X-MEN #104: Painted Ladies

The X-Men try to rescue... the X-Men!

Originally Published September 2000

We begin in Hong Kong, where after our author provides a bit of history and context about "Modern Tai Pans" (if it can't be learned from a James Clavell novel, it clearly isn't worth learning) we see Wolverine and Rogue on the hunt.

They're looking at disrupting an interdimensional slaving ring that has snapped up, among others, about half the X-Men. This has brought them to the HK chapter of the Hellfire Club. They wreck the place, with Rogue literally beating the pants off one poor soul.

The other available X-Men -- Phoenix, Beast and Nightcrawler -- arrive, and Jean enacts a psychic scan that involves a very cool visual effect of zeroing in on the person present who has actual info on the slavers -- a humble waitress!

While Wolverine trails the waitress, the rest of the X-Men cool their heels at home base (the house of a friend of Wolverine's -- for such a loner he has a n awful lot of friends.) They have a brief discussion, led by postulant not-yet-a-priest Nightcrawler, about whether their methods are becoming too x-treme.

Back in the USA, Senator Kelly is hosting a fundraiser for his upcoming Presidential run. He's visited by everyone's favourite Special Government Person In a Low Cut Dress, Valerie Cooper and her awful hair.

He gives his usual stump speech about how humans are being replaced and how they need to do something about that -- rhetoric that wouldn't at all feel out of place in a modern Trump Rally -- but after she departs, Val reveals another side of herself.

Yes, Mystique has yet another one of Destiny's Diaries, and, having read through the next few years has decided she definitely needs to return to her "assassinate Kelly" plans. Mind you, what we know about "Days of Future Past" is that things go absolutely terrible for mutantkind (and humankind as well) when that happens. So, does Mystique want that to happen, or was Destiny just really bad at her job of seeing the future? The people demand to know.

Elsehwere -- presumably in another dimension but maybe in Paramus, New Jersey for all I know, the rest of the X-Men -- Gambit, Storm, Cable, Archangel, Thunderbird 3.0, Psylocke and Colossus -- are being held captive by the Goth, specifically Beldame. That's Beldame, not Bedlam, Betts.

Storm causes a ruckus, which is immediately put down by their jailer...

Which as it turns out was a diversion so that B-dam would forget to put Remy's power-blocking hood back on. Sacre bleu! Do the French have a word for sabotage?

They knock out some guards so they can re-enact the ole "Dress as Stormtroopers" routine. Along the way, Thund3rbird unