The X-Men investigate a massacre -- in space!!
Originally Published March 1997
We begin not just in any res, but in medias res!
The X-Men -- Beast, Rogue, Bishop, Gambit, Joseph and Cannonball powerless human reporter Trish Tilby -- have been zapped abruptly into space by Gladiator, where they are to find their way to the heart of the Shi'ar Empire. Glad was frustratingly short on details but presumably they'll know the problem when they see it.
In the mean time, however, they have to contend with an out-of-control space craft they have found themselves aboard as the only passengers.
Beast manages to get the internal gravity working so that the g-forces -- which I'm not sure would exist in the vacuum of space but I'm not the physicist Scott Lobdell is -- are no longer a factor. But they're not instantly what Taylor Swift would call "out of the woods yet, out of the woods yet, out of the woods" because they are about to fly straight into an asteroid field, which as we all know, is where asteroids are close enough together to pose a danger to passing ships, but far enough apart that they don't collide with each other and pulverize themselves. This is scientifically accurate, as established in PBS' Nova special, The Empire Strikes Back. I think Carl Sagan hosted it.
They have to get through the asteroids to get to a rapidly-closing stargate that will take them to their destination. There's only one person on board with the power to navigate a ship like that, and I don't mean Rogue.
Actually, Joseph's plan is to use his magnetic powers to deflect the asteroids, which proves effective and draining.
With only the briefest moment of hesitation to make sure everyone is on board with being six against a galaxy, they soar through the stargate and into the great unknown.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Cannonball has the unenviable task of having to explain to the other X-Men where their teammates have gotten off to.
Later, as Cyclops & Co scan for their teammates and find them unreachable, Storm reasons that since they've got a lot going on down here right now with Operation: Zero Tolerance and the Creed Assassination and whatever crazy crap is going on with Warren and Betsy, maybe they should just let this one go and let their highly capable fellow X-Men (and non-powered normie Trish) handle it.
 |
| You want us to protect this world? The one that hates and fears us? |
Several million miles away, the trip through the stargate is not instantaneous so in the limital space, the X-Men have a chance for a little respite. Gambit and Joseph have their usual chilly repartee about how they're both, in their own way, unsavory types.
Elsewhere on the ship, Beast attempts to apologize to Trish for getting her dragged along. Really he should be apologizing to Cannonball when he gets back since he didn't make the cut for allegedly being too young for such a mission when they sent the frickin' reporter instead.
Anyway, Trish has her own thinking on the situation, which is that not only is this a great opportunity for her to be an embedded journalist with the X-Men, but also show off her Pilates abs.
[[I don't even hate that Trish is there -- I think there's something cool about the X-Men having a tagalong human, going back to the days of Madelyn Pryor -- but I won't stop harping about how Cannonball was snubbed after handing Gladiator his lunch.]]
All the X-Men are getting into Shi'ar garb, in fact, with Bishop taking a moment to reflect on how he's spent all this time amongst the legends of his youth, how he'll always been an outsider here due to being from the future. Rogue comes to check on him and he confesses he feels a little adrift, a little directionless since finding out Professor Xavier was the X-Traitor. Rogue reminds him that he came back to stop Trevor Fitzroy and he should probably focus on that comforts him. She gives a little touch on his hand, but only because she's wearing a Shi'ar mining outfit which just happens to have force-fields on his hands (instead of, like, gloves.)
At long last they arrive at their destination, a Shi'ar space station that is impressively-rendered but also looks like an inkblot of two lovers fighting over the last bit of Chinese food. The station has capacity for over 3000 humanoids but has nobody living there. Spooky!
The X-Men drop in to investigate and naturally find it a ghost town. Beast and Rogue find that the power core has been stolen (and also note it's now Christmas Day... at least as far as their internal clocks are concerned), while Magneto and Gambit -- who I may remind you, apropos of nothing, is brooding over a deep dark secret from his past in case you forgot -- find nothing, but are being watched by mysterious figures.
Bishop, however, does find the seemingly one and only survivor of whatever happened here...
Further Thoughts:
This is what I like to call Just Good Comics. It hardly represents a landmark or any kind of meaningful event, but it is competently and capably done, an affable excursion for our heroes that regular readers should enjoy. It's the baseline of what X-Men comics should be month-to-month.
This first issue of the multi-parter is all build, suspense and teasing while the characters have opportunities to brood over their lot in life and their place in the world etc. It's fine work from Lobdell and Madureira, especially the latter who gets to do some slapstick with the space crisis, and there's not much more to say about it than that. As much as I feel like the X-Men have enough going on back on Earth that they didn't need to be dragged into some space drama to generate stories, at least this is going reasonably well, harmless at worst.
No comments:
Post a Comment