300: Uncanny X-Men # 515 - 519, X-Men Legacy # 228 - 230 (Nation X)
- 1 hour ago
- 15 min read
What’s Covered?
Uncanny X-Men # 515 - 519, X-Men Legacy # 228 - 230, Nation X # 1 - 4, X-Men: Legacy Annual vol. 1 #1, Nation X: X-Factor #1, Psylocke #1 - 4, Deadpool vol. 4 #900, Deadpool vol. 4 #15 - 18
Roster Watch
Synopsis
Uncanny X-Men # 515 - 517: Nation X
Writer - Matt Fraction
Pencils - Greg Land
Cyclops sits down with Beast, Emma, Namor, Storm, and Professor Xavier for a strategy meeting that feels more like a pressure cooker than a war council. Storm and Emma can barely stop sniping at each other.
To be honest, this seemed manufactured. Storm has barely been around and I've never really seen her go at it with Emma. In fact, it's not like her to be petty.
Namor openly challenges Scott’s choices and tests his authority. Scott does something wild for a leader and admits he does not have a long-term plan, only a direction and the willingness to keep moving.
When Scott heads for the mainland and Xavier wants to join, Scott shuts it down with a blunt reminder that Charles raised him on ideals, not the kind of tactical reality Utopia needs. Meanwhile Nightcrawler escorts Emma and Danger back to San Francisco to scoop up prisoners, and Emma keeps predicting a body count while trapped in her diamond form with a nasty piece of the Sentry’s Void stuck inside her. Magneto showing up at the end is the kind of surprise that instantly changes the temperature of the room.
Magneto arrives saying he is looking for Scott, and Xavier immediately assumes it is a trap, to the point of lashing out mentally. Scott calls Charles out for it, making it clear that Utopia is not running on old instincts anymore.
At this point I'm starting to think that we might be going overboard with the Xavier spanking. Enough already, the point is made.
Magneto, unexpectedly, claims he is in awe of Scott’s leadership, and that respect lands harder than any threat would. He explains he got his powers back through work tied to the High Evolutionary and a stolen piece of the Dreaming Celestial’s brain, which is as unsettling as it is impressive.
On the other side of the board, John Greycrow (Scalphunter) gets hired by same random non-mutants to deliver a shipment of Predatox X to Asteroid M/Nation X. When the monsters get redirected toward Utopia, Nightcrawler teleports onto the plane, returns, and gives the simplest order possible: shoot it down.
Cyclops answers that order with an optic blast that tears the plane apart, and suddenly the debate turns into survival. Six creatures hit the field, and the island has to respond like a nation under siege, not a superhero clubhouse. Namor drops one, Storm cooks another with lightning, and the rest get handled through messy teamwork, like Iceman freezing one in place while Colossus and Boom Boom turn it into a demolition project. Rogue goes full utility weapon by borrowing a whole menu of powers from younger mutants, showing how deep the bench on Utopia really is. Wolverine and Warpath hack away at another monster, but Scalphunter undercuts the fight by blowing it up, proving this attack was designed to be chaos first and casualties second.
Then the weirdest sting hits when the Phoenix Force suddenly peaces out on the three Cuckoos, adding a supernatural “what just changed” note on top of the blood and rubble.
Nation X # 1 - 4
Nation X #1 turns Utopia into a “day in the life” pressure test, starting with a group of mutant kids dragging Magneto into the underbelly of Asteroid M to hunt what they think is a ghost. The “haunting” winds up being an old self-destruct sequence, and Magneto coolly shuts it down like he is swatting a fly, which is both reassuring and deeply Magneto. Nightcrawler starts questioning whether Utopia is quietly becoming the opposite of the dream they fought for, and Wolverine unexpectedly comes in hot defending Cyclops, which hits NC like a splash of cold water. On the lighter side, Toad and Dragoness try to blockade the water supply, and it is immediately pathetic because Iceman is basically the island’s water department, so Bobby leans into the job and tries to reassure everyone while Scott and Emma stay too buried to hold hands across the whole nation. The issue closes with grief getting literal as Colossus builds a massive memorial for the fallen, only for Illyana to tell him to stop living in the wreckage, with both of them clearly carrying the unspoken weight of Kitty.
