The X-Men find Xavier(s)!
X-Men #83, Uncanny X-Men #365, X-Men #84 -- Originally Published January-February 1999
So, erm, how's it goooin'?
Cerebro is standing tall over the Tajikistan-bound X-Men. He can calculate thousands of scenarios, and in all of them he is victorious, but you know, it may just be A.I. hallucinations.
With Nina's help, Rogue rallies and liberates Colossus from Cerebro's grip so that he can catch his breath.
Now, here it might be pointed out that in his armored form Colossus does not breathe, but only some kind of nerd who reads way too many X-Men comics would know or care about that -- is that what you are?
Elsewhere, the Main Cerebro taunts and kills his human slave, then monologues about what a cool evil robot he's become.
Back in Tajikinistan...
The heroes barricade themselves and Nina's adult friend explains that Nina is a powerful psychic and reality warper (obvs) who was captured by Bastion. Xavier manage to sneak her out of captivity (somehow??!) at which point she was passed over to the care of Renee Majcomb, who you may remember as part of the Genoshan resistance -- or you may not, since I didn't find any time to single her out during my Bloodties coverage.
By and by, young Nina "imprinted" on Charles, which explains -- don't ask how, it just does -- why she registers as him on Cerebro.
This all happened during the Onslaught Epilogue one-shot that we didn't cover here. I saw it on the racks at the corner store, but it was a choice between that or getting a slushee, and I don't regret my decision.
The Cerebrite breaks in and merges with Colossus to become either a Cerebrus or a Colobro, whatever you prefer.
A fight ensues and Cerebro, knowing all of the X-Men's tips and tricks, beats the strawberry jam out of them.
Rogue, in an effort to save a felled Gambit, accidentally makes skin-on-skin contact with him an gets a glimpse of the mysterious smoke lady he sometimes talks to.
Unfortunately she doesn't have time to ask follow-up questions.
Having defeated the X-Men and disincorporated from Colossus, the Cerebrite returns home with its prize in tow.
Back in San Francisco, the X-Men have been mutated from Chris Bachalo forms to Lenil F. Yu forms. Many would consider this an upgrade, and at the very least everyone must agree it is a hard pivot.
But first, we are treated to a prologue or a prelude (I never know the difference) wherein Cerebro is scanning around. He only finds 23 (??!!) mutants on the island of Manhattan. He also may have ascertained the whereabouts of Magneto, but later for that.
For our benefit, he also clarifies the complete and total destruction of the ersatz X-Men he had created, who were holograms based on files Xavier created when he was, idk, bored or something. They're definitely dead now, so hopefully you weren't holding out for that big Grey King/Rapture mini-series exploring their forbidden love.
Back at Alcatraz, Cerebrite Beta whomps all sorts of ass all over the combined forces of the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Morally Ambiguous Mutants. The two groups are unable to get on the same page as to who they are supposed to be fighting (not each other.)
 |
| Um, okay then, Post, is it? Would you kindly attack the bad guy for us? |
All this while some of the clunkiest comic book dialogue I've ever heard spills across the page courtesy of fill-in scripter Ralph Macchio.
The heroes and anti-heroes spend some time bickering over who has the right to do what and with which to Xavier, which results in Kitty getting atomically discombobulated.
As Wolverine tries to figure out what to do next, Charles clarifies that Kitty is not dead -- despite his lack of powers, he "senses" her essence was merely moved. Wolverine then decides to do the logical thing and get himself, Charles and Marrow zapped as well, figuring that the big bad is the light on the other end of the tunnel.
Leaving Nightcrawler behind as he had gone to fetch the jet. He promptly turns around to set a course of Tajikinistan, where he knows his other comrades have surely run into trouble (boy have they!)
We begin the end of this adventure with the Professor and Nina in captivity, Charles wondering if maybe his dream went off the rails at some point.
 |
| Many would say yes |
Bad Cerebro reveals that, like any true Stan, he thinks he and Xavier should be together.
Meanwhile, the rest of the X-Men are on their way back from Tajikistan Tajikinistan Tajikanistan courtesy of the Aurora Jet.
 |
| Wake up babe, new misspelling of Tajikistan dropped |
Gambit marvels that they're already at Pittsburgh, soon to reach Eastward to New Jersey, which causes me to wonder just where the hell they're going and why they're coming from that direction. He also demonstrates a surprisingly thorough understanding of the origin of Bad Cerebro, considering he was not here for any of Operation: Zero Tolerance, never met Bastion, and just arrived. He relates it to the only thing he knows anything about, which is Cajun food.
