X-MEN #15: The Camel's Back (X-Cutioner's Song Part 7)

Stryfe works through some issues

Originally Published December 1993

Back from our brief intermission, Reaver is standing over the prone bodies of Gambit and Quicksilver, ready to let some heads roll, but as he lines them up, he's interrupted by the FZZK of the focused totality of a certain someone's telepathic power

Topside, the X-folks make short work of Dragoness and my new favourite characters, bickering siblings Thumbelina and Slab.

Cannonball and Boomer tangle with their former comrades Skids and Rusty, both of who could probably follow Tabitha's lead and upgrade their codenames. Skids favors Boomer with a kick to the face, breaking her jaw, while Rusty reaffirms his belief that Stryfe is the guy to follow.

Iceman checks in with Archangel to see how he's feeling after his wings killed a guy, but Warren shrugs it off as a whoopsie -- can't make an omelet without decapitating a few eggs, right? Iceman concedes that maybe this isn't the right time for a heart to heart and tables the discussion for later.

All in all, it was a pretty fun day busting MLF heads, and now it's time to get back to business finding Stryfe.

Back in Westchester, Colossus is still hung up on his brother's murder-suicide, even though it's like, bro, that was over two months ago, get over it. Guido offers him some solace, big guy to big guy.

And inside, Beast anguishes over the fact that all of his smarts aren't helping him save the Professor, and maybe it's his fault for focussing on X-Manning instead of continuing his biogenic research. Well, we all have to make choices in life. I was going to write a novel.

Back at Stryfe's super secret HQ, he continues to torture Cyclops and Jean in weird, parental ways, now by force-feeding them strained peas and formula.

But you know what? This isn't even the first time this has been done to the X-Men.

Yeah, it's pretty clear Stryfe has some issues he needs to work out with his parents -- maybe it would be more productive if he were bothering them, wherever they are, instead of kidnapping Scott and Jean.

Unless...? Nah...

Stryfe then takes a teleportation trip to Egypt where, after taking out Apocalypse's personal stans the Dark Riders, he calls out the old man himself.

I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm your child, I'm your mother...!

TBC!