Nation X #2 keeps the anthology vibe going and pivots to smaller character spotlights that show how weird it is to build a country out of trauma and duct tape. Jubilee gets a check-in from Academy X kids, and things get tense fast when Surge shows up and the conversation turns into an argument that pushes Jubilee into writing Wolverine a letter instead of trying to say it all out loud.
This short story really hit me for some reason. Jubilee, always the fan girl, this time on the outside looking in. You can tell that she's sad about not being a mutant anymore. She's clearly upset about not being as close with Wolverine and him having new students to mentor. The letter she was writing was quite tragic as well. Also, wtf Surge! Since when is she such a bitch and what does she even have against Jubilee? Did I miss something?
Another segment puts No-Girl directly against Quentin Quire, playing their clash like a personality war more than a straight fight, because Quentin being Quentin is its own natural disaster. Northstar’s piece deals with the emotional math of long-distance relationships when your home is an island nation with constant emergencies, and Gambit’s story leans into how hard it is to “settle down” when your whole identity is built on motion and impulse. Taken together, it sells Utopia as functional, messy, and human, which is exactly what makes it feel fragile.
Nation X # 3 starts with Armor attacking Danger to get revenge for Wing (Wing was a red shirt young mutant killed by Danger during Astonishing), but she eventually realizes Danger carries guilt and decides to help her. I always have mixed feelings when comics point out their own consistencies. I couldn't but thinking "that's right, Danger killed X-Children, that bitch!" Later, Anole is bitching about not wanting to farm until Magik teleports him to the desert to teach him a lesson. Madison Jeffries wife, Diamond Lil, was killed during the Necrosha invasion and we get a snapshot in their waning days.
Nation X # 4 begins with a silly story where Cyke puts Doop (a character from X-Statix which is a series I skipped and have no desire to go back to) in charge of detective work. At first people try to kill dupe (due to annoyance), but eventually they started admitting the crimes they were thinking about. Later, Emma and the cuckoo‘s get bored, so Emma has the cuckoo‘s begin working as teachers to stop them from terrorizing other kids. Finally, Namor is about to leave the island until Storm gives him a guilt trip and talks him out of it. He then dives into the ocean and brings up a giant sea serpent as food for the people.
X-Men Legacy # 228 - 230, Annual: Devil at the Crossroads
Writer - Mike Carey
Pencils - Daniel Acuna, Mirco Pierfederici
X-Men: Legacy Annual #1
Emplate crawls out beneath the ruined Xavier mansion and tears into construction workers like he has been waiting for an invitation back to Earth. Cyclops responds by putting Rogue in a new role, asking her to become a counselor who helps mutants understand their powers and keep control of their lives. Rogue starts putting that mission into practice with Indra, which makes the coming chaos feel even crueler. When Emplate attacks the X-Men, he comes off wildly overpowered, like the usual playbook does not apply. He escalates by kidnapping Roxy (Bling!), and a side story quietly hits a different nerve when Gambit’s Apocalypse flavored version starts to stir.
X-Men: Legacy #228
The team realizes Trance can access Emplate’s bizarre dimension through her ghost form, but Cyclops does not trust her to do it safely. (It's clear that the X office is trying really hard to make Trance a thing. She's been showing up everywhere and I honestly don't even recall where she came from!) Rogue decides the risk is worth taking, so she borrows Trance’s powers and goes in herself, making this mission personal and dangerous in the exact way Rogue stories should be. Inside, the stakes get uglier when they learn Emplate is feeding on Bling!, treating her like a battery. The twist is that Emplate is not the top predator in his own backyard, because other things in that universe can feed on him too. It turns the rescue into a ticking clock, with Rogue trying to navigate a food chain she did not even know existed.
