Stryfe has it out with Apocalypse, and an unlikely alliance is forged!
Originally Published December 1992
You know, it's always awkward when someone you barely know comes over to your house babbling some nonsense about your shared destiny, demanding restitution for things that haven't happened yet, and threatening to kick your ass. Stryfe and Apocalypse's relationship is a lot like that.
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| What do you do in this situation, offer them crudités? |
Stryfe has a lot to get off his spiky metal chest, and he does so at length, unloadimg about millions crying agony that and tears of an unwanted child this, and so on and et cetera. It's enough to make one suspect that Stryfe has some unresolved issues with mommy amd daddy and, rather than causing chaos in the name of mutant supremacy, he really needs to sit down and work on things with them, wherever they may be.
Then maybe he can become a fully actualized person and not obsess over his childhood trauma -- he could stuff it down so deep he barely notices until he breaks down sobbing on the floor of Freshco about the price of mayonnaise like the rest of us.
Also like the rest of us, Apocalypse is pretty flickin' baffled by Stryfe's whole "deal" and what it's supposed to have to do with him. Like, bro, we've never met. Maybe we saw each other at a party once a few years ago and I made a pass at your girl or something but it was all harmless, okay? So just chill.
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| Anyone ever yelled at you so hard you coughed up blood? |
Stryfe basically tosses Apocalypse's ass from pillar to post like a sack of wet garbage while going on and on and on in florid purple prose that he definitely practiced in the mirror for weeks before this little excursion.
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| Again with the helling, oy! |
In the scuffle, Apocalypse manages to knock Stryfe's helmet off and is really, truly surprised by what he finds underneath...
Yes! Cable is Stryfe! Stryfe is Cable! Wake up, sheeple!!!
This only serves to increase Apocalypse's confusion, but before he can say much about it, Stryfe runs him through with a sword -- the very sword he may or may not have once used to kill Cable (??).
Bleeding, broken and torn, 'Poc crawls to his teleportation beam to get away. The Dark Riders, impressed with Stryfe's stryfiness, pledge allegiance to him.
Up in space, Wolverine violates Cable's space station's "no smoking" rules while Cable talks in bold red letters about what a big bad guy Stryfe is.
We get a future history lesson that basically amounts to "Styfe is a bad dude from the same part of the future as me, who killed my friends and then ran back to the past with his buddy Zero." He specifically ran back to 1983 because I guess he wanted to see A Flock of Seagulls live.
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| Wait a minute, didn't Trevor Fitzroy literally do this exact same thing? Is that who we're looking up to as a role model now? |
In a recent fight, Cable learned that they share a punim, right down to that kooky scar on his eye. Why, how, and for what? To hear Cable tell it...
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| Does anybody know anything? |
Back at the mansion, it remains bleak trying to revive the Professor; their only hope is a crazy untested surgery that will go in through the skull, where the original entry of the virus occurred. Sounds good!
At his hideout in beautiful downtown Elsewhere, Stryfe pouts when he sees Jean and Scott cuddling, dismayed at this show of romantic/interpersonal affection. They prepare to make a jailbreak.
At the mansion, the BRYEEP alarm is sounded, signifying the second intruder in as many days.
The visitor in question, still smoldering, battered and beguiled:
He gets the expected reception, particularly from Archangel who really, really wants to kill Apocalypse so bad you guys, for giving him blue skin and cool metal AF wings that like killing people.
But Big Lips isn't here for a fight, he's here for... an unlikely alliance!
Further Thoughts:
As much as X-Cutioner's Song is rapidly becoming Not My Jam due to the surfeit of figures with mysterious plots and secret histories who absolutely fucking refuse to reveal anything about who they are or what they want... you can't say nothing happens.
It's interesting seeing Apocalypse, who has been a big big deal baddie ever since he first appeared, at a disadvantage: not only does he get his can kicked by Stryfe, he is also completely baffled by his enemy, and he's a guy who has been around long enough he seemingly knows everything. There is definitely some juice to seeing Apocalypse team up with the X-Men.
This sure as hell feels like a blockbuster: action packed with crazy twists and turns and outlandish characters, even as it's low on intimate storytelling or anything beneath the surface. It's a crazy, kooky cartoon that is leaning hard into what will rapidly become the dominant focus of the X-Men's mini-mythology most of the next ten years: the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny between Apocalypse and Cable, and all of the supporting players along for the ride including Cyclops and Jean, Sinister, Stryfe, and all the rest.
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| I cannot stress how much of this there is in this comic |
It's hard-muscled, scowling, action packed pinup with purple prose and dramatic reveals and secret relatives and all that comic booky goodness, and if it doesn't quite aspire to be great literature at least it's a hell of a ride guaranteed to inflate sales for another few months.
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| Taint much but it's honest work |
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