UNCANNY X-MEN #270: First Strike (The X-Tinction Agenda Part 1)

Forge's X-Men and Cable's New Mutants are together again for the first time

Originally Published November 1990

We begin with a special report from Trish Tilby and her Karen hair on the state of relations between the United States and Genosha. They're not great!

Seems Genosha is still mad that the X-Men launched an incursion on their soil, wrecking their shit and threatening them if they didn't give up their "mutant-enslaving" ways. They blame the States, despite the fact that the X-Men are an outlaw group with international membership that was at the time operating out of Australia and also widely believed to be dead.

They are prepared to retaliate in any way they see fit, but what's to worry? They're a small and powerless island nation.

Back at the current incarnation of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Storm and Jean Grey are having a little workout.

At some point between the last few issues, Storm -- still in the body of a tween thanks to Nanny's meddling, but with the mind of her adult self, much like TLC's Shauna Rae -- has linked up with the ad hoc X-Men group of Forge, Banshee and Jean in Westchester, bringing along her new pal Gambit. Storm proves that while her powers may be a little less reliable than they once were, she still has all the cunning and even ruthlessness she ever did.

This is all well and good, but as it turns out there are some other people waiting their turn to use the Danger Room... and they're all out of patience.

This man is Cable, the new leader of the New Mutants for the Bart Simpson decade: a hard-bitten no-nonsense soldier and mystery man. And the way he's running things, he doesn't have time for namby-pamby schedules or rinky-dink procedures or dummy-wummy regulations. He declares it's his kids' time to train and by gar that's what it's going to be!

The two new sets of housemates squabble a bit about their mutual rights, with the New Mutants still somewhat bitter about the X-Men pulling a fake death and leaving them to pick up the pieces. Storm nevertheless makes peace for the time being and gives the kids the room.

Out in LA, Fred Stanachek pays a call on Dazzler, only to be told by her man Guido that she's gone and left no forwarding address, meaning she's not really interested in hearing from him. But just as he sends the kid away, he notices a bright flash on the beach, which can only mean one thing...

...the return of Lila Cheney, mutant rocker and occasional planet thief, last seen escaping a Shi'ar ship in deep space!

Back on the East Coast, Storm and Jean have a quiet moment at Harry's Hideway (favourite pub of the mutants of upstate New York) to reflect on everything that's happened to them, drinking a toast to having either to many lives for one body, or not enough body for their one life.

They part on the walk home -- unaware they're being watched by mysterious forces -- only for Rahne Sinclair, the New Mutants' Wolfsbane, to pop out and vent her spleen at them. 

She used to be a sweet girl, this Wolfsbane, but life has given her a rough shake lately. She's taken the death of her comrade Doug Ramsey particularly hard, and is particularly arsed to see at least one of the thought-dead X-Men up and about.

This is like complaining that celebrating someone who survived cancer is insulting to people who died from it -- which is a real position I've seen taken on the Internet in recent weeks. 

Storm confides to her onetime enemy Stevie Hunter -- who is minding the New Mutants Rictor and Boom Boom while they frolic at the pool -- that maybe she just wasn't cut out for the leader gig (why, because she had one spectacularly bad idea?)

When suddenly...

A heavily armored assault vehicle has snuck up on the property and begun attacking the mutants. Storm hustles civilian Stevie over to the safety hatch to get her inside the mansion while Rictor, Tabitha (Boom Boom) and Warlock fend off the baddies, whom Storm recognizes as Genoshan Magistrates.

Knowing what kind of trouble they bring, Storm tries to direct the kids into a safety hatch that leads to the bunker beneath the property, but Boom Boom ignores, saying they've basically already won the fight and they don't take orders from X-Men.

Which just goes to show that for all his supposed military experience, Cable hasn't taught them anything about Chain of Command or Not Underestimating Your Enemy because in a flash, the Genoshans have sent a whole squadron through their fancy-schmancy DSL download teleportation.

With the mutants greatly outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered and outplanned, Storm shoves civilian Stevie down the hatch into the arms of Cable, who was preparing to lead the rest of the team topside to join the assault, and then seals the hatch behind her, completely locking reinforcements out of the battle.

What's worse, one of the Magistrates in the battle seems to have a very familiar aesthetic...

Before long, the Genoshans have ensnared the young mutants (and Warlock) and teleported them back to Genosha, departing mere seconds before backup can arrive.

Further Thoughts:

This marks the reintroduction of the X-Men -- such as they are -- to the New Mutants, who have undergone some radicalization under the mysteriously glowing eye of the militaristic Cable. (I mean, if you thought Charles Xavier was into grooming child soldiers...) This change in paradigm, along with the void that was created with the X-Men's absence, has led to some real clashes of personality now that the two groups are sharing space. It would seem a little melodramatic that the New Mutants are whining all the time, but they are still kids, raging with hormones and barely-controlled emotions and bristling at any authority other than their ride-or-die man Cabes. As a result, although I find some of the conflict a bit over-the-top it's still an interesting dimension that these teams are simply not on the same page as far as philosophy, purpose, perspective or tactics. 

Cable is interesting at this point, taking much of what made Wolverine a sensation -- mysterious past, military attitude, brash and no-nonsense -- and catalyzing it with big guns and muscles. He's basically what would happen if The Punisher was an X-Man. I'm not a huge fan of the character, but for 1990 he's obviously very attention-grabbing and new. My thing is, if he wants to forge the New Mutants into even a ragtag militia, he needs to teach them to fall in line and not indulge them like a bunch of snotty kids. His introductory moment of this issue actually has him kind of acting like one of them, petulently kicking in a door, instead of any kind of authority figure. But, you know, the kids and teens of 1990 ate the Rob Liefeld creation up, probably because of his brash 90's attitude, contrasted with what was rapidly becoming Chris Claremont's well-seasoned, perhaps aging approach to comics.

To this juncture, the mutants had been fractured, pulling in different directions, and all trying to find their footing as the group currently known as the X-Men barely exists, the New Mutants have undergone some serious changes, and X-Factor -- well, they'll be joining us shortly but not yet. Storm expresses self-doubt to begin with and the wisdom of Storm's action with the hatch will be debated heavily in upcoming issues. This is the beginning of a big long event story about several groups that have to pull together to defeat a common foe -- one we'll be hearing more about soon -- which in a way, weirdly reflects its own creation as writers and artists who may not be working in perfect harmony try to work together to get their product on the hands under the watchful eye of a cold, calculating, perhaps even manipulative editorial dept.

Maybe that's reading into it a bit much, but hey, that's what we do here.