UNCANNY X-MEN #273: Too Many Mutants (Or, Whose House Is This Anyway?)

The X-Men contemplate their next move (while the editorial office no doubt does the same)

Originally Published February 1991

Note: this issue is currently only available as a Digital Issue from Marvel Unlimited on Desktop, but is readable on the mobile app with a subscription, so the images may not conform to this blog's usual style guide. 

We begin with a dilemma of sorts -- namely, what do we do with 17 mutants and half an X-Mansion?

For the time being, the X-Men (such as they are), New Mutants and X-Factor are all sharing space at the remains of the Xavier mansion, which amounts to mostly the battle-ready underground parts and some scant living quarters. The three groups are refreshing themselves following the intense and chaotic X-Tinction Agenda event, taking the time to get re-acquainted and take stock of their numerous enemies.

Looking at the handy-dandy Atlas o' Foes, man of action Cable sees the solution as simple: hit them hard and fast. As proof of concept, he cites Storm's decision to take the X-Men underground, which surely everyone agrees was an unqualified success.

Cable posits that maybe the entire group should unify under his leadership, so that he can give them guidance and focus instead of being three random splinters running around the map doing god-knows-what-all. Honestly, based on what I saw of Cable's leadership skills in the X-Tinction Agenda, I'm not feeling it.

Meanwhile, we see the hazards of trying to corral such a large number of big mutant personalities into a small space as Iceman and Boom Boom clash over bathroom time, with Bobby using his always-hilarious sense of humor to prank Boom Boom into making herself a buttcicle.

Boom Boom later extracts revenge by giving Bobby a time bomb suppository.

Back in the War Room, the adults are still talking, now about a more pressing matter than whether or not they should run out right now and murder all their enemies: namely, where to live. They don't have a full mansion right now, so why not gather everyone into X-Factor's ship?

Storm, for her part, does not like the idea of corralling every mutant they know into a single space micromanaged by an unknowable intelligence, nor the implications of the fact that it contains a forcefield that prevents non-mutants from entering, as it conflicts with Charles Xavier's original dream of integration.

Give her 30 years or so to chew on the idea, I guess.

Speaking of Magneto, Jean points out that he's been acting the villain again in the recent "Acts of Vengeance" crossover, so they've got that to potentially deal with, but that's another matter.

Storm wonders, have times passed the X-Men by, and is it time to hand the reins over to the new generation, the sexy, buff, action-oriented mutants of the 90s?

Elsewhere, Banshee is able to make holographic contact with Horny Moira, and is alarmed by just how Horny she's become in his absence.

A woman in tight clothes, I never!

Elsewhere, Forge and Beast work on reversing Wolfsbane's Mutate status -- a process with a ticking clock as it appears to become less un-doable the longer time goes on. Else-elsewhere, Archangel and Cannonball have a workout session in the Danger Room, and Elsewhere³, Storm has gone for a walk to clear her head, where she gets a little bit of guidance from her new old friend, that creepy creeper Gambit, who yearns for the days when his companion was a precocious tyke scamming her way through an adult world.

Stagemom Gambit wants to hit the road and resume the carefree life of a thief, picking up where he and Storm left off. Storm demurs, noting that she is now a serious grownup with serious grownup problems, although unlike many former child prodigies these problems do not explicitly include anxiety and depression.

Back inside, Jean hits the showers to provide us, the horny teenage male audience of the X-Men, some code-approved implied nudity, and to chat up Psylocke. Betsy admits she hasn't been in touch with her brother Britain (Excalibur's Captain Brian) to say "Hey, I'm Asian now, and I also might still be a brainwashed assassin, Jolly good, see you at Michaelmas."

Apropos nothing, Gambit, who moments ago was ready to leave altogether, bag in hand, has decided to work his aggression out with a Danger Room Sesh against Wolverine. Jubilee is present in the control room to offer commentary, as the battle features her least favourite thing: two macho pinheads metaphorically measuring their dicks against each other.

I suspect she would be more interested in a literal dick-measuring contest

As per usual, Jubilee is the best part of any story she's in.

Gambit certainly has placed some brass ones on the table, going after the team's legendary berserker on his first day. He shows impressive skills, able to dodge Wolverine's attacks with his Ricochet-like agility, but even moreso he proves to be crafty when Wolverine's old foe Lady Deathstrike is mysteriously programmed into the workout.

Could it be Gambit knows something about Wolverine? And if he knows this, what else does he know? What else isn't he telling us? Is abit even his real name?? Who are you, Gambit??!?!

