The X-Men investigate something on Muir Island
Originally Published August 1999
With the X-Men's Skrull ship careening out of control Xavier is having a bit of a moment.
Inopportune though it is, one can't exactly schedule a depressive episode. He feels like a letdown not just because he keeps leading the X-Men to their doom, but because he also failed to alter the fates of billions of Skrull whose homeworld was devoured by Galactus. not only that, but it appears he has some unknown and unwelcome visitors in his brainpan.
He awakens on the ship and assures his team that he is fine, which is of course Xavier-speak for not in the least bit fine. Kitty and Nightcrawler reveal that the magnetic blast re-activated the ship's stasis mode, protecting them and re-routing them back to Earth -- losing eight days (and the chance to thwart Magneto and save Joseph) in the process.
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| Damn, that's twice I failed to completely rewrite the past. Well, there's always next time. |
Elsewhere, members of SHIELD hunt down The Machine Man, intent on using him to create Deathlok. You'll note that this series is not called Uncanny SHIELD, Uncanny Machine Man or Uncanny Deathlok.
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| I literally care about none of these things and you can't make me start |
Back on the ship, Colossus has a moment with Marrow, asserting his belief, like Billy Crystal's Fernando character, that it is better to look good than to feel good.
Marrow actually has some complicated feelings about her involuntary Glow-Up, given her entire identity was wrapped up in being an un-loveable freak. Still, she can see herself coming around on being Conventionally Attractive, especially if it means attention from Colossus and/or Gambit.
Being that the ship is too large to fly into Westchester, they elect to land at Muir Island, sending a video message to Rogue as a courtesy to let her know they're still alive.
Meanwhile at SHIELD, the mad scientists plan to plug a particularly vicious agent's central nervous system into the robot husk of Machine Man, and bing-bang-boom you get a Deathlok.
At Muir, Kitty and Kurt are keen to look in on their UK-based friends, but Charles is adamant they get back home, positive that there will be another crisis imminently. Apparently, there's not even time to grab lunch. Nobody points out that the Muir Island facility is pretty well-stocked and they can probably monitor and handle any incoming crises from here, but Storm does convince the Prof that the former members of Excalibur deserve a me-day.
Up on the SHIELD Helicarrier, Nick Fury is outraged nobody told him they were doing crimes against humanity today. Some suit named Major Sole pulls rank and says that in addition to playing God, he has also dispatched a squad to Muir Island to track down some suspicious energy that seems related to the Techno-Organic virus, stacking another thing I'm really not into on this shark sandwich.
Leaving Kitty, Kurt and Piotr to roam Muir Island looking for their friends, the rest of the team travels back for home. Remy confides his role in injuring Marrow, but she absolves him, given she got a pretty face and a sweet rack out of the deal, which is all anyone has ever wanted. I guess her feelings on the matter aren't that complicated.
Poking around, The Ex-Caliburs have no luck finding Muir dweller Douglock, but they do see a trail of techno-organicized nature, which means something is amiss and possibly Lock-adjacent.
Unfortunately, those SHIELD guys who were poking around find something else.
Further Thoughts:
Ya know, I'm not even totally uninterested in transhumanist, cyborgification stuff to begin with, but it's been done ad nauseum in X-Men and never particularly well. I would love to see a story about this stuff that really satisfies me but it's never happened and I don't feel like it's going to soon. Add in that we're bringing in SHIELD and Deathlok and Douglock (who should merge, and then merge with Psylocke, and then with Arcade's assistant Miss Locke to become Deathdouglocklok Locke Locke) and my interest is far from piqued. Perhaps this is all a real treat for people who want to see Alan Davis return to the Excalibur characters he left behind but as someone who is a lot more focused on the core X-Men books it leaves me cold.
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