X-MEN #68: Heart of the Matter

Can Iceman and Cecilia escape the Prime Sentinels? (Please?)

Originally Published October 1997

Sometime between last issue and this, the lone officer who went to go check out the mysterious power outage at the police station multiplied into two

These would be Officers Aguinal and Cleveland, about whom new scripter Steve Seagle, perhaps hoping to make his mark by defining some iconic characters, provides a substantial amount of backstory. It's truly riveting stuff for two guys who are dispatched on page two, never to be heard from again.

Marrow, of course, is performing a Temu version of Wolverine's classic run through the Hellfire Club in Uncanny #133. In case you were wondering, we learn that she survived Storm's fatal stabbing by dint of the fact that, as it turns out, she has a second heart. That's part of her mutation, and that's that.

Yes, the phrase "It turned out..." is literally in the text.

Elsewhere, Detective Charlotte Jones is having second thoughts -- some would say a little late -- about how she sold out Bobby and Cecilia just because Operation: Zero Tolerance kidnapped her son.

Meanwhile, the OZT guys are just about done toying with Bobby and Cecilia.

To complicate matters, we also get a faction of flesh-and-blood cops who are unaware that their colleagues have opted in to become fascist robots.

"Freeze"? Who do you think you're talking to!

Down in Washington, Senator Kelly is having a rare moment of self-doubt about how maybe things are starting to get out of hand and how maybe there actually needs to be a non-zero amount of tolerance around here.

Here to perk him up is, of all people, Henry P. Gyrich, who was last seen having second thoughts of his own, but now seems to be all-aboard the killer robot train.

Speaking of friendly fire, with the situation deteriorating rapidly at the precinct, Bobby evacuates the cops with an ice slide (weee!) 

...and uses an ice dome to protect himself and Cecilia from the collapsing roof. 

Meanwhile, Marrow continues to make her way up the building, offering vaguely badass-sounding threats to whomever she encounters.

While Iceman considers next steps, he finds himself in the crosshairs of one of the surviving Prime Sentinels, but luckily he's saved in the nick of time by...

It's too on-the-nose to say "Some Pig," right?

Unfortunately, she takes a shot to the gut in the process, but fortunately one of the three confirmed non-Sentinels in the place is an emergency room doctor.

Meanwhile Sabra is still out there doing Sabra things, which in this case does not involve appropriating traditional Middle Eastern cuisine. She's apparently caught the redeye from Tel Aviv to New York.

 

And upstairs, Marrow arrives to contribute nothing except get into a philosophical debate with Dr. Reyes about whether to bother continue saving Charlotte's life.

So the three of them head down and -- and before I continue, no they don't say what happened to Charlotte, although it's implied she went to the station's infirmary, but it sure looks like they just abandoned her -- they find the streets of New York curiously vacant.

Does New York usually go to sleep around this time? I can't remember if there's a saying about that

Bobby puts two and two together...

Well, duh.

And waiting for them around the next corner is...

To be contin-- oh, no, wait, this big reveal is not the cliffhanger this issue wants to end on. I'm sure there's something far more shocking coming up that will really ratchet up the intensity and make the next issue a must-read. It's...!

That's right! They've got Charlotte's son!

Wait, we knew that already.

Well, there's a blonde lady! What's her deal, huh?? Bet you can't wait to find out!

I mean what are you gonna do, not read X-Men comics?

Further Thoughts:

Kelly's impending about-face on mutants and OZT is interesting, given he was sort of the face of anti-mutant hysteria in Government going back to 1980 or so. It's sort of a fantasy, in that in the real world, it's highly improbable that a politician could ever be evinced to feel shame or regret about any of the terrible things they do to consolidate power or capitulate to it. In the real world, obviously, we're not expecting any elected officials to wake up tomorrow and realize they've made the world a worse place. Ah, escapism -- it's needed sometimes.

The further I read, the more I feel like this story, which started out promisingly, resembles X-Tinction Agenda, a massive crossover I did not particularly care for. In that one, it felt like there was just issue after issue of characters stumbling around Genosha, and they'd turn a corner, and there would be Cameron Hodge, who was literally unbeatable, so he's just kidnap them right up, over and over again, until eventually it was time for them to come back and beat him. 

In this case, it's Iceman and Dr. Reyes. They escape from the Prime Sentinels from the Hospital, so they run and they find themselves at Warren's place, where there's Prime Sentinels, so they go with Charlotte to the Police Station, where there's Prime Sentinels, so they escape the Police Station and wander the streets, where there's now more Prime Sentinels.

In particular, we spent this entire story with Bobby and Cecilia at the station, struggling mightily to get away from the Sentinels. Okay, I get that that would be hard, and they try to zhuzh it up with different manifestations of Bobby's power, and some bits for Cecilia, but it's just not substantial enough of a threat to sustain for an entire issue. Last issue was not much great shakes either, so I wish that that one and this one had been combined in some way.

Yes, I did phrase that paragraph specifically to go with this panel

And the entire thing hinges on the Bobby-Cecilia chemistry which is wearing thin. In Cecilia, we have a character who desperately does not want to be part of this story, which is fun for, like, one issue, but the more she grouses the more it all seems hopeless because girl you are in it. It's happening. Eventually your characters have to embrace their role as the protagonist of the story they are in. it's like that rule in improv where you always have to say "yes" so that the scene doesn't get shut down. Instead, every line of dialogue from Cecilia is about how much she hates all of this, focusing her dislike on Bobby, and look, I am not the biggest Iceman fan either, but he is a well established mutant and the ranking senior hero figure for this comic, so we have to defer to him a little bit.

Marrow, I could take or leave, but she certainly doesn't contribute much to the proceedings as an active participant or even a commentator. Heroically, the big rescue moment belongs to Charlotte, and then Marrow showing up is just throwing more gasoline on the fire of fruitless bickering between characters. And let me be clear, I don't dislike characters bickering -- that's what half of Marvel Comics was built on -- but this unceasing back-and-forth to no end where the characters have to be dragged kicking and screaming through the plot, it irks me as a reader.

Other things that are inserted to try to perk up the story -- Sabra, this drama with Charlotte's son -- are not landing with me. There was a hint that Angel and Psylocke were going to link up with these guys in the previous issue but it doesn't happen yet (and I really thought that when Iceman said "An angel looking out for--" we were going to see him there... which would be the first time I was ever excited to see Warren.) 

 

What had started out as a very promising story that had a lot of angles to it has become mired in this unending game of cat and mouse that isn't even particularly strong.

Chirping of some of the fancier (and occasionally clunky) prose aside, I think scripted Steve Seagle acquitted himself perfectly well as you would have to look at the credits to know that Scott Lobdell did not write the dialogue for this issue. Now, that dialogue is where my biggest complaint, all the bickering and what not, resides, but that's not on Seagle as that's the entire premise of the story and pre-dates his involvement. There's actually a fun throughline about hearts, given the title of the issue, so points to Seagle for style.