In another part of the base, Jean decides to tap into Cerebro to find the missing mutants. Unfortunately, when she tries ringing them up, she gets this guy:

ShadowKing91 has logged onto chat

That's right, the X-Men's current deadliest and most unknown foe is making his presence known on the astral plane. Notably, he was not counted amongst the bad guys being mapped out at the beginning of the issue, and while it was not known where exactly he was hiding himself (Muir Island, to be sure) Storm did know he was out there, so... that's kind of on her for not warning anybody.

Luckily, Psylocke logs on brandishing her psychic knife. The King laughs that that puny power is no match for his abilities, and Betsy smirks: Sweetie, honey, baby, it's not for you.

Unfortunately, as a side-effect, when Jean is back to IRL she can't remember the details of who attacked her, meaning she can't warn anyone or share info with Storm.

She and Cyclops walk Storm to meet with her newly-outfitted X-Men team, but just as they're about to get the orientation underway, a car comes careening up the driveway.

It's Lila Cheney, the famous rock singer, planetary thief and teleporting mutant, with her man Guido, here with an urgent message for the X-Men: Professor Xavier is in trouble, come with me NOW!

And we're off on another adventure!

Further Thoughts:

Somewhat bizarrely, the art duties on this issue were handled by no less than eight credited pencillers, including regular series artist Jim Lee, his studio-mate Whilce Portacio, and in a strangely downplayed homecoming, briefly by returning X-Men legend John Byrne. As much as I complained about the artist roulette during the various issues of X-tinction Agenda, I didn't feel too badly about the small army at work here, perhaps due to the issue's various diverse largely self-contained scenes. I can go "That's a Michael Golden panel, that's a John Byrne face for sure, this scene was Larry Stroman," without it troubling me too much.

With its focus spread wide across various members of the various teams, this issue is easily identifiable as one of those classic "breather" issues, time to reset and refocus after a big calamitous event. It gives us a chance to catch up with where the various characters are at as they do a little Claremontian navel-gazing about what it all means and where to go next: do they need to become warriors like Cable, do they need to live on an alien spacecraft and be separate from humanity, do they need to just quit? Ultimately, the in-the-moment concerns of the Shadow King and Lila's adventure in space take precedent and pull our mutants along to their next mission. It reaffirms the old adage that villains act and heroes react.

So, why is that? Why is it so wrong for the X-Men to go HAM on their enemies, since we know the Reavers and Fenris and everyone else is still out there? Even the X-Men tend to fall under the superhero cliche of mostly upholding the status quo: yes, they are nominally fighting for a better future, but they can't make too much progress or else the world they inhabit will be less like our own. For storytelling purposes, once the X-Men become the aggressors, their stories lose some of the relatability, so we have them on defense most of the time. That's part of the reason the big Krakoa relaunch of 2019 was so shocking, because it defied that logic in the most extreme and attention-grabbing way, splitting the X-Men's world off from the one we know in a bold and mostly permanent way. It's funny that Storm muses about what that would mean even in 1991, echoing sentiments of modern day detractors and skeptics that that's the right way for the story to go.

Nevertheless, sometimes it's hard for me to sit still for stories in which characters mope about how things have changed and they've had so many hardships -- they can't acknowledge that there are writers who are inflicting this hardship on them and for those selfsame reasons a big change in direction mostly isn't in the cards. Look at the results of Storm's "underground" experiment -- it just brought them back to the mansion, back to costumed superheroics in the end. It was a "failure" because that's not what superhero comics are "supposed" to look like. That said, with Cable in command of the New Mutants, it looks like we will be getting a look at what it would mean for the X-Men -- or a team of mutants -- to be similarly proactive.

There are plenty of great character moments in this issue but the one that merits the most examination is probably the battle between Wolverine and Gambit. Gambit has remained somewhat elusive as he hasn't volunteered much about his past and persona besides being a horny thief from Cajun country. The idea that he knows anything about Wolverine's past is a huge shock with massive implications, but let's focus on the fight for its own sake.

It's been well established that Wolverine is at a low ebb ever since his run-in with the Reavers, and it's possible that the Canucklehead is just flat-out running out of gas. Gambit, meanwhile, cartwheels and quips his way through the fight, as if Wolverine, the superstar elite fighter, is little to him, perhaps due to a mix of his physical prowess and perhaps due to the tricks he has up his sleeve. 

Ordinarily, I would call this scene out as the crassest possible character shilling -- Look at this cool, badass, mysterious newcomer, who is able to beat Wolverine in a fight! -- but the scene is so effective that I only half think that, and half come away wanting to know more about Gambit and his deal.

It has long since been revealed that the original plan for Gambit was that he would be Mr. Sinister in disguise (after a fashion -- it involves cloning) conjuring up a heroic persona to get close to the X-Men (and Rogue in particular.) To be honest, that sounds like a terrible idea (like much about Sinister's original origins) and luckily never came to pass as we got a different, but not altogether unrelated, backstory for Gambit many years down the line.