X-Men: Legacy #229
DOA, Emplate’s loyal creep, unleashes monsters on Rogue to soften her up before the real fight begins. Back on the outside, Gambit tears into Cyclops for sending Rogue in, and that anger flips a hidden switch as his Apocalypse side starts to awaken. The worst part is that no one can see what is happening to him, so the threat stays internal and unaddressed. Emplate decides the cleanest exit is murder, planning to kill Bling! and absorb everything she has so he can vanish from the X-Men’s radar. Rogue arrives in time to stop it, and the issue detonates into an all-out brawl that feels like survival, not heroics.
X-Men: Legacy #230
Rogue finally turns the tables by stealing Emplate’s power, then uses it to drag his whole twisted house of horrors back into the real dimension. Madison Jeffries and Doctor Nemesis come in with the science solution, unveiling a device meant to hold Emplate long enough for the team to finish the job. Bling! gets her moment and helps defeat him, which makes the victory feel earned instead of purely borrowed from Rogue’s power theft. They shove Emplate back where he came from, but the sendoff is not a clean win, since he immediately gets attacked by something massive on the other side. It is the kind of ending that says the nightmare world is still out there, and it does not care who the X-Men are.
UXM # 518 - 519: The Void
Writer - Matt Fraction
Pencils - Terry Dodson
With Emma trapped in diamond form and the Cuckoos in a coma ever since the Phoenix bailed on them, Utopia is effectively running without a telepathic safety net. Professor X decides the only play left is to send Scott straight into Emma’s psyche to rip her free from the Sentry’s Void that is lodged inside her. Scott barely gets his footing before he’s attacked, because the Void does not do warnings, it does ambushes. While that mind war is happening, Beast and Doctor Nemesis have their own crisis, since the entire island is literally sinking and they need Magneto’s muscle to keep Utopia from going under. Beast, rattled by not knowing what Scott is dealing with, confides in Bobby that he is thinking about leaving, but Iceman tells him to stay because Scott needs his people now more than ever. Then the worst possible thing happens, as the Void stops clinging to Emma and jumps into Scott instead, turning the rescue into a possession.
Fantomex gets pulled in when the team needs answers about a missing mutant believed to have been eaten by Predator X, because if anyone is built for weird, it is him. Madison Jeffries digs into the aftermath and finds the real punchline, a swarm of nanobots left behind by Predator X that has been collecting intel and reporting back to someone, meaning the island has been studied like prey. Inside Scott’s head, Emma fights her way in to help him battle the Void, making it an intimate war instead of a solo nightmare. Scott’s long history of surviving psychic relationships and psychic trauma becomes his secret weapon, and he manages to lock the Void in a mental box and command it to stay there. It is a rare moment where discipline beats cosmic horror, and it lands because you can feel how hard he has had to train just to stay functional. In the fallout, Beast decides to take a leave of absence, which reads like the first crack in the foundation after Utopia survives another catastrophe.
Nation X: X-Factor # 1
Writer - Peter Davis
Pencils - Valentine De Landro
Cyclops invites X-Factor out to Utopia, and Wolverine immediately throws down a petty bet that they will not actually show, which makes it even funnier when they arrive. Scott tries to connect with Layla by apologizing for her being alone in the future, but she smirks and shuts that assumption down fast, hinting she had company and leaving Scott to fill in the details on his own. Utopia’s social awkwardness kicks into gear when Shatterstar goes to introduce himself to Northstar and ends up dealing with Rictor’s jealousy instead of a simple hello. Shatterstar nearly drifts into a conversation with Iceman too, and the vibe feels like the book is letting you notice what certain characters are clocking, even if nobody is making a big public statement about it yet.
Along the way I've been calling out whenever a writer hints at Iceman being gay, and there has been quite a few. It seems like most creator's new, but some didn't get the memo. It's clear that his official "coming out" years later is not completely out of the blue.
Meanwhile, Longshot and Dazzler decide to sleep together, because in mutant soap opera land that is basically a weather event. Layla casually lays out Scott’s future like it is small talk, and Scott’s main takeaway is pure dad brain, because he is genuinely delighted that he has a daughter named Ruby. By the end, the big “Nation X recruitment” angle lands with a thud, as Jamie ultimately declines the invitation, keeping X-Factor on the outside looking in.
