X-MEN #12-13: Broken Mirrors / Hazardous Territory

Charles hazards a guess as to what his father was secretly up to

Originally Published September-October 1992

We begin in the Ryking Hospital for Paranormal Research outside Las Cruces, New Mexico, a place where mutants and supers of all sorts receive treatment seemingly whether they want it or not. One of the more powerful patients -- whom we learn in an admittedly intriguingly illustrated montage sequence has been there since youth -- seems to be going out of control, causing the facility's alarm to mraap uncontrollably.

It's exceedingly difficult to look imposing and badass in a hospital gown. This man does not succeed.

The nurses and orderlies get him under control with some super-powered tasering, and speculate that the patient started to freak out upon hearing a news item on his father's death.

Back at the X-Mansion, Rogue and Gambit remind us that they enjoy flirting with each other, while Betsy -- wearing more clothes than I've seen on her in several years -- takes off to enjoy a reunion with her brother Brian in the pages of Excalibur.

From the window above, Cyclops drools over his teammate (subordinate) inappropriately, until managing to remember that he already had a steady in Jean.

In the Danger Room, Wolverine interrupts a session where a replica of The Blob is programmed to sexually assault young Jubilee.

Logan is is a tizzy because he was peeping through Charles' files and came across a folder about some top secret shady shit his (Charles') father may have been up to during his days at Alamagordo. Wolverine is distinctly not a fan of top secret shady shit ever since learning his entire history may be a fabrication designed to control him and mold him into an amnesiac weapon of the state. Since then, he has a vendetta against all secret projects.

At Las Cruces, our patient flips out again, this time vaporizing the staff down to skeletons like in Mars Attacks! and flying off to get some answers from his dead father.

In Westchester, Wolverine and Charles discuss the mysterious file, which the Professor received some six weeks ago, mysteriously. The files would seem to indicate that Brian Xavier's supposed job working on nuclear testing was actually a cover for work examining mutation. Charles isn't sure what to make of all this, whether his father was involved in some nefarious experimentation with genetics, or merely the wholesome and virtuous pursuit of developing the atomic bomb.

Perhaps he was actually involved in disposing of Atari's E.T. cartridges?

The only place Charles, a brilliant researcher with near-infinite resources, can think to look for answer is at the funeral of his father's co-worker Alexander Ryking, which just happens to be the next day in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Charles travels alone for the event and encounters an unexpected mourner.

There's our man, Carter Ryking, having stopped off for some spiffy armor on hi sway up from New Mexico. Still mad about his dad leaving him to rot in a hospital for his entire life, he fricassees some mourners, then reaches out to Charles to share a telepathic memory of their time spent running around the nuclear test site as little scamps.

As it turns out, Carter is the one who sent the file, although he fails to explain how he obtained it from his hospital room and what he expected Charles to do with it without having any context for its contents. 

So he does the only sensible thing and hoists Charles into the air so that they can fly off together to the real only place they can expect some concrete answers... Alamagordo.

"So, how've you been for the last 30 years? And spare no detail, it's a long trip."

Word of Charles' abduction gets back to the X-Men via Val Cooper, who offers to send in X-Factor, but the X-Men understandably consider this their personal business and ask to go in first. And Val, the government representative, goes "Sure, why the hell not?"

She notes that the facility has been abandoned for years, so she doesn't know what the X-Men are expecting to find there, to which I say, "Were you not paying attention? They're trying to find Xavier."

At Alamagordo, Carter Ryking is being somewhat unnecessarily hostile toward Xavier, considering they're more or less after the same thing.

Carter blunders around unsuccessfully trying to uncover something of use, miffed that Charles took his time in trying to process the bombshell Carter dropped on him... 

...until a stray blast reveals a hidden staircase. "See?? That proves it!"

Above, the X-Men arrive on the scene. Wolverine, partnered with Rogue, is acting a little snippy (or should that be snikty?) given the fact that his entire life is a lie. Rogue hits back that if anyone knows about dealing with devastating identity crises, it's her.

And frankly, she doesn't appreciate everyone copying her shtick lately!

