UNCANNY X-MEN #305: The Measure of the Man

Xavier asks Storm to return to her thieving ways

Originally Published October 1993

We begin at the home of Opal Tanaka, where some mysterious high-tech mercenaries seem to be targeting the visiting Iceman, only to be rudely interrupted.

As it turns out, the X-Men, via their fabulous Cerebro device, had noticed that these mysterious individuals -- who are giving off an Alpha brain wave pattern best described as "unique" -- were looking to ice the Iceman and decided to repay them in kind... and in advance.

Bizarrely, the attackers seem to be equipped with a rather ostentatious self-destruct mode, that leaves them looking like some ABC Gum even when Bishop has his powers set to light tickle.

Opal, for her part, is annoyed at having been roped unknowingly into this operation. She's getting tired of people like Bobby and Hiro throwing on costumes and charging into the fray. She wants to live in the real world, not this make-believe one of superheroes.

Opal, people do die every day. That's how reality works!

I don't know what she's babbling about -- this is her real world. If I lived in a world of mutant struggles of life and death, it would probably take precedence over a lot of my day-to-day problems and I would feel a huge amount sensitivity if someone I cared about was directly affected.

Anywhoozles, in Washington DC, Storm and Charles attend a political fundraiser with Senator Kelly, but the Prof is actually there to meet up with one of his secret contacts...

This Mark Twain with a Ponytail would be Ambassador Louis St. Croix, who is secretly part of Xavier's "mutant underground," a never-before-referenced alliance of humans and, one presumes, mutants, who work to achieve Xavier's goals in total secrecy. 

I'm going to pause here for a moment because I think this is a really cool idea -- that Charles hasn't just been throwing young mutant soldiers at all his problems but is also using espionage and realpolitik in ways we are not privy to. The possibilities boggle the mind, and yet to dwell on it would completely change the focus and tone of the book. Instead of something that can be mined for story potential, it's likely just something that's being mentioned now, as a convenience, to be then tossed away.

In conversation with Storm, Louis reflects on his reason for helping the mutant cause -- that being his literal Lost Lenore, the first love of his life who perished in a car accident that triggered her latent mutant powers.

As it turns out, the EMTs were so freaked out by the sight of her power (to... turn half-black?) that they refused to help her (I feel like that should be reported to some kind of governing body) so Louis had to carry her to the hospital in his arms, and by then it was too late.

Which is very tragic and all, but I wonder if everyone who is sympathetic to the mutant cause always needs some kind of relevant personal backstory? I guess it's much sexier than "I'm helping mutants simply because it's the right thing to do."

Aboard the Blackbird, Bishop, Rogue and Iceman have taken the last of Iceman's assailants captive, but without any psychics handy they have no way to forcibly extract information from them... except, of course, for the mutant whose power is to absorb people's psyches with a mere touch. Let's give that a whirl.

Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross!

So it turns out these guys were not so much "people," but more semi-sentient piles of flesh thrown together on something of a whim. But hey, who isn't? 

Back in DC, Charles lays it out for Storm. What LaCroix has told him is that recently, the Government has developed an exo-skeleton that can help shield one from Magneto's "electromagnetic sphere of awareness." Storm's mission: sneak into a government facility and "appropriate it" so that Forge can adapt it for Charles' upcoming planned attack on Avalon. Oh yes, this issue takes place before X-Men #25, but I find it more fun to read afterward.

Storm is somewhat stymied by the request -- is this what the X-Men have sunk to? Common thieves? Xavier is indifferent: if Storm won't use her well-documented thieving powers to obtain the anti-Magneto suit, Charles will do it himself.

Or ask Gambit

Aboard the Blackbird, Bishop offers Rogue some of his powers to offset her current status as a Spaghetti Monster. It works -- sure, why not -- and Rogue reveals that these creatures owe their lives to one man...

Of course, Rogue wasn't present for X-Tinction Agenda to know what a scary big bad deal Hodge is, but she's undoubtedly read the file -- which was hopefully not too inconsistent in artwork from folder to folder, wink wink.

Storm travels to the Government facility holding the super suit, which she breaks into with ease. As she does so, she thinks about her youth as a thief on the streets of Cairo, and how one day she met a man who would eventually change her life.

The question is -- how did he do so? Did Ororo become Storm of the X-Men because she wanted to be something more than she was, or because Charles has mind-controlling powers? We may never know the answer.

Storm delivers the disk to Charles, containing everything he needs to know about the technology. But it comes with a warning -- Charles must never ask Storm to steal for him again.

Further Thoughts:

As mentioned above, this issue is set before X-Men #25 and the X-Men's assault on Avalon, but I think it was more fun to read after. I don't think it would be possible to be interested in this minor nothing of an issue amidst the hooplah of Fatal Attractions' celebration of the X-Men's 30th year: it works more as a comedown, even if it involves backtracking a little bit. The super suits in question play virtually no role in the X-Men's strategy, you don't even know they have them, so it doesn't contribute to the build but it kind of feels like a "between the scenes" story; an X-Men Classic backup that made it into the main series. 

I don't necessarily buy into Storm's recent turn to moralism. It's not exactly inconsistent with the character -- when we first met her, she had sworn never to take a life -- but Storm has also proven to be a much more complicated character than that over the years of development. She was traumatized, lost her faith, and became a violent extremist (years before it was cool!) who occasionally advocated the most underhanded and bloodthirsty tactics available. Perhaps she may have fallen out of that ideology when she "died," was de-aged by Nanny, and then re-grouped with the X-Men who had been through the Siege Perilous. One can understand her wanting to return to first principles and ideals, but I think the story does her a disservice by not letting her acknowledge that the reality she lives in is far from black and white. She was the one lecturing Bishop on X-Men never killing, and now she's philosophically opposed to Charles wanting to do a little bit of burglary. She's become the voice of what moral guardians say the comic book heroes should be. I think there should be more to it than that, but we'll see if this is a direction that holds water -- as it is, the conflict between her and Charles reads a bit like an attempt to pump some meaning into a story that was otherwise so lightweight you'd never realize you'd read it. Make what you will of the implication that Charles may have been manipulating her from a young age: nobody's ever wrong to suspect Xavier of doing shady things, but I'm not sure if this is a theme the book is seriously interested in unpacking.

  

The headline, I suppose, is that Hodge is preparing a comeback with his Sticky Goo Men, having not been seen since the finale of X-Tinction Agenda: despite having been buried under a building and reduced to a head, he was basically given immortality so it was only a matter of time before he showed up again. It's a canny move to start positioning the next big bad guy before they're done with this one, but the build to his reintroduction is hardly eye-catching and it wasn't going to be easy anyway to make any readers start caring about anything besides Magneto until he's been defeated (which we, readers of Uncanny X-Cerpts, now know he will be -- in ostentatious fashion.)