What’s Covered?
X-Men V2 # 166 - 170
Roster Watch
Synopsis
XMV2 # 166 - 170: Golgatha!
Writer - Peter Milligan
Pencils - Salvador Larroca
Team finds a mutant sanctuary in the south pole, but when they break in, everyone is dead
The name Golgotha is written in blood on the walls
Oooooh, Golgatha! What's that? Sounds fun.
Iceman gives Lorna a hug to calm her down and Havok gets pissy
Ah, I already see where this is going. So Havok and Lorna aren't together again, but nurse Annie is gone, so Havok is free to be jealous again. Iceman is apparently not gay here, so he's dating Lorna. Got it.
Lorna kills an attacker and gets scolded for murdering
Ok, ok, so we're sticking with the idea of Lorna being a tad bit evil. Got it.
The team finds Golgatha. It’s a giant slimy mushroom alien thing
It makes everyone start to lose their mind.
Polaris gets testy when Alex tells her to stop acting crazy
Ok, I like that the mental health angle is still strong here.
Emma recommends bringing it back to the base
W shows up
Golgatha outrage in LA
Alex asks W for leadership advice, W says he’s trying too hard
Nice touch, but Wolverine has never actually been the leader.
While under the influence of Golgatha, Iceman makes a rude comment about Gambit not being able to touch his girlfriend
This starts gnawing at Gambit
Golgatha worshipped at a second location.
A mutant named “Boy” rallies a bunch of renegade mutants and heads to the house of a family that rejected him. Kills them all
Emma tries to psychically connect with Golgatha, but she is attacked This is super random and unless I missed something in an otherwise pointless limited series, there is no history around this. So I believe this is an entire Peter Milligan thing.
Team brings in second Golgatha
W, IM, Lorna to LA to find “Boy.”
Iceman tells W that he’s with Lorna. Wolverine advises him to tell Alex
Boy and his group are apprehended
The team starts going mad again
Emma locks them all down for 24 hours so they can get past the crazy
The team is searching for the real Golgatha, which is apparently super small
Polaris says she been going into Fugue states
Everyone going crazy
W fixated on being old and hangin with young kids
Gambit complaining about not being able to touch Rogue
Polaris self conscious about her mental state
Emma seeing herself look old
W and Rogue claim they’ve always wanted one another and kiss
My Connections and Creators
I don't really have much to say yet. This lineup is terrible. You can tell he just got the leftover dregs. I only know Peter Milligan as they guy that did that weird X-Statix stuff, which I never read. This first arc is decent. Not great. Salvador Larocca's art is probably what saves this as it helps me to feel a bit more familiar with everything. I'll need to keep reading to see how the next arc goes before I come to any set judgment.
Characters
Havok
I'm not a big Havok fan. By this point, I'm shocked that he's still being picked to be a team leader (nepotism, I guess). He was a pretty terrible leader of X-Factor. He keeps getting duped by pretty ladies. We keep seeing him go evil for stretches of time (both in 616 and in AoA). He's also boring.
In this series we see that he is once again going to be struggling with leadership and struggling with the fact that he still loves Lorna, but she's with Iceman.
Polaris
Unlike her longtime boo, Havok, I've always been pretty interested in Polaris. Her struggles with mental illness first showed up in my 5th favorite X-men comic of all time, X-Factor # 87, which is an issue where the full X-Factor team is interrogated by a psychiatrist.
So the main characterization with her here is that she's struggling with mental illness, killing indiscriminately (slightly evil?), and she's in the middle of a love triangle. And as you all know, I am ok with love triangles, but only if they don't last too long. If they drag on, I get annoyed very quickly.
Iceman
He's lame. In the last few runs he's been portrayed as a huge prick. It seems like some writers are in on his homosexuality and others aren't. Apparently Peter Milligan didn't get the memo.
Wolverine
He's in just about every comic these days. I like that Havok went to him for leadership advice. It's weird that they had him kiss Rogue, that just needs to stop. Milligan is introducing this new concept of him getting testy about his age compared to the "kids" he's running with, but I haven't bought into this yet.
Rogue
She's honestly barely in this series. Other than kissing Wolverine, I can't recall much of what she did these issues. It's a real shame too because Lobdell was just starting to have her be a team leader which seemed natural, but that hasn't been the case in some time.
Gambit
I'm not a Gambit fan, but X-Men '97 did make me feel a bit softer about him. He's getting hung up about not being able to touch Rogue. This feels like something we've seen a million times, but maybe it's just a concept that I assumed was going on in his head but we haven't really seen it yet.
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