Wolverine hits Genosha -- and Genosha hits back!
Originally Published December 1990
So, Rictor and Boom Boom: you've escaped a Genoshan prison cell and are currently on the run in a foreign land, with Magistrates in hot pursuit, without your powers or a way home. What are you going to do next?
The answer, of course, is hope to God (or the Editor) the cavalry shows up.
Yes, yes, yes indeed, it's all coming together as everyone's favourite runt and his two favourite ladies have hit the scene. The trio wastes lays waste to the Genoshans, who had hoped to settle the score from the last time the X-Men visited.
We don't have any indication of how Wolverine, Jubilee and Psylocke got to Genosha, it's likely they caught one of the many global news broadcasts updating the situation, or else simply manifested there knowing you couldn't do a big crossover without the Ol' Canucklehead.
They're able to make short work of the Magistrates, but the cost of 50 or 60 years of constant warfare seems to be taking its toll on Logan, much to Jubilee's concern.
It's even suggested that Wolverine may be seeking a glorious death in battle (which Jubilee dismisses as "macho junk.") The trio confers with their New Mutant associates, noting they're not part of any larger force or coordinated effort, but Psylocke (after telepathically downloading the previous three issue summaries from Rictor and Boom Boom's brains) gets a psychic impression that X-Factor has arrived on Genosha along with the remaining X-Men and New Mutants. They've formed sort of a force... an... X-"Force" if you will.
Meanwhile on NPR (which is, somehow, also a TV network in the Marvel Universe?), anchor Manoli Wetherell, promoted from camera operator since her last appearance, hosts a debate between the Genegineer David Moreau and Horny Moira MacTaggert about the relative humanity of mutant youths.
This cannily predicts cable news of recent decades hosting "both sides" interviews between one side that is obviously wrong and evil, and one that is morally correct but cloying and hard to defend.
In an iconic moment of propaganda, the Genegineer repeats the line that Genosha is actually a beacon of racial tolerance and political harmony, despite the fact that it is an island off the coast of Africa somehow inhabited entirely by white people.
When the debate is over, the Genegineer is rattled and just wants to go back to his garden. Like everyone else, he is simply scandalized by Moira's Patti LaBelle-like New Attitude. Tight clothes? On a scientist? Well I never.
Anderson reiterates the Genoshan perspective -- that mutants are dangerous threats. Magneto raised a volcano, and Havok toppled the citadel* with a single blast (hey, where's that guy been lately?)
*They got it rebuilt in good time, though.
Anderson is worried about collateral damage -- maybe the Magistrates can handle the X-Men, but at what cost to Genoshan life and property?
At home, Moreau sheds tears over how hard it was to lobotomize his own God-daughter, Jenny Ransome, and how tragic it was that Philip couldn't get on board with that.
David's crocodile tears are interrupted by the glint of a knife. Storm has been hiding out waiting for a moment to strike, to kill the Genegineer and end his work of turning mutants into slaves. It may not free anyone currently in bondage, but it will cut the supply off at the source.
David pleads his case -- he just wants to help his country, and if you leave him be, they can go back to peaceful coexistence. Hodge is the aggressor here, the one with the big ideas and schemes: let David live and they can work on taking him down.
But before Storm can even consider this possibility, Hodge sneaks in, proving surprisingly stealthy for a man with a giant mechanical spider body.
Hodge is ready to kill Storm, but David makes the case that he genes are too valuable, and she should be given the mutate treatment.
Topside, Wolverine and Psylocke are doing their usual play of dressing up like the enemy, flying some of those cool sky-cycles the Magistrates use when Betsy is overcome by the psychic anguish of Storm's torture nearby.
The two go down and, posing as Magistrates, get taken to the Citadel for medical attention.
There's a hitch in the plan of course, as one of them -- probably Psylocke -- is wearing the uniform belonging to Chief Magistrate Alex Summers, formerly the X-Man called Havok... which, I don't want to dwell on this, but it's becoming increasingly clear that the guy who famously destroyed the Citadel washed up on Genoshan soil thanks to the Siege Perilous, completely amnesiac, and somehow nobody recognized him, even when he used his famously distinctive powers... and they made this total stranger captain of the flicking army??!
Nobody ever said racists were smart, I guess.
From there it's an all-out brawl-out as Wolverine fights his way through some other Magistrates to get to Alex, but the brainwashed and crazy Summers has the upper hand and is only stopped by a certain someone's certain totality of a certain psychic powers.
From there they run into, guess who but Hodge, who is absolutely everywhere in this citadel. You can't turn a corner on Genosha without running into the guy.
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| Surprisingly stealthy for a man whose body is a 2000-lb Hydraulic Praying Mantis |
While Hodge is distracted battling Wolverine and Psylocke, Genegineer takes the moment's distraction to slip some custom programming into his latest project.
Before long, the process is complete. Storm is no more, there is only...
Mutate #20!
To be continued!
Further Thoughts:
On the face of it, it could be easy to say that X-Tinction Agenda is the beginning of an "all sizzle, no steak" approach to X-Men comics, a big loud crossover that gets everybody on board, features lots of fights and chaos and is not rich in the things that have historically made the X-Men a uniquely great comic experience: deep characters and rich themes of prejudice, oppression and justice.
It's true that this 9-parter will never get the kind of academic props that Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of Future Past or Inferno get, but being that it's still an X-Men event, the foundational themes are still baked into its DNA. The baddies, after all, are the Genoshans, who represent the kind of institutionalized oppression and ideology the mutants are ultimately fighting against. I always have to praise them as antagonists because they have a clearly-delineated point of view, which is easy to lay out in a few monologuistic speech balloons, and sounds like an ideology someone would subscribe to that is nonetheless patently wrong and evil. There's no sympathy for these guys, and when David Moreau cries, I as a reader don't think "Oh look, he's human," I think "This frigging chump is clueless." He has no idea he's the bad guy, but he most certainly is, and it's only dulled by the fact that there's a hyperactive, charismatic and over-powered monster on top of him. The clash between Genoshan interests and Hodge helps add intrigue as schemes within schemes start to spin.
Hodge is obviously your cartoon villain, way way beyond over the top, but he makes a good focal point for an intractable foe. You can't kill him even if you want to, you can't erode his power base, he's gotten too ingrained. He's an impressive threat. So putting big and salient ideas with a credible comic book threat to facilitate action and excitement makes, for me, a perfectly fine comic book event.
My only complaint, which I register week after week lately, is that it's becoming increasingly clear that the power has shifted in the production of X-Men comics. I don't think Chirs Claremont would have chosen to do X-Tinction Agenda, it seems very left-field from where his comics were going. Tellingly, as of this issue he's not credited as "Writer" but as "Words," as if his contribution to this comic is only to fill in those speech balloons trying to tie the plot together and remind the readers of who these characters are at their heart as they jump across the page kicking copious amounts of ass in that inimitable Jim Lee style.
To your average reader in 1990, it may not have made a difference, but for those of use reading closely with the benefit of hindsight, attached as we are to the X-Men of Dark Phoenix and Lifedeath and Fall of the Mutants and Inferno, the shift is notable and clear. It doesn't make for inherently bad comics, just different ones.
The clock is ticking.
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