Onslaught, Onslaught, Onslaught
Originally Published July 1996
We begin with Cannonball, sitting in a tree, T-H-I-N-K-I-N-G
Yes, it's true, in the recent issue of Uncanny, Cannonball bared his soul to Charles, and was told "Got an issue? Here's a tissue." Cyclops offers the neophyte X-Man solace by telling him "Yeah, it do be like that sometimes," acknowledging like the good soldier he is that Charles can be a hard man/jerk, but that he has his reasons and not to take it personally.
Before Cannonball can say much more on the subject, Gambit, Bishop and some of the other X-Men arrive to spread the news: Juggernaut has paid them a house call. They scramble to hunt down their longtime foe...
Never suspecting that Cain Marko is currently an invited guest of Jean Grey.
Jean, who has changed into some try civilian clothes after wading through sewer muck to get here (I'll take my No-Prize, Bob) has brought Juggernaut to the secret psi-shielded chamber beneath the mansion, where Charles once hid for several months having faked his death to prepare a defense against the invading Z'Noxx... all of which happened, let me remind you, in the flicking 1960's when Mark Waid was a kid and you weren't born yet.
But hey, it is relevant not just to this plot, but because it was a notable time when Charles was not just noble but also something of a shady bitch, which is thematically resonant with this story, I will admit.
Jean proceeds with her psychic reading, but before she can get far she realizes that one of them (not saying who, but maybe the big strong guy) didn't close the door behind them, thus nullifying the chamber's anti-psychic properties and exposing them. She quickly seals it off, but as anybody who read the X-Men during their sojourn in Australia (which, for the record, still qualifies as a deep cut) knows, not being able to see something sometimes just makes you notice it more...
...as Cyclops can attest when he suddenly loses his psychic rapport with Jean.
Outside, the X-Men continue to chase their tails looking for the giant unstoppable guy. Iceman waxes nostalgic about How I Met Your Marko, asking Beast for his memories of their first encounter with the Juggernaut. Beast bluffs, "Oh yeah, when I saw him I was like woah," And Iceman balks -- "The point is, we didn't see him, remember? He was mostly depicted off-panel for most of that issue," at which point Bob Harras invites all the kiddies to go check their copies of X-Men (vol 1) #12 from 1965 for more details.
 |
| Thirty-one years ago at this point. Thirty-one. |
Speaking of Beasts, the good-or-at-least-better Hank manages to free himself from his chains after realizing there's a loose stone in the floor. Unfortunately, while freedom seems to be a hop, skip and a jump away from our blue bouncing buddy, he's got unexpected company...
Having become concerned about Jean's psychic disappearance, Cyclops barges into Xavier's study. Charles is initially irritated that Cyclops would interrupt his very important quiet contemplation, but Scott uses this moment to reveal that Jean has met Onslaught, so some shit is clearly about to go down.
Before he can say much more, Cyclops notices that Charles has pulled up a computer file on Franklin Richards, the ultra-powerful son of Reed and Sue. Cyke asks what is up with that and Charles says "You know what, I honestly don't know." Must have just been one of those things.
Cyke notes that by the way, Juggernaut has been spotted on the grounds. Charles tells him to lower the mansion's defenses. They can lure Cain into the open and then the X-Men can deal with him like they always do. Cyclops is perhaps passively perturbed by Charles' plan to just throw X-Men bodies at his deadly stepbrother until the problem goes away.
Down in the psi-chamber, Juggernaut reflects on the time be became a human Juggernaut, and how jealous Charles must have been. Jean scoffs, as if Charles would care about stuff like that, and Cain is like, "Are you kidding? He was a dweeby prep who was always getting his ass kicked by me." If there was one thing Charles always secretly wanted, it was probably the ability to smack Cain around, and it kills him that he never got it.
They continue to hammer away at the mental block inside of Cain's mind.
Back in Xavier's study, he thinks about all his recent frustrations and failures: misjudging the Sabretooth situation, lashing out at Magneto, whatever-it-is that's going on with Wolverine...
He sees some news about Graydon Creed's campaign, and about the death of Dennis Hogan, a mutant who was beaten to death and the X-Men were unable to help (in X-Men Prime -- hey, a reference to a comic from this decade!) It's all too much to bear, and the normally stoic prof throws a total fit.
And then suddenly it all becomes clear to Xavier... and to Jean at the same time.
Jean urges Juggernaut to get out while he can, but when he reaches the main floor of the mansion, the place becomes a topsy-turvy M.C. Escher world.
He finds his way to the study and begs Charles for help against Onslaught, but of course there is no Professor there.
Caught in the claws of Onslaught, Juggernaut pleads for his life. 'Slaught notes that he can't kill Cain as long as he is protected by the Crimson gem of Cyttorak... at which point he relieves him of said gem.
Juggernaut is felled by his ultimate enemy...
He calls the X-Men back -- Juggernaut won't be a problem anymore.
Further Thoughts:
Was there ever any doubt? My memory of 1996 was a little fuzzy but I feel like the truth about Onslaught was, like, the worst-kept secret in comics and that we as readers were just waiting for confirmation. The creators put us through the paces of this mystery villain but with such an immense and ostentatious build there was really only one possible outcome. Xavier is Onslaught, Onslaught is Xavier.
I have had my qualms about the way Mark Waid has handled his part of the build, relying so heavily on deep X-Men lore that pre-dates most of the readership (most people, at the very longest, had probably not been reading since before the All New, All Different team came on, but many more were probably like me and came through the cartoon in the early 90's.) But despite my pickiness about that, it's put to good use, establishing the archetypal nature of the lifelong feud between Charles and Cain and why focussing on the Juggernaut in the lead up to Onslaught's reveal was a strong play. He elucidates it well: Cain had the one thing Charles never could, unlimited physical strength, but now he's unleashed his psychic power to the point where he's essentially made himself his own type of Juggernaut.
So despite my chirping it, I do think this is a strong issue with an effectively suspenseful through-line, and of course if you have been reading every single issue of X-Men over the past several years and writing 1000+ words about it every week, you get the significance of the references, so it's a comic that probably plays better in 2024 than even in 1996.
We know that Xavier has a dark side -- hell, it was the subject of one of the most ignominious issues of X-Men ever published. It's a worthwhile topic because Charles has been known to do a few unscrupulous things in the past -- faking his death, mind-wiping randos indiscriminately, being attracted to a 16-year-old girl. But the thing is, the book doesn't really see Charles as being malevolent. It just so happens that he has been cast, by the need for stories, as having to do some shady things, like say, neglecting Legion for years on end. It's only upon reflection that most of Xavier's crimes become crimes. For the most part, especially in recent years, Charles is depicted as a fundamentally decent man with a worthwhile goal who is sometimes frustrated by the limitations of reality, and has succumbed to temptation, once or twice, to use his powers to gain an unfair advantage.
So now we have to decide: is Charles good or bad? At times I think the book wants us to consider whether he is simply not a good person. At other times it's that he is a good man but has had to become compromised, and at still others, it offers the convenient explanation that there is a "darkness" in him that he can suppress but that comes out when pushed to his limit. And maybe that's true and fair, but Onslaught being a splintered aspect of Xavier and not Xavier himself is a little handy. It's the Dark Phoenix all over again, where the book can have one of its principal characters behave badly, and then resolve it by saying, "Well, it wasn't really them." Onslaught ultimately appears to be made of the darkness that does exist within Xavier -- as it does many of us under the surface -- magnified by the large scale of the frustrations of pursuing his dream of harmony and given form and identity by, yes, some psychic hoo-hah.
Well, whatever. I'm overthinking it. It's a pretty fun story.
It was XAVIER??????
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