The X-Men wander in and Carter greets them, ostentatiously asking whether they're ready to hear some truth bombs.

Back at the X-Mansion, Cannonball calls, looking for literally any senior X-person, but doesn't even bother to leave a message when he finds that they've left Jubilee there all by her lonesome.

And in Istanbul, Rusty and Skids -- now members of the Mutant Liberation Front -- meet with the enigmatic Stryfe to discuss a tapestry they've acquired that seems to depict the X-Men's foe (well, actually X-Factor at the time, but... you know how it goes) Apocalypse. Stryfe has some tough words for Big 'Poc.

Ah yes, that old saw

Back at Alamagordo, the X-Men and Carter can think of literally nothing to do besides have a fight scene.

Cyclops, smartly, destroys his wrist thingies that help channel his plasma build-up, causing a catastrophic overload.

Carter e x p l o d e s , but the X-Men were somehow in the "eye of the hurricane" and emerge unscathed, even though the building they were standing in is now rubble.

Wolverine, dissatisfied with what appears to be passing for the story's conclusion, picks up Carter and tries to get him to talk, but Xavier calls him off as the gesture is meaningless -- Carter doesn't know anything because there's nothing to know, there were no answers here. They'll have to find it someplace else.

As the X-Men walk away from this giant mess they've caused, we the reader are treated to a scrap of paper indicating that Drs. Brian Xavier, Kurt Marko and Alexander Ryking may have all been involved in the Shiva Scenario, aka the big deal Wolverine just went through with the false memories.

Rosebud!

Further Thoughts:

You know, I'm an open-minded guy. I never start reading an issue of X-Men thinking it will be bad. That, after all, is part of the reason why I do this blog. The other part is, I know that some issues will be bad, and the interplay between bad and good X-Men is so fascinating to me. It isn't purely that I love Claremont issues and hate what came after him -- I actually have enjoyed some issues that were published after Claremont's departure, you've got to believe me. These simply weren't two of them.

If there's a slapdash-ness to this, let's give the creative team a break, as writer Fabian Nicieza is only now for the first time stepping in for Scott Lobdell, so he may need some time to find his footing. Okay, we're all human, nobody kills it their first day on the job.

I'll give them this -- they weren't terribly drawn. After the departure of Jim Lee, they rang up Art Thibert, who is a capable artist in a similar style to smooth the transition. It doesn't quite have the sensation of a Jim Lee comic, but it does well as a pinch hitter. Thibert even includes some Lee-esque touches like the scratchy border panels to emphasize action, figures spilling over borders, negative space and giant panels.

But when you examine these issues, there's simply no "there" there. They're about a badguy with poorly-defined capabilities and motivations, who isn't even really a bad guy, but whose ambiguity isn't explored, looking for answers futilely, but maybe almost finding them, but getting stopped before he gets them, even though they'd be of use to our heroes, who, again, more or less want the same thing. And all I can say is, even if they, and we, got the answers, I don't think I'd be very fond of that story direction, because I'm not so into welding Charles' mysterious past onto Wolverine's. This is a really underdeveloped and unexciting attempt at a story that, in the best possible outcome, is pretty cliché. The whole thing is just riddled with so many cracks in the pavement that I'm forced to use a reaction image that my friend Jay lent me sometime ago and I've been keeping in my back pocket for just such an occasion.

Since the new paradigm took hold, there seems to be a serious devotion to excavating our heroes' previously-untold pasts. Now, this is not unprecedented. We've gotten a lot of mileage out of secret pasts here in the X-Men. But since the launch of X-Men '91, we've gotten the secret truth of Moira's experiments on Magneto, the secret fate of Colossus' brother Mikhail, the secret history of Gambit, the secret future history of Bishop, and the multiple-choice secrets of Wolverine's past, which will be a form of quicksand in which the X-Men franchise will be stuck for quite some time. Whatever the deadly secret of Xavier Sr. and Ryking Sr. happens to be, I'm not sure I want to know. This attempt to deepen the X-mythos just kind of cheapens it instead.