Psylocke Limited Series Volume 1 # 1 - 4
Writer - Christopher Yost
Pencils - Harvey Tolibao, Steve Dillon
Betsy heads to Japan in her original body, which immediately makes the whole trip feel like she is walking through an old scar. The Hand comes for her fast, and the violence is personal from page one because Matsu’o is in the middle of it. Psylocke is not here to negotiate, she is here to finish something that has been rotting in her life for years. The issue sets the tone as a grim hunt where identity and revenge are tied together so tightly you cannot separate them.
Most of the second issue is Betsy grinding through leads, chasing rumors, and keeping her temper on a leash long enough to get closer to Matsu’o. Just when it feels like she is about to reach him, Yukio shows up and tries to stop her from going through with the kill. That interruption is not just an obstacle, it is a moral speed bump that forces Betsy to confront what she is choosing. The tension is less about whether she can win a fight and more about whether she is going to let herself become a weapon with no off switch.
The chase turns into a three-way bloodbath when Betsy runs into the Jinn, who wants Matsu’o dead too. Then the story twists the knife, revealing Matsu’o destroyed Betsy’s old body and murdered the Jinn’s wife specifically to lure both assassins to him. He is not just guilty, he is suicidal in the most manipulative way possible, like he wants vengeance to be the last thing he controls. By the time Wolverine arrives, Matsu’o is already a wreck, and the question becomes who is really holding the leash on this execution.
The last issue lays out the ugliest truth, Logan has been cutting off a piece of Matsu’o every year on the anniversary of Mariko’s death, keeping him alive purely to suffer. Logan even sent Yukio to prevent anyone from killing Matsu’o, not out of mercy, but to protect his ritual of punishment. When Wolverine goes feral and turns his rage toward Psylocke, Betsy has to fight him down and pull him back from becoming pure animal violence. With the whole disgusting cycle exposed, Psylocke finally ends it by putting Matsu’o out of his misery, not as forgiveness, but as a hard stop on a cruelty that has gone on too long.
DP V4 # 15 - 18: Deadpool joins the X-Men
Writer - Daniel Way
Pencils - Paco Medina
After spending an entire arc hallucinating on his pirate ship, Deadpool comes out the other side with a brand new life plan: become an X-Man. He shows up with the confidence of someone who has never once considered how Cyclops feels about anything. The premise is ridiculous, but Deadpool plays it like a sincere calling, which is what makes it dangerous. It is the start of a run where you are never sure if he is joking, spiraling, or accidentally telling the truth.
Cyclops initially shuts the door in Deadpool’s face and makes it clear Utopia is not a clubhouse for chaos. Then Scott pivots and sends Domino to make Wade an offer anyway, because Cyclops is always willing to use a questionable tool if it protects the bigger mission. At the same time, Mercury’s father starts filing suit because he cannot see his daughter, turning the island’s “mutant nation” idea into a legal headache. Deadpool, being Deadpool, decides the solution is simple and offers to kill the guy. It is the kind of help that makes everyone immediately regret letting him anywhere near a moral problem.
Deadpool escalates by threatening Mercury’s father on live television, because subtlety is not part of his loadout. The stunt is loud enough that it puts Cyclops in damage control mode, and Scott responds by sending Wolverine to deal with Wade directly. That matchup is exactly what it sounds like, two walking knives trying to decide which one is the bigger liability. Under the comedy, the story is making a real point about how optics matter when mutants are trying to be taken seriously. Deadpool is not just a nuisance, he is a PR disaster with swords.
The whole mess turns out to be an elaborate setup, because Deadpool maneuvers Mercury’s father into admitting everything on camera. It is the rare moment where Wade’s chaos produces an outcome that actually helps someone vulnerable. Still, Cyclops draws the line and tells him flat out he will never be an X-Man, no matter how useful he is in a pinch. Deadpool takes the rejection and does what he always does, he goes his own way with a grin that can hide a bruise. It ends with the status quo restored, but with a reminder that Wade is not just a clown, he is a wild card that can cut either direction.
