
Claremont - Storm
Claremont - Ha! What a steal in the 3rd round!
Round 4
Morrison - Wolverine
Claremont - Wolverine
Editor - You can't have Wolverine.
Claremont - Oh, I need Wolverine.
Editor - You used your one duplicate on Beast?
Claremont - Why would I use my one duplicate on Beast? I would obviously use it on Wolverine.
Editor - Yea, that's why I gave you a hard time 5 minutes ago. Pick again.
Claremont - Thunderbird
Grant - Oh no, you stole Thunderbird...That's exactly who I had in my queue.
Claremont - Really?
Grant - No. I would rather have no one else.
Round 5
Morrison - I'm good with Scott, Jean, Beast, Emma, and Wolverine. Throw in Professor Xavier and call it a day.
Claremont - Bishop.
Claremont - What a steal!
Joe Casey - No one cared about Bishop, man. Can I start picking now?
Editor - Sure
Joe Casey - Nightcrawler
Claremont - WTF, I thought we were making this guy wait?
Editor - All we care about is Grant now.
Round 6
Claremont - Psylocke
Casey - Wolverine
Claremont - You're not allowed to have Wolverine
Editor - Yes, he is. You just wasted your duplicate choice on Beast.
Claremont - WTF! Don't you fools know who I am!?
Round 7
Claremont - Psylocke
Claremont - I love that hot ninja
Casey - There's no one good left!
Editor - Colossus is still on the board.
Casey - Iceman
Claremont - Lol, have fun with that.
Round 8
Claremont - Sage
Grant - Really, Sage?
Claremont - Yes, really. Just wait until you see what I have in store for her.
Casey - Archangel.
Editor - He wasn't on the draft board.
Casey - Does that mean I can't have him?
Editor - No, you can have him still. I just assumed no one would want him.
Claremont - Idiot. No one likes Archangel.
Round 9
Claremont - I'm good with Storm, Beast, Thunderbird, Psylocke, Bishop, Rogue, and Sage.
Casey - Chamber.
Grant - That's the steal of the draft.
Claremont - I didn't realize that was an option.
Editor - Gentleman, Colossus is still on the board.
Claremont - We know.
Editor -Ok, then we might as well kill him.
Synopsis
X-MenV2 # 109: Extreme X-Men Set Up
Writer - Chris Claremont
Pencils - Thomas Derenick
Thunderbird, Psylocke, Iceman, AA, Col, NC involved in a snowball fight with kids
Betsy ends up on top of Neal
They are clearly flirting
Rogue and Gambit show up with presents
Rogue still struggling with the powers and memories that won’t go away.
I wonder if this will carry over to Extreme X-Men?
Beast is ice-skating with Trish Tilby
They are dating whenever it's convenient for the writers.
Storm is ice-skating with Gambit
Storm is worried that Destiny’s diaries will corrupt Professor X
Oh snap! I'll talk about this more in the "My Connections" section.
Nightcrawler in the circus with Cerise
She still trying to convince him to leave being a priest
Archangel breaks up with Psylocke saying that he has seen her flirting with
I guess this isn't official, but it certainly seems like this is Archangel's last time in an X-Men comic for a while.
Thunderbird doesn’t think that she is ready for a long commitment
Bishop is helping local fireman
Wolverine is in Japan at Mariko‘s grave
Viper shows up and delivers a bone claw letting wolverine know that kitty is all right
Storm sets up Extreme X-Men
“I propose that we seek out the diaries. We will leave the X-Men and go our own way for the home team's protection. We shall remain substantially out of contact that lessens the risk of our security being compromised.”
Storm, Rogue, Beast, Thunderbird, Psylocke, Bishop, Sage (Tessa)
Rogue tells Gambit not to join their mission
UXM # 390, XMV2 # 110: Big Guy Bites It & Kitty Quits
Writer - Scott Lobdell
Pencils - Salvador Larocca (390), Leniel Francis Yu (110)
UXM # 390 is one of the most tragic issues I've read in a while, especially since I had no idea this was coming. Beast is ecstatic to learn that he discovered a cure to the Legacy Virus, however in order to activate it, a mutant must sacrifice themselves. Colossus gets very quiet after this news and you can tell something is on his mind. Cecilia figures it out too late as Colossus injects himself with the cure, killing himself on the spot. Wow. Tragic.
XM # 110 is an entire issue dedicated to Kitty mourning her friend and spreading his ashes in Russia. This encourages her to officially quit the X-Men, go to college, and live a normal life.
In a shocking epilogue, we see that Magneto kills all of the Neo except for Domina.
