UNCANNY X-MEN #378: First & Last Part 1

Meet the X-Men, a team of mutants sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them!

Originally Published March 2000

We begin at the beginning.

Really -- way, way back at the beginning, with the arrival of Jean Grey at Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. As we know, the moment she walks in that door, she immediately meets the other original X-Men: Beast, Iceman... Storm... Gambit...

Jean can sense there's something off about this version of the X-Men's history, but she can't quite put her finger on it. It isn't long, however, before they get notice that Magneto and his associate Hotpants Polaris are attacking Cape Citadel, apparently instigating the first clash between humans and mutants.

Before the team can spring into action, however, Magneto calls off his own attack, seemingly satisfied that he's made his point. Back in his orbiting base known as Asteroid M, he castigates Polaris for holding back -- apparently she is the one who holds the true power, and he is unhappy with her performance.

We also hear from the rest of Magneto's Brotherhood, including the chain-smoking Mastermind!Rogue, the gruesome Toad!Marrow...

...and the Quicksilver-esque Sunfire, who brings news that more potential recruits have been located.

While the X-Men train, Jean expresses her concern that the vibe is off with reality. Charles shares some minor version of the same thoughts, and muses whether he has the right to send children off to war (as many have asked over the years, in our universe.) After all, one of his students may actually die in battle -- how awful would that be? Could you imagine?

But, you know, later for that, as Cerebro has located more mutants for them to go meet.

And this takes them to where else but the circus, where they see posters for a metal-armed robot man with a glowing eye, and perhaps more impressively, a fully metal man performing feats of strength.

Of course, Magneto is there to make a counter-offer, so the leaders of the respective sides have an interface, and Charles pulls out a line about them having great power, which may or may not come with a certain level of responsibility.

Just came up with that off the top of your head, did ya?

Magneto disagrees -- the clash between ideologies is inevitable. But as the two factions prepare for battle, Charles's grasp of reality begins to slip -- he points out that too many lives have already been lost, but to those assembled the war hasn't yet begun. He corrects himself to say that too many lives maybe lost -- you know, in the future -- but all the while we see a mob chasing the as-yet unseen Scott Summers.

Scott collapses in Jean's arms, prompting her to remember the original timeline. He indicates that Apocalypse is somehow manipulating time to change the history. Why this involves slotting Gambit in the original X-Men, nobody knows.

We see glimpses of the Apocalypse-Scott Combo Man with his mastery of all the powers of the twelve, including manipulation of space and time, with Scott attempting to hold him back to no avail.

As Jean holds Scott, trying to comfort him that she won't let him lose out to the Apocalypse side, he breaks bad and starts rampaging.

Ascottalypse thrashes about with his power while all the mutants scramble to fend him off, but the truth is he wields energies that not even he is capable of containing, and soon the filter he has placed on reality drops.

Everyone winds up back in the Twelve Chamber where they started, but there's no sign of Apocalypse, and no sign of Scott. And in the latter case, Charles means there's no sign of Scott anywhere.

 

Jean disagrees -- she knows that Scott was trying to reach her, that her connection with him remains, despite Charles believing it was all just a trick from Apocalypse. Jean lets loose with ten years (or is thirty-five?) of frustrations about how Scott gave up his life for Xavier's dream, time after time, and how dare he etc etc, honestly some stuff that Charles has needed to hear for a while now.

With that, she departs, leaving everyone to contemplate their navels.

Further Thoughts:

Well, that was a thing. It was an interesting choice to do this modified vision of the Early X-Men as a tease, and it almost worked -- and I say that as someone who always protests when the series gets too reflective on the olden days of the original 5. The thing is, I don't really know why that whole LOST-style flash-sideways 'verse had to happen, how it figures into Apocalypse's scheme, or why it only lasted one issue. It just seems like, you know, something to do. It might have been interesting to do an entire bit on "What if there was no Scott Summers when the X-Men formed," at length, but honestly, if you take Cyclops out of the fold I'm not entirely sure what is different.

Alas, it's just a quick gimmick and with it having ended as soon as it began I'm not particularly enthused with this "Ages of Apocalypse" gag, but maybe something interesting will happen after this. True to form, The Twelve continues to be a big lumpy ball of story ideas wadded together based on what it feels like should happen just to make a flashy comic instead of being built on a strongly-considered through-line to make comprehensible comics that build in a logical way.

As lacking as it is, we've seen many different ways that the X-Men comics can be bad since the mid-90s, and in this case, at least they aren't boring and going nowhere.