It's the Twelve's 100th-Year Reunion -- hope you can make it!
Originally Published February 2000
We begin at the end, looking back at the beginning, in the distant year of 2099. Here, a strange alien cohort of Xavier students in the familiar black and yeller marvel at a statue of the late, lamented Cyclops.
Cyclops gave his life to defeat Apocalypse, allowing Charles Xavier to expand his reach to the stars and spread his message of unity throughout the galaxy.
The kids, however are somewhat distracted by a momentous happening outside -- the arrival of a shuttle carrying Founder-X himself, and his entourage of Iceman, Colossus, and Storm (now evolved into a being of pure elements... somehow.)
 |
| Look, it's a kooky future thing and Alan Davis wanted to draw it. |
The kiddoes are so excited they fail to notice another original X-Person right behind them -- Phoenix, who has come to pay her respects to her late husband's memory.
On the tarmac, it's a reunion of old timer X-Men: Beast and Iceman catch up, as do Colossus and Gambit & Marrow (who discuss grandkids and great grandkids) whose wedded bliss is somewhat interrupted by an arriving Rogue who finally gotten her inability to make skin-to-skin contact taken care of, just in time to have hot geriatric segues with the unavailable Gambit. Not only that but she is looking approximately 100 years younger than everybody else, much to Marrow's chagrin.
Other members of the onetime Twelve are also present, leading to an obligatory Sunfire appearance as he mistakes Nate X-Man Grey -- who has cut his once-swoonworthy locks short by now -- for his genetic sibling from another reality Nate Cable Summers, who has taken up with Magneto.
Speaking of whom, the master of magnetism is also on hand to pay respects to his longtime foe.
Yes, the rumors are true... Charles Xavier will soon be dead of the ailment known as Being Super Duper Old, in spite of all the futuristic medical science that now exists here in the future.
In a private moment, Storm asks Jean to forgive Charles for dragging Cyclops out of retirement and into his death, and Jean says it's not Charles she needs to forgive, it's herself.
Meanwhile, as Professor X prepares to face his mortality, his assembled generations of students pull a move straight out of the 1941 film Cheers for Miss Bishop and tell him nuh uh -- they're going to feed all their collective powers into this mysterious Celestial egg thing and grant Charles a new lease on life!
 |
| It's possible I am misremembering that movie |
Despite Charles' objections -- he's starting to realize it's a trap set by Apocalypse -- they do so.
Apocyclops appears to cackle about his victory, having tricked the remaining Twelvers into providing all the necessary energies, he is now at full fighting strength, and not only that, powerful enough to manipulate the timestream itself so that he can go back in time and use Gray's Sports Almanac to win at gambling create a world where there never were any X-Men!
If you're wondering why he needs to bother when he can just go forward with his new ultimate powers of cosmic ultimateness, then I may take this moment to remind you as I do from time to time, to mind your own f**king business.
They find themselves back in the Egyptian desert, again. Jean once again senses that Scott is still in there, and seemingly working to sabotage Apocalypse from within.
Cable wants to take advantage and fulfill his destiny by delivering a killing blow, but Phoenix holds him back and Apocalypse and his guy the Living Monolith teleport away.
Cable is, of course, miffed, because killing Apocalypse is pretty much the only thing he's ever talked about doing for the last ten years. But Jean is adamant that Scott is still in there, and can be scooped out and separated.
Unfortunately, in a redux of last issue's conversation on the topic, Professor X does not agree -- he's really sure that Scott is 100% totally dead and gone and un-bring-back-able. There is a haunting moment of realization as Jean comes to terms with the idea that there may really not be any coming back from this one for Scott.
Two days pass. The X-Men return home and begin to regroup. Magneto and Polaris went off together to Genosha. The Egyptians and the Skrulls are long gone, except for the rebellious mutant Skrulls who will need some kind of housing situation. That's going to be a whole headache. And one former true believer is left to pick up the pieces of her shattered life away from Xavier's.
Further Thoughts:
As far as these things go, I did enjoy the gimmick of a look into the far-flung future of the X-Men, even if the year 2099 is famously already spoken for in the Marvel Universe.
It makes for a fun little outing in isolation, but what it all amounts to -- the "Ages of Apocalypse," several instances of falsified realities that just turn out to be pretenses for Apocalypse to pop out from behind a bush to go "nyah!" and try to hit the X-Men with a power-stealing whammy to further his scheme -- just feels like going in circles. What is this story at this point? Can we wrap it up and move on?
That said, I appreciate the commitment to the emotion and personal drama simmering underneath Charles and Jean's relationship. Alan Davis took care to highlight the burden of responsibility Cyclops felt in rejoining the X-Men and plays that card for its full value in letting it echo through his eventual loss. I note this because in recent times, it feels like the X-Men don't have time to be characters anymore: a lot of the time they are simple players in this pinball game of ongoing events, their only traits or personal arcs being what they get to say during it and how their powers work, which is a low ebb for the X-Men as a franchise, which was so built on recognizable characters the reader could get attached to.
For instance, as it happens I was saying to someone on social media, that this period had a lot of interesting stuff going on with Marrow: yes, her transformation and feelings abput if, but also the growing bonds between her and Gambit and between her and Colossus. Yet none of it serms to figure into the stories at all, which have mainly featured large groups of X-Men chaotically blasting at or being blasted by huge throngs of foes, when not being kidnapped into a bubble. For the most part the X-Men have been in action figure mode, colliding with baddies. The deeper stuff with Marrow that actually gets referenced here, albeit only as a two-panel barely-a-gag, confirms the validity of this material yet also the disinterest in working with it beyond the surface level.
Something needs to change philosophically in the way X-Men comics are made, because even when it has a semi-okay idea like this one, it isn't positioned to be the best version of it.
And, uh, nix the Skrulls. They're not doing anything for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment