X-MEN #34: Life and Consequences

The X-Men infiltrate Sinister's operation!

Originally Published July 1994

We begin in Nebraska of all places, as the X-Men (Psylocke, Gambit, Rogue and newly-instated interim field leader Beast) have arrived at the world-famous State Home for Foundlings, where Cyclops grew up and, in a remarkable coincidence nobody seems interested in examining, Sinister bases his operation.

Psylocke is disheartened to see the kind of environs the poors less fortunate call home, while Gambit reminisces about his own hardscrapple upbringing and jokes, hilariously, that the neglect and abuse Cyclops likely encountered here probably explains why he's never the life of the party.

They're here on a tip from Sabretooth, who is nothing if not a dropper of truth-bombs, lobbing unwanted but necessary facts into the middle of Gambit's and Rogue's relationship lately.

Betsy also asks Gambit about his thoughts on the recent happenings in New Orleans with his family, which you can presumably read about in the recent Gambit Mini-Series. Remy chastises Betts for using her telepathic powers to pry into his personal thoughts, and she apologizes noting that with Revanche dead, her powers are restored to 100% and it's a little hard to not overheard people's thoughts. Which is all well and good but that doesn't mean you have to admit it by asking follow-up questions. I would think a British upper-cruster would have more decorum.

Gambit uses a handheld secret door finder to find a secret door, behind which they locate an ominous glowing green tube of science (possibly mad).

That's not all they find, however, as they awaken the lab's resident, a very unexpected person indeed... Riptide!

And a very Garrouwaaghh to you, too

Psylocke is surprised, because as far as she knows this deadly Marauder was killed in the Morlock Alley by an enraged Colossus back during the Mutant Massacre. She should think harder about it though, because we already saw Riptide restored to life via Sinister's cloning techniques back during the Inferno event -- which Betsy was present for -- a "mere" five years earlier. 

I mean, come on guys, it's not that hard to read every single X-Men comic, is it?

Gambit is able to pull some tricks out of his sleeve to non-lethally I assure you take Riptide out.

There are other questions about Riptide's body -- his skin is all rashy, and his mind is a blank. Well so's mine, you ain't special.

Rogue arrives to offer some protection from the deadly throwing stars of Riptide, just a little too late to be of use. Betsy observes that the weapons appear to be organic in nature, part of Rip's mutant power one supposes. If we get nothing else from this comic -- and we might not -- at least we learn that.

Thanks, I was happier not knowing

They go through the next secret doorway and discover...

Threnody, the mutant conductor of misery and suffering, lounging around, tiddies out as usual. She welcomes them in her loopy way, then lets them know that they tripped the security system on the way in.

Luckily, Beast disabled them on the way in, so if you already had your fill of action from that skirmish with Riptide, don't worry, you're not in any danger of any additional action beats in this comic.

Beast congratulates Threnody for seeming considerably more lucid than the last time they met, and Thren attributes that to the wonder of Sinister -- although she still speaks in wibbly-wobbly word balloons. He's also helped her manage her depression -- hey, this Sinister doesn't sound like such a bad guy!

Okay, but what about the fact that, as part of the deal, Threnody is hooked up to all these machines doing Sinister's research like some kind of forsaken child? Well yeah, says Threnody, that's called helping -- she's scanning for mutants suffering from the Legacy Virus so Sinister can gather research to work on the cure.

The X-Men press harder, trying to figure out some kind of justification for their trip out to Nebraska -- there's got to be something evil going on here. Threnody shrugs and says she's using her free time to peruse Sinister's library and learn lots of things behind his back. See, Sinister comes and goes but doesn't really pay much attention to anything (??!) so she can get up to all sorts of things behind his back. 

Ah yes, says Hank, he's using his Tesseract Chamber Pocket Doorway Dimension... That Explains how he can seem to be anywhere he wants at a moment's notice. It's not on topic, but it certainly is an explanation we've been dying to give you.

Threnody reiterates, she's good with the deal: he's using her, she's using him, it's all chill. But since the X-Men came all this way, they might as well get some consolation prize, so threnody unlocks Sinister's secret chamber where he's keeping geneteic material from all the mutants he examines. Beast deduces that he's using it for cloning material. Psylocke chimes in that this explains how the Marauders keep coming back, as if anyone hadn't caught on yet.

Sinister could clone FDR, Hitler and Millard Fillmore into his next round of Marauders if he wanted to

Threnody notes -- oh wait, you guys fought Riptide upstairs? That means that his cloning partner is also awake, because cloning has to be done in doubles for some reason. That means...

Half-baked Clone Sabretooth lunges(?) at them, but Rogue, who has some aggression to take out on Victor based on his recent behavior toward her. She pops him a good one and, because he's basically a toddler who can't walk, that's that.

Beast laments: we came here to learn more about the Legacy Virus, and all we found is that Sinister is cloning his henchmen -- which, if we'd been paying attention we'd have already known. That's not great, but does Beast have a right to destroy it? (Note to modern readers: At this point in history, Hank McCoy was concerned with ethics.)

Gambit suggests they load up a van and haul the cloning equipment away to use for themselves. I don't know about that... the X-Men cloning themselves every time they die? Is that really something they want to get into?

Threnody has another idea: do destroy it. Beast is like, I don't know about that, and Threnody is like I'm  destroying it 😊

The X-Men beat a hasty retreat as all the science explodes. Beast chastises Threnody: this is too crazy of a situation, you have to leave with us. Threnody counters: this is so crazy I have to stay.

And Beast is like, well all right then.

Further Thoughts:

Is this good? Do you like this? Is this what people want from comics, in 1994, or ever?

It's not as though I was hoping for a quick and tidy resolution to the Legacy Virus arc. It's a metaphysical threat to the mutants that they should be grappling with for years, lingering in the background while other more immediate threats take precedence. But I would hope that, in the pursuit of that resolution, some stuff happens that constitutes, you know, a story. Beast even points out that with what they hoped to find here, they turned up bupkis. They learned nothing, then destroyed a cloning machine, which you just know Sinister is going to rebuild next Tuesday.

Hey Jaye, I used it!

Now don't get me wrong: there were tons of long-running, unresolved plotlines woven into the much-lauded Claremont run, but usually you would feel some sense of progress and urgency to the proceedings. This whole story just kicks the can further down the road at the expense of anything else they could be doing. There's a bit of arrogance in knowing the X-Men were seemingly in no danger of losing their audience with stuff like this.

I've got to give credit to Fabian Nicieza, if in a backhanded way: he works hard to put maximum significance into these comics: big feelings, big stakes, big issues. There's a lot of craft there. It was even evident in the Kwannon two-parter where he laid it on thick to try to convince us that the Kwannon-Matsuo romance was of the utmost significance. It didn't take -- really, like throwing good money after bad -- but damned if he didn't give it his all. When he brings that energy to Rogue and Gambit, or to Beast's quest for a cure, you feel the importance of the moment. The problem is, the plots don't back it up.

The problem as I see it, is that there's not enough comic in the comics these days. This could have been a good little subplot while we watch some other X-Men on a different excursion. Problem is, as far as the Blue team is concerned, there are no other X-Men around right now. It was all well and good when they had so many mutants they split the team, but then slowly whittling away members like Forge, Colossus, Wolverine, Jean and Cyclops, gets us here.

If the purpose is to whet our appetite for more by teasing us that developments are coming, then at a certain point -- which we've already passed by my reckoning -- frustration and exhaustion kicks in, and if you are an average reader, you consider dropping the comic and spending your $1.50 on something else. Like, I hear they're going to do something with a clone in Spider-Man, that sounds like it could be interesting, and I'm sure just a quick little story for the autumn that won't get out of hand at all.