Cable # 85 - 92: Cable Quits the X-Men
Writer - Robert Weinberg
Pencils - Michael Ryan
Cable 85 - 86
C goes 2 billion years into the future to save Rachel
C Vs Gaunt for Rachel
C loses to Gaunt, but the TO virus gets in his bloodstream and he loses
C bring Rachel back to the present
This will stay a secret
She goes to college
Cable #88
Cable, struggling with the death of Moira
Cable, not sure if he still belongs with the X-Men
Storm suggest that he meets with somebody in New York
C sees a movie with Irene Merriweather
Cable officially quits the X-Men
Cable’s goes out to dinner with storm
Cable visits Nightcrawler at a cemetery
Cable is stalked by a group called the dark sisterhood
Cable #89
Irene meets with Beast to learn about how straight had been cured of the techno organic virus and thinks that maybe cable can be
The dark sister hood stalks Cable
C learns that Blaquesmith had ties to the Dark Mother and Dark Sisterhood
C90
Cable blows up his safe house and says goodbye to Irene and blaquesmith as the dark sister hood fights him
C91
The dark mother wants to be an evil dictator person
C92
Cable starts to be blamed for the murder of Robert Kelly, and he believes that the dark mother is behind it
Rachel is going to college
X-Men Unlimited # 30 - 31: Nightcrawler Quits
Writer - Various
Pencils - Various
XMU #30
1
Husk Jubilee and M go to a Cosmic disco party
2
Mr. Sinister tells night crawler he can bring Colossus back to life, but they crawler rejects it
Nightcrawler officially quits the X-Men to focus on being a priest
3
Road goes out partying and finds normal people who are OK with standing up to the friends of humanity
4
Quicksilver, warns wolverine that with the legacy virus gone, no obstacles remain in magneto’s path for global domination
XMU #31
1
Rogue and Jean go on a shopping trip and end up, stopping a pervert from murdering a child
2
Cyclops beats up some thugs, who were trying to beat him up for being blind
3
They create tries to help a mutant named Kiza who can turn things to gold, but she ends up, killing herself
Gambit & Bishop: Sons of the Atom # 1 - 6
Plot - Scott Lobdell
Script - Joe Pruett
Pencils - Cary Nord & Georges Jeanty
Gambit and Bishop are scared of some sort of symbiote
Gambit and Bishop R fighting illusions of X-Men. They are worried that they are fighting Stryfe.
Bishop and gambit meet a character called the witness and Bishop is shocked because he always thought this person and gambit were one and the same
Stryfe tells a sob story and asks these two to help him against cable
Cable does attack them all using a techno organic weapon
Bishop has a symbiotic creature living inside him, called the Bete Noir
Stryfe is feeling guilty about all the terrible things that he’s done, agrees to absorb the Bete Noir and dies (for good?).
Wolverine # 159 - 166
Writer - Frank Tieri, Various
Pencils - Sean Chen, Various
W 159 - 161
Mr X assassinates some ppl
W fights X’s assasins
W is kidnapped but then Mr X escaped
W Ann ‘00
W kills some Brood
Wolverine #162-166
Wolverine has a dream of killing Senator Drexel Walsh but then the dream becomes real with with beast
Sabertooth gets Adamantium
Wolverine is hunted by the shiver man, and may have been framed by a life model decoy
Beast and Logan de powered in the prison
Sabertooth brakes wolverine and Beast out of prison
Logan finds out that there is a New Weapon ex program, and that he actually was the one who killed the senator and sabertooth is recruiting people for the new program but the shiver man ends up helping Logan escape
X-Force # 110 - 115
Writer - Ian Edgington
Pencils - Jorge Lucas
110
Meltdown and Sam disagree about the direction of X force, but then they make out
Half machine, half humanoid creatures (Warborgs) are killing a bunch of parents
Domino apologizes for getting mad that the team ditched her for Pete wisdom
111
Warpath is seriously hurt by the warborgs
112
Captured children are in tanks
Nick fury asks X force to investigate stuff since shield is an allowed to leave the United States
113
A bomb appears to have killed X-Force
114
Bedlam help the team survive the blast
After being presumed dead, X force travel around the world, fighting people who were giving mutants a hard time
X force kidnap Alastair Stuart
115
XF find the laboratory, turning murderers, rapists, and thugs into cyborgs
Another explosion kills everyone on the team, but domino
My Connections and Creators
I know I poked fun at Colossus during the Fantasy Draft up above, but in all seriousness his death is a big deal. The first character from the All New Lineup to die since Thunderbird. He's been around since the beginning! The most tragic part of Colossus dying is that no one really found a way to make him interesting. No one cared about his brother. It was sad watching him fall for all these girls in a row. No one cared about his paintings. It was slightly interesting when he became a villain, but then that got old too and was pretty quickly forgiven. No one wanted him for their lineup and now he's a casualty of war. Poor fellow.
Woah. Storm is worried that Destiny’s diaries will corrupt Professor X. I know I've been joking about how Professor X is the worst since my very first blog, but this is Chris Fucking Claremont coming out and being like "Dude, Professor X can't be trusted. Power would corrupt him." That's a big statement, especially coming out of Storm.
If there is one character in all of Marvel who did not need a redemption arc, it's Stryfe.
The table is being cleared for the new roster's and quitting is the cool thing to do!
As we're about to move into a new era, I'm announcing that my coverage of X-Force, X-Man, and Generation X will officially be stopping. X-Force is about to turn into X-Statix and I don't intend to keep up with it. I was never really covering X-Man, but now I might even stop reading recaps. I gave up on Generation X, but was holding out hope that one day I might change my mind and catch up, however that won't be happening.