UNCANNY X-MEN #382: Lost Souls

The X-Men meet the Lost Souls!

Originally Published June 2000

We begin back in Venice, where Jean Grey lies vulnerable after venturing into the dying mind of their Shockwave Rider attacker. Cable is concerned it might be a trap and that Jean is in danger, but Gambit asks for a second opinion from their resident doctor, Beast. Beast is concerned it might be a trap and that Jean is in danger.

Cable has good reason to be intimidated by the Shockwave Riders. Apparently they are so legendary that stories of their exploits have survived to Cable's time, which undoubtedly means that we will be reading compelling stories about them for years to come.

Gambit asks, if they're so hot, why aren't they still around in Cable's time? Cable points out that it's a thousand years later. How many people do you know from 1000 AD?

Gambit also insists Cable got the last laugh because Apocalypse is dead and defeated now, which again, is not how I remember it, but if the comic keeps insisting that's the way it happened maybe it will feel true.

Gambit, Storm and Beast have Cable send them into the Shockwave guy's mind to act as Jean's backup. There, Jean finds a little village inside the communal Neo mind. The Rider pops out and attacks her and they parry and thrust a while, debating who attacked whom.

Physically, Jean is no match for this mook. Luckily, they are not in the physical realm, and Jean has a secret -- namely that she moonlights as a sun-devouring cosmic goddess.

When someone tells you who they are, believe them!

The backup arrives only to find that the princess has saved herself in this one. Storm uses her powers to give Jean a little spa treatment after her hard day of fighting baddies.

Only to be interrupted by the arrival of the Drama Club From Hell.

That's right, it's the titular (heehee) Lost Souls, yet another faction within the faction of the Neo. This Goffik Quartet are Lament, Dirge, Requiem and Desolation. One of these names is not like the others.

In the Outside World, Cable fends off more Shockwave Riders, who have not had enough and are in fact thirsty for more.

Inside, the X-Men struggle with the black paraders. The Lost Souls, as it turns out, are really, really good fighters, just take our word for it. Must be all the chemical romance they've ingested.

Soon, the Lost Souls have done what only a large handful of previous foes have done -- possessed the X-Men!

This leaves the X-Men trapped in bad feelings -- Gambit in his guilt over helping facilitate the Mutant Massacre, Beast in an assault of anti-mutant violence that represents the ongoing and intractable nature of hate, Storm facing foes from the past that have subverted her (and, being Claremont comics, that's a lot) and Phoenix in neverending battle against Apocalypse

While Cable continues to ply his trade in the corporeal world, Gambit contends with the Sadverse. He has an ace up his sleeve -- literally, probably, but also metaphorically. See, you can't depress Gambit because he just laughs it off. Even when confronted with the atrocity he was partially responsible for, life is for the living, n'est-ce pas? He's a real laissez les bons-temps roulez type of guy, even if the face of crippling despair.

Soon enough, the X-Men have put themselves right due to sheer force of will.

Jean revives Shockwave Rider #4 and insists one more time they they don't have to be enemies. The Shockwave Riders beg to differ -- they're really rather just keep being enemies.

And so the two parties part, leaving it at that.

Later, the X-Men are enjoying a nice espresso on the Piazza, with Storm's powers keeping the rain off them. Jean talks about how she let the Riders get away because they have Ideals™ and are not killers.

Gambit remembers there was a reason he called everyone here to begin with -- he wants to recruit them for a search and rescue mission. The others are wary: Gambit's reputation is kind of at an all time low lately, but he presses his case -- he wouldn't suck the X-Men into his drama if it weren't on the straight and narrow. So they all agree -- onto the next adventure!

The Claremometer:

1 "murderess"

4 possessed X-Men

Gambit Phonetic Accent Level: 7.8

Further Thoughts:

After four issues of sustained combat with the Neo, I still don't know what their deal is supposed to be. In the other series, they appear to be a solitary clan of underground survivalists, But they also have resources and savvy to infiltrate a major government project and charm the pants off Kitty Pryde, not to mention a horde of well-equipped cybernetic thugs that can travel to Venice at a moment's notice, and a sub-order of gothic weirdos who can possess bodies. The Neo seem to be whatever Chris Claremont feels like writing them as for that particular issue, all balled together in a strange jumble. Any of those things could be plausible threats to the X-Men, but they're not all compatible.

Neither do we know what the Neo are trying to do. They blame the X-Men for unspecified mayhem that befell them when the High Evolutionary depowered all of the mutants. Why is that the X-Men's fault? How would they even know that was the X-Men's fault? What intel do they have that leads them to the X-Men but not the actual culprit? They can track the X-Men to f***ing Italy but are unaware that they were the ones who went to space to undo the depowering in the first place.

Well, villains need not be entirely consistent 100% of the time. Some people are just a**holes looking for a fight. That doesn't really make for multiple months of compelling stories though. I remember reading this run when it was new, as a lapsed 13-year-old X-Men fan curious to see what the legendary Chris Claremont was unleashing on the heroes' world, and thinking, "What is up with these Neo people? Why am I supposed to care about them?" Time, experience, focus and context haven't improved my opinion here. The Neo suck.

Worse, we went to all this trouble to introduce a group withi the group, only for them to be summarily dismissed withon pages with hardly any spotlight. "The X-Men are possessed" is a story with legs, but it turns out to only be a momentary swerve. Seems wasteful.

Not meaning to disrespect the capable pencils of Tom Raney, but it's disappointing to see him drawing the series as of its second issue, especially after the bravura turn Adam Kubert turned in in the previous installment. There's nothing extra or special about the work here. Tom Raney is just who you call when you need the X-Men to look exactly like the X-Men.

But let's skip back to something that was kind of glossed over -- Jean Grey is Phoenix, again, for the first time. A few years earlier, during Steve Seagle's tenure, he had hoped to do a story exploring "What if Jean were Phoenix for reals?" and got as far as Jean donning the famous gold sash and everyone around her raising their eyebrows. This never came to fruition, possibly due to editorial meddling, and the O5 simply dropped out of the story for a few years. So much the better because "What if Jean really for real actually was the real Phoenix?" is not an interesting story -- in part because we already got it. Yes, the original Dark Phoenix Saga was rewritten so that Jean never was the Phoenix and is thus not culpable for her crimes, but it was written as though she was. So what story could you possibly tell that was different and better than that? At a certain point it's just self-reflective fanfic. 

In Inferno, Jean merged with the Phoenix (and with Madelyne Pryor) meaning all three are now one person, and theoretically the ability to Be Phoenix For Real has existed ever since. And Rachel has been Phoenix to various degrees over the course of her life. So there's been a Phoenix, a Grey woman with command of those powers, for a lot of the past decade. At this point readers have had just about all the Phoenix they need but writers love it, or feel like they should address it, and at this point it's Claremont's Baby anyway so he may have the right to play in that sandbox. But, again, why? What's to be gained? I do like that Jean is front and center, but I would rather have a Jean that explores her powers in a different way. Nevertheless, Phoenix is a concept that looms large over all of the X-Men, so Phoenix it is.