X-MEN #42: Heaven Can Wait

Exodus' houseguest overstays his welcome

Originally Published July 1995

We begin with a toast.

You see, after returning from the Age of Apocalypse, the Acolytes had a close encounter with one of the many refugees from that version of reality: namely, the crispy-fried son of Apocalypse known to us -- somewhat cringily -- as Holocaust. Exodus considers this a sign of great things to come, but that guy considers everything a sign. Some of the other Acolytes, namely Colossus and Milan, are not so sure that this spooky-looking skeleton floating freely in space trapped in a cube of ice is necessarily the goodest of guys.

Exodus sentences Milan to the night shift for his heresy, then excuses everyone else so that he can commune with Magneto, which must be done privately with nobody else in the room or else Magneto won't say anything. He's like a cartoon frog in that way.

Anyway, a mysterious entity of unknown origin and power arrives on an isolated space station crewed by largely interchangeable and disposable rank and file laborers -- oh yeah, this should go well for everyone.

Back on Earth, Charles hears about the recent massacre of humans by an apparently pro-mutant group, and checks in on the Juggernaut, who is lying incapacitated in Beast's lab -- which is weird since he seemed fine when we last saw him... well, maybe not fine-fine, but he was up and about. At least this time he appears to be there voluntarily.

Down in Key West, a familiar betrenchcoated figure skulks into a museum where a presumably valuable conquistador helmet is being kept, using a playing card as a lockpick...

And by familiar I mean Rogue, since she has absorbed a considerable chunk of Gambit's identity and powers (per her abilities.) The Cajun himself is still one of the many comatose inhabitants of the Xavier school's medlab.

Meanwhile in orbit, Acolytes Rusty and Skids have some pillow talk about how crazy life is, going from being loosely associated with X-Factor and the New Mutants, to being brainwashed by Stryfe into joining the MLF, to joining the Acolytes of their own free will. Not great at making big life decisions, are these Rusty and Skids. Rusty is summoned for an ominous late night check up on the mystery guest.

This bodes well

So Holocaust wakes up and, apparently having not had his fill from eating Milan, has a second course of Rusty.

You were around for a decade, but we hardly knew ye

Holocaust is awake and wants to know what in the flaming skull is going on.

Where's my dad?

So Exodus shows up to point out how rude Holocaust is being, and Holocaust is like "Woah, that's Exodus! I hate that guy!" And Exodus is like "How do you know me, we've never met before!" And Holocaust is like "Uh, yeah we have, you're Bennet du Paris, one of the X-Men" and Exodus is like "First of all, rude with the real name, and secondly barf, like I'd ever be an X-Man, I'm a Magneto Stan," and Holocaust is like "Buh, wha-- but Magneto??! Is also??! An X-Man!!!??!?!"

They have a blasty fight -- apparently Holocaust has blasty powers? And seems to be doing okay outside of his life-support armor?? -- which wakes everyone up, including Colossus and Amelia Voght, who are starting to think that maybe living on an asteroid as part of a cult was not a good life decision (they should have clued in when Rusty and Skids showed up.)

As Holocaust and Exodus duke it out, Voght teleports down to the Earth's surface, right to the X-Men's doorstep. Unfortunately she does so right as Cyclops and Jean Grey are pulling up from their trip to see Jean's parents.

And in one of those crazy mishaps...

Further Thoughts:

The conflict between Holocaust and Exodus is whatever because first of all, who really cares about Exodus, and secondly, it's all based on a silly misunderstanding of Holocaust waking up in an unfamiliar version of reality where allegiances and ideologies are not quite what he's used to, but at the same time he's a violent psycho who the Acolytes probably don't want to mess with either way. It's a good, entertaining comic that sees Exodus get a bit of what-for, which you knew was coming, but would probably be more satisfactory if it were his ideas and zealousness that brought him down than some random interloper, but the story's not over yet.

The issue is drawn by Paul Smith. Smitty drew my favourite run of X-Men comics in the early 80's, and his art style was a big part of that, but boy does his work stick out in the 90's at a time when the X-Men more commonly look like the renditions of Joe Madureira and Andy Kubert. Although Smith is no stranger to fantastical elements -- he drew Dr. Strange for a while -- his work has a groundedness and gravity to it that doesn't always seem to enhance the elastic, action-packed blasty nature of a 90's X-Men comic. So I'm not thinking that audiences of the time would have been receptive to a less flashy "good hand" like Smith, but he actually does his usual good job pacing out the story, enhancing the early bits where it feels like a horror movie is unfolding on Avalon, and, along with Matt Ryan and Digital Chameleon doing some cool stuff during the Exodus-Holocaust blastemup like showing Exodus in chiaroscuro and blurring him when he's in the foreground and the "camera" is focussed on Holocaust. I think these neat little touches would not have been appreciated in 1995, but I liked them. Some of the times when Smith gets to set the pace away from the action, like with Rogue breaking into the museum, he works in the kind of languid pacing that you see more often today than back then.

Both core X-books landed strongly after the Age of Apocalypse: kicking the Avalon storyline into its final phase was a canny move on Fabian Nicieza and the team's part as not much has happened there lately and we're ready for that subplot to be resolved.