X-MEN #101: Hard Landing

The X-Men crash, the Neo smash, and Dr. Reyes finds a stash 

Originally Published June 2000

To quote Biff Tannen, there's something familiar about all this.

Yes, as in the previous X-Men #101, the X-Men are crashing back to Earth on yet another rickety Starcore vessel, being held together by the strength of their resident telekinetic (in this case, Psylocke. Don't ask how she became telekinetic, we don't know either.) Without any telltale TAKTAKTAKTAKTAKTAK sound effects we can at least feel assured that nobody aboard is going to become the Phoenix.

Meanwhile in the cabin, the X-Men tend to the crew that hates and fears them, having not realized they were mutants and X-Men even though they were pretty openly using their powers to help construct the space station they were on. Talk about a blind spot.

Meanwhile at St. Michaels Church in Brooklyn, the Neo recover Jaeger's body. They are baffled that the X-Men could have killed their vaunted hunter. Domina swears vengeance, while one of her other guys plots to usurp her.

Speaking of Jaeger, the woman who killed him, Dr. Cecilia Reyes, has brought Nightcrawler to a backroom mafia E.R. for treatment. It isn't long however before they are crashed-into by an unrelated plot: Detective Charlotte Jones, who is shooting it out with some gangsters who killed her partner.

Not now, all of this!

As it happens, Archangel is flying by when he notices that his ex girlfriend and some of his former teammates are in trouble. Cecilia uses her force field to protect the group from an exploding laser gun that the gangster Delgado (not to be confused with the Acolyte Delgado or the other Delgado) inexplicably had in his possession, which knocks her out of commission. When Archangel points out that they're looking at former X-Man Cecilia Reyes, Charlotte shrugs it off, apparently forgetting the woman she once betrayed to government fascists.

I'm a New York City Cop. If I had to remember every minority I threw under the bus...

Charlotte charges off and Archangel pursues. Cecilia finds a stash of the new designer drug called "Rave" and holds onto it for safe keeping before Kurt teleports them both away.

One shuttle crash later, the other X-Men are tending their wounds and thinking about man's inhumanity to man.

But there's no time to be wasted -- it's a big planet and Kitty Pryde may be somewhere on it. No sense waiting for her to call -- the X-Men are historically bad at that.

Elsewhere, Kurt and Cecilia regroup and consider the moral implications of being a Doctor and postulate who kill. More importantly, Archangel unknowingly takes some directions from a Neo kid...

And winds up in a fantasy room where he is pursued aggressively by all the women of his dreams, including a now-blonde Candy Southern.

Charlotte also fails to clock that the creepy kids with the painted faces might not be on the level, stumbling into her own nightmare place, surrounded by mementos of Delgado's victims, like Officer Maria Soares. Luckily she happens to be wearing her X-Men longjohns.

As she begins to inexplicably manifest mutant powers of her own, she is attacked by a ghoulified Delgado.

Archangel, meanwhile uses willpower to fight his way out of the cuddle-puddle.

Kurt and Cecilia are cornered by the Neo. Although Domina has given orders to take them alive, Starscream insists their resistance means they must use lethal force. 

Cecilia's only option may be to inject herself with Rave, which may have some kind of effect that turns the tide.

Do drugs, kids! It might save your life!

The Claremometer:

1 thing that is as X as it is Y

2 weird hallucinations

1 bodily transformation

2 female law enforcement officers

Further Thoughts:

Time of death of my enthusiasm for the new Claremont Run: three issues.

In all of this, there's something missing... oh yeah, the X-Men! Three issues into Chris Claremont's return engagement and we've completely sidelined all of the active-duty mutants in favor of retirees Cecilia and Kurt, as well as Warren whose status is always questionable, and human ally Charlotte Jones. The only thing the ostensible stars of the book do is survive a shuttle crash that is literally a replay of one of their iconic earlier adventures.

I'm not saying this is a bad comic -- although I could point out here that at no point did I understand what was going on with Charlotte, I don't know what Warren's doing here,, I still don't know what the Neo are, and I feel like I'm missing a primer on Rave to care about the cliffhanger -- but ultimately, as a reader I don't know what I'm supposed to like about it. It feels like the tenth issue of some other comic that is only tangentially related to the X-Men.

I don't mind all of these elements being in there, I suppose, but the collision of these elements is given very little structure and nothing for the readers to latch onto. You can only withhold so much information before the average reader goes "I don't know what I'm looking at here and I don't care." Tell me who's doing the hallucinations, tell me how Charlotte suddenly has powers(?), tell me what Rave does (presumably give/increase powers??), and tell me something about the inner-workings of the Neo, and then maybe, maybe, we'd have an interesting little read. But you still need something better for THE X-MEN to do, because it's 25 years later and "just" piloting a shuttle back to Earth isn't quite cutting it for drama anymore.