***It's worth noting that "Deadpool # 900" was released around now as well. It's a super long issues with a number of silly, random Deadpool stories told my various authors. It's worth a read if you like Deadpool, but not too much to cover here.
My Connections and Creators
Boring or Great?
Ok folks, this is blog # 300 and something kind of crazy happened here. If you've been reading along, you probably know that I have said 10 - 15 times: "When am I supposed to start liking Scott?" Well you know what? I think it just happened. Right here in this arc. He's become one badass leader. I like it seeing him say "No, I don't have a plan, but I believe that we'll find the right way." That's super cool.
Another exchange worth discussing is when Nightcrawler starts questioning whether Utopia is quietly becoming the opposite of the dream they fought for. That's a damn good point. Xavier's dream was supposed to be a world where mutants and human's co-existed, not a place where mutants could hide apart from everyone else.
I've been blogging about X-men for 9 years straight. I've had a tendence to stay laser focused on the major plot and been less interested in side stories and limited series that don't move the overall narrative forward. However, I may be changing my mind. I REALLY liked those random Nation X stories. Well, most of them, anyway. I'm going to take time to enjoy them moving forward.
Maybe it's time for us to forgive Xavier. If you've been following me, then you know I've been shocked to see how big of an asshole Xavier is in the comics compared to the movies and cartoon. Well, characters have been absolutely shitting on him for the past year and a half (of publishing) and I think it's time to move on. I'm not saying that the characters need to forgive him, but it's time for Xavier to appear in a panel without either him doing something terrible, a character calling him out, or him being ostracized. He can do other things. I mean, his son Legion is back in the picture in the New Mutants series. Why can't he go have an arc with him or something?
Thoughts on Art
Greg Land’s pages lean into slick, high-impact action beats, which works well once the Predator X attack turns the island into a war zone. The layouts sell the scale of the creatures and the frantic teamwork, even when the faces and posing can feel a little too polished and staged for how dire the situation is. Overall, the glossy style fits the “mutant nation under spotlight” vibe, where everything feels like it is happening on a stage the whole world is watching.
With so many artists, Nation X bounces between radically different visual moods, and that actually fits the anthology approach since each short is basically its own little emotional genre. The Mike Allred sections pop with personality and clean readability, while the more polished mainstream pages feel built for classic X-Men melodrama and big expressions. The shifting styles can be a little jarring back to back, but it also makes the island feel huge, like you are seeing Utopia through different residents’ eyes.
Daniel Acuna’s work sells the otherworldly horror of Emplate’s dimension with sharp design choices and a heavy, unsettling mood that fits the story’s predator vibe. When Mirco Pierfederici steps in, the visuals still keep that creepy energy, but with a slightly different texture that makes the dimension feel even less stable. The contrast works, since this arc is all about Rogue walking into a place where nothing behaves like it should.
Terry Dodson’s clean, expressive style makes the character drama pop, which is important since this story is as much about Scott and Emma’s psychological war as it is about monster threats. The contrast between pretty faces and ugly mind horror actually helps the Void feel invasive, like something corrupting a space that is not supposed to hold it. Even when the island is sinking and nanobots are spying, the art keeps the book readable and sharp, which is a win for an arc juggling a lot at once.
Valentine De Landro’s art fits X-Factor’s grounded, character-first tone, with facial expressions that carry a lot of the humor and tension without needing extra dialogue. The book looks clean and contemporary, which helps the quieter moments, like Layla’s knowing smirk and Rictor’s jealousy, hit just as hard as the bigger Utopia setting. It is not flashy, but it is confident, and that works perfectly for a story driven by personalities colliding.
Larger Impacts and Things to keep an eye on
Will Storm and Emma keep fighting
How long will Cyclops and Emma stay together?
Is Magneto going to stay "good," or at least neutral?
We need more Emplate. That is all.
Will Deadpool become an X-man?
How long will Beast stay away?
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