Don't make promises you can't keep!
Originally Published October 1992
So, the X-Men have been out battling the Morlocks, who had been running rampant through the streets of Manhattan (not a good look) until Professor Xavier used the power of empathy to cool down Brain Cell, whose telepathic powers were infecting each of them with his anxiety (we've all been there.) However, upon the Morlocks' literal retreat into the sewers, the X-Men had decided they hadn't kicked quite enough Morlock ass and followed home to continue their beatdown (super not a good look) whereupon they discover that the Morlock tunnels are -- once again -- under new mgmt.
Now, wait one gul-derned sewer-dwellin' minute. You mean to tell me
that in the five minutes
it took
for the X-Men
to follow the Morlocks home
Mikhail Rasputin arrived
from the mansion
in Westchester
just walked right in
took a seat
and said "I'm in charge"
and got everybody on board with it?
Just like that??!
Well no wonder they call it a power vacuum, because that kinda sucks.
Mikhail is uniquely suited to the task of leading the Morlocks. He used to be something of a cult leader himself, until he got all of his followers killed (suboptimal) due to his own power (ouch.) And that's fine with the Morlocks because they spend a lot of time getting killed lately anyway.
Meanwhile, in another part of the sewer, Mikhail's recent paramour and former leader of the Morlocks, Callisto, has her sights set on Charles.
Charles takes Callisto's aggressive greeting in stride, saying that all she needs is help, but Callisto prefers to solve her problems the old fashioned way -- by challenging Xavier to a duel to the death.
Back in Mikhail's throne room, Colossus de-armors to have a one on-one chat with his brother, against Bishop's better judgment.
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| You know things are whacked when Bishop is the one advising caution |
Colossus tries to level with his kavon, pointing out that he's been plagued by headaches which may be indicative of some other psychological trauma (and also all the trauma.) Mikhail says that the pain has subsided since he's found his calling (which is nice.) He then asks if Piotr is ready to join the family on their big trip -- and he doesn't mean back to Russia to visit Illyana.
That's right, Sweatpants Jim Jones here is getting ready for a ritualistic suicide.
To that end, he opens up the floodgates to led in the river so that everyone here will drown.
Elsehwhere, Callisto still has a mad-on, directing her anger at having been pulled out of her life and back into the Morlock drama somewhat undeservedly at Charles (there's lots of reasons to be mad at Charles in general -- he's a jerk after all -- but he had nothing to do with this.) However, as she rants, she forgets about Charles' deadliest weapon...
With that settled, Charles thinks to himself that he and Callisto might not be so different after all, given he's been nursing some serious resentment lately about his lack of mobility. However, before he can ponder any further, he is zapped to Mikhail's location by his nebulously-defined powers. Seems Mischa considers Xavier something of a kindred spirit, and is somewhat surprised that Charles is not on board with his plan for redemption by killing all of his new followers (Charles has been known to put large numbers of people in mortal danger, but not usually from him.) Mikhail believes he is doing the Morlocks a favor, since there is no place for them in this world (besides, one supposes, the place they currently live.)
But just in the nick of two-minutes-too-late-to-stop-Mikhail, who should arrive but his earlier sparring partner Iceman, recovered from their last bout and ready to totally make the difference in this fight.
I should note that when we last saw Iceman, Mikhail was standing over his unconscious body saying he didn't quite have the heart to take a life -- my how things have changed in the last five minutes.
In another part of the sewer, Warren is feeling his feelings about the time he lost his wings.
Jean arrives and gives him the business. She reminds him that that day, he was acting as a hero, which is what he is deep down (really deep.)
Warren lashes out and cries that Jean obviously has no idea what it's like to have her who identity stripped away from her, which I hope he realizes how stupid that sounds the moment he said it. He's talking to a woman with two lives' worth of trauma in her narrow-waisted and leggy frame (and one cosmic being.)
Then she insinuates that he blames his wings for all sorts of things, including supposedly acting out on their own, but what if that's just an excuse, and he really wants to be a badass knife-throwing psycho? You know, for clout?
The X-Men battle Mikhail but he won't listen to reason (or fists, or laser blasts.) The X-Men get busy dragging the Morlocks to their (reluctant) safety while Piotr makes one last go of appealing to Mikhail's conscience. When Mikhail still won't go, Piotr offers to stay with him, but Mikhail pushes him away, saying that Piotr still has some good to do in this world.
Then he balls the X-Men up in his powers of vagueness and sends him away as the tunnels flood and the rocks fall and all the Morlocks die.
Back at home, Piotr has to call Illyana and tell her that he will not be coming back to Russia at this time.
And Storm returns to her room in the attic to find all her plants destroyed (??) She wonders how she will go on without Forge, or her plants (which are symbolic) but Bishop is there to help her pick up the pieces (literally and metaphorically.)
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| I'm not really sure what this has to do with anything |
Further Thoughts:
This was not a good comic, but in a way I respected its audacity. It really, really, really wanted to be good, and big and bold and startling. It was not, but it was more affable than, say, earlier post-Claremont issues that tried to make their mark by "killing" Jean.
The whole thing is a mess. The action, such as it is, is baffling -- while there's a fistfight between Callisto and actual wheelchair-user Xavier, the X-Men can't do much to Mikhail. It's missed opportunities: Imagine how good a throwdown between energy-thrower Mikhail and energy-absorber Bishop? They only square off for one large panel of staring at each other with crackly glowy fists, and then the story moves on.
Scott Lobdell badly wants to have something to say about each of the X-Men and other characters -- about Storm's loneliness and Warren's darkness and Xavier's frustration -- but it comes out a little bit muddled. As noted in the previous issue, Callisto gets the worst of it. She had been such a compelling figure once upon a time, but as much as her character was eroded by the original She's All That storyline, she's only gotten worse by undoing it.
Likewise, I'm on record as disapproving of what has become of the Morlocks, who went from the sympathetic downtrodden, to the things that go bump in the night to subhuman freaks whose feelings aren't worth considering or depicting. They'll just be mindless followers of Mikhail, and if he says they should die, they're ready to go along with it, for lack of anything better to do. It's a damn shame how dirty they get done here. This is supposedly the final for real actual end of the Morlocks -- for now -- and they're barely even in the story.
That said, they really got a hell of a deal out of Mikhail. As broadly-sketched as it was, I really felt for his fatalism and nihilism after what he had been through and how that enabled the story to go to dark places seldom seen in mainstream superhero comics. It was quite an escalation to "hosting a mass suicide" but it was a rather interesting journey to play out over the last several issues.
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| Okay, that was a good one |
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