X-MEN #95: Do Unto Others

The X-Men invade the Skrulls in search of Wolverine!

Originally Published December 1999

As you may recall, Wolverine was recently killed. But in a twist worthy of frightmaster M. Night Shayamalan, the Wolverine that died was not the true Wolverine, but a Skrull replicant. Which means the real deal is still out there, somewhere.

At that very moment, the Skrulls are training their next Wolverine, complete with impenetrable psychic profile of the original. Sure, their first Wolverine seems to have been killed, thus making the arrival of a second likely to cause suspicion, but when all you've got is a Wolverine, you just keep throwing Wolverines at the problem.

While the Skrull higher-ups exchange dialogue about things they would probably already know purely for the benefit of us human readers, a couple of Skrull worker bees named Fiz and Jaq contemplate whether they should be infiltrating the X-Men at all, since the rumor is that the mutants, and not the Skrulls, defended the Skrull homeworld from Galactus all those years ago (albeit not successfully.)

While Charles contemplates who might be the real foe in this larger game, Nightcrawler brings some concerns to Cyclops about Lorna Dane -- she was convinced someone was following her, which obviously seemed crazy at the time but now might be sounding more realistic. Could the Skrulls be the reason she always feels like somebody's watching her?

And indeed, she is a target, as the Skrulls pull the old "It's me, your long lost love interest, returned to you at last, please let me into your apartment" gag.

The Ultimate Catfish

With a minimum of effort, Skrullex Skrullmers subdues Lorna and slaps a power-negating collar on her to neutralize her fabulous magnetic powers. She is, however, not to be harmed -- we learn from this agent that she is, gasp, one of The Twelve (ominous music plays) which means the Skrulls' unnamed-but-come-on-you-know-who-it-is ally wants her unharmed.

Lorna is transported to the Skrulls' Earth base which is where else but modern day ancient Egypt, where the master will soon return.

Lorna, upon seeing the facsimi-Logan, awakens and unleashes her famous optic blasts. That's right, it's not Polaris at all, but Cyclops, cross-playing as his brother's girlfriend thanks to an image-inducer (I have many questions, none of which I probably want the answers to). Turns out they had used a collar that inhibits Polaris' magnetic powers specifically (that's why you don't buy your inhibitor collars from Temu.)

The Ultimate Ultimate Catfish

The X-Men arrive and start wrecking the joint looking for answers, but none are forthcoming.

Given that several of those present, including Cyclops, are part of The Twelve (ominous music plays), the Skrulls are iffy on who they can actually fight. This is great, except for Kitty, who learns she is not one of The Twelve (sad ominous music plays.) 

In all the chaos, Death -- you know, the Bedouin guy with the sword -- arrives to steal a briefcase from the Skrulls, possibly containing Marcellus Wallace's soul.

Marrow springs into action against Death, but finds something oddly familiar about his fighting style.

Rogue arrives to save her teammate and chide their foe ripping off Robert Oppenheimer's riff on the Bhagavhad-Gita, apparently very worldly this Mississippi river rat.

 

Death pushes the button that makes the base blow up, but that's never enough to put the X-Men down as Colossus tussles with Death over the Money-in-the-Bank Briefcase.

In the struggle, Death is unmasked and -- I hope you're sitting down and not drinking anything you are averse to spitting out in shock because it turns out Death is...

That's right, their long-lost teammate who has been missing for literal days! He's been brainwashed into servitude of come-on-do-I-really-have-to-pretend-I-don't-know-who-the-bad-guy-is? !!

Death teleports out and the base blows further up, leaving the X-Men with points to ponder.

"Oh, that's what she meant by 'Death Kills The One Who Is Become Death.' I thought she was having a stroke or something."

Further Thoughts:

I've had my beefs with the comics over the last few months as they lurch clunkily toward some kind of conflagration, but here we are now, and whether you like it or not, it's certainly something. This is back-to-basics, let's-do-a-comic storytelling with some action, some intrigue, and a twist that is probably interesting whether you saw it coming a mile away or not, all headed toward a big showdown with one of the X-Men's most epic foes. It may not be the greatest comic ever written but I have nothing against it.