The X-Men duke it out with Sauron!
Originally Published April 1998
We begin with the big question...
Why are we here? Why is Rogue running, tearfully, away from home? Why does Sauron have a gun?
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| Cue Aerosmith |
Answers are not forthcoming, however, save for the fact that Sauron has merely come to get himself some of that sweet sweet mutant juice he always craves, having mailed himself to New York in pursuit of his sometime foe Ka-Zar, currently starring in a revised series by Waid and Kubert.
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| I hate the phrase "I'm not making this up" but this is not me being flippant -- that's literally how he got here. |
He alludes to how close he was to making Wolverine his main course, until one of the other X-Men interrupted -- giving him a nasty case of saurus interruptus.
By way of trash talk and/or reading Sauron to filth, Cannonball laments they can't have hotter villains... or something.
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| Or more diverse allies? I'm not sure what he's saying here. Maybe that Sauron isn't repping the uglies very well? |
In a bid to slow their foe, Storm turns off the good weather, but the winter chill does not curb Sauron's violent tendencies... nor dull the force of his mighty... gun.
Thank God Maggott was there -- what would the X-Men do against a 9mm?
Big Beak then digs further into his bag of tricks to hypnotize Iceman into seeing his fellow heroes as demons, which causes him to lash out at Jubilee and then ice himself up in a protective shell to take himself out of the fight.
Meanwhile up in space, Bishop is in misery -- you could say -- in convalescence under the watch of his #1 fan Deathbird, who insists that he is paralyzed and only she can help.
At the mansion, Rogue happens upon a fallen Joseph, mysteriously comatose. She calls for that Doctor... what's her face... god, it's on the tip of my tongue... I want to say... Carlita? Cassandra? Celexa?
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| You know, she's only been all over the last eight months' worth of comics |
Cecilia doesn't arrive -- for once failing to appear now that she's actually needed -- but Rogue is interrupted by Marrow while in the process of doing CPR and mouth-to-mouth (despite the fact that getting this treatment from Rogue usually causes comas, rather than curing them.) Joseph awakes none the worse for wear, and Rogue runs off again.
It falls to the X-Men's ace, Maggott, to stop Sauron, but the dino bucks his passenger. Luckily, Maggs has had his two slugs eat enough of the ground to make it a soft landing.
This leaves Jubilee in her teeny bikini as the last X-Person standing, but sadly her mighty fireworks can't penetrate his mighty lizard hide.
Meanwhile up in Alaska, Jean decides to see if some of her old pajamas still fit, much to Cyclops' consternation.
As Sauron pores over the buffet of mutants he now has to choose from, he's interrupted by Wolverine, whose healing factor has kicked in.
They tussle a bit, and just when Sauron has the canucklehead on the ropes, all the other X-Men wake up for a massive care bear stare.
With the bad guy fried, Wolverine is ready to move on. They can drop Sauron at the local PD for all he cares -- he's got some questions for Rogue.
Speaking of whom, we see our favourite Southern Belle catching a cab down to the city. The gabby cabbie has a lot to say, but Rogue is absorbed in thoughts -- for it was she who attacked and did the thing to Wolverine in the first place!
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| Or... second, I guess. Rough day for Logan. |
Could her powers be causing her some kind of uncontrollable bloodlust?
As to where she's headed, it's to none other than the Agee Institute, the place that promises they can cure mutants!
Further Thoughts:
For those of you who have not read the entire archive of the site (and as we near 550,000 words it's hard to blame you for that,) the original Sauron story by Neal Adams and Roy Thomas is one that I hold in high regard -- it was part of an epic run by those two that really brightened what had been a slog through the late 60's, marked by nonstop action, excitement, and inventiveness. Sauron was later canonized by Claremont and Byrne as just sort of a guy who returns to fight the X-Men from time to time, when the Juggernaut isn't available. And that's fine -- his appearances won't excite anyone, but it's definitely something to do, and it makes sense because of his powers' similarity to Rogue's.
At long last, we get some superhero action in this comic. I won't lie and say it was any kind of revelation but it was a good jolt the series needed. Sauron is admittedly in 1.5-dimensional booga-booga villain mode, here to drink up the heroes' precious life juices. The execution was lucid and gave plenty of opportunities for Chris Bachalo to show his stuff, even as I remain agnostic about Steve Seagle's writing, with his penchant for ponderous narration making me force myself not to skim. The twist with Rogue at the end is interesting and at least provides some sense that there is forward momentum for these characters, that the book is going somewhere, building to something, has some kind of story besides "These X-Men sure don't like each other right now."
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| Hey Wolverine... Sauron doesn't, um... have feathers |
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