Rogue takes him aside to let him know that once their lives are not on the line for a second, they're going to have to have a moment.
Back at Cerebro base, which I thought was in Utah or maybe Florida but turns out to be somewhere in the Northeast I guess, Cerebro takes a moment to talk about his origins. It seems that when Bastion tinkered with the stolen tech, it activated a security protocol that sent the Cerebro program into a living shell, which was something that Charles designed, which means this isn't really Bastion's fault, it was literally what Charles designed Cerebro to do. Classic Chuck.
Now alive and kicking, Cerebro Prime wanted what basically all of us want -- a purpose in life.
His goal: to achieve human-mutant peace by, um, sorting and cataloguing everybody, which I guess amounts to sticking them in pods.
You know what, I've heard worse ideas.
 |
| Still less evil than Project 2025 |
Cerebro proves his bad guy bona fides by threatening to reach into Nina's mutant brain and use it to restore Charles' powers, painfully of course, nya ha ha.
The X-Men barge in, but almost immediately get scanned and cocooned by the Cerebrites. So much for the Cavalry.
With no other recourse, Charles asks Nina to give him his powers back, presumably with a minimum of pain. She complies in spectacular fashion.
Which goes so hard Pascual Ferry has to take over art chores.
The X-Men free themselves -- somehow, between panels -- and are ready for the next round.
Unfortunately, for the next round, Cerebro unleashes the Xavier Protocols, the secret strategies he has to take own all the X-Men if need be, which seems to involve warping the very fabric of reality around them.
And yet, Charles... is smiling. For you see, this is all part of the plan. The plan to trick Cerebro into thinking he's killed the X-Men but really.. he hasn't!
And now they're really free and ready for the real next round!
The X-Men soundly thrash the robots because woo, look at the time we've got to wrap this thing up.
But Cerebro isn't done yet -- he has cookies or something in millions of human minds, and he's going to use that to escape and keep on Cerebrin'. Charles says okay, well, let me show you what it's like inside millions of human minds.
 |
| The same thing happened to me when I used to go on Twitter |
Thus, Cerebro is thwarted by the beauty of human uniqueness, or whatever. He makes peace and disappears into the aether.
The X-Men ask if they should drop Charles off with his Brotherhood friends and he's like "Lol no, take me home."
 |
| Female mutants are not allowed to not have thigh gaps |
Coming up: We got Alan Davis Baybay!!
Further Thoughts:
For many years, one of my favourite shows was Doctor Who, and every other week the Doctor would come up against some robot or computer that had gone haywire, usually carrying out an extreme and destructive version of its programming. It's a fine premise for a story, which is why it shows up so often. The X-Men themselves are always fighting bad robots, so it's interesting that for once the bad robot is their own. It would have made sense if Bastion's tinkering had resulted in Cerebro's sentience, as had been suggested, but they clarified that, nope, this was Charles' doing, if inadvertently.
 |
| Keep doing shady shit like this, Charles, and you're going to get a reputation |
I'd be remiss if I didn't note some criticisms of the story itself. Like a lot of X-Men stories throughout the 90's -- way predating the Kelly/Seagle runs -- it feels a little half-baked. The creators had to sit down and be like "Yeah, but what would a Bad Cerebro do?" "I guess he would try to, like, catalogue people." "Okay, and we can show that by putting them in little cocoons." "Sure, yeah, that makes sense I guess. That's something a bad robot would do." I feel like there was a lot more to the premise they could explore rather than just have him doing generic bad guy stuff. The business with Cerebro being thwarted by the beautiful freakness of humanity was viable as a climax but again really could have been done with more thought and attention to what that means and how it relates to Cerebro's mission.
That having been said, on the curve of 1998 X-Men stories, this was a winner because at the very least it produced some exciting action with some twists and turns. It makes an effort to say something about what the X-Men are and do and are about. It's almost there, and with a stronger and more focused creative effort -- whether that means from the writers or the editor who was apparently buffaloing them -- this could have really been something.
In the end, the table is set: Charles is back with the team, his powers intact. The new roster is solidifying. Although it was a year of dead-ends, reversals and speedbumps, during which a lot of what happened was undone, never started, or made irrelevant, the franchise finally feels like it's got, at the very least, solid ground under it, just as Kelly and Seagle prepare to depart.
No comments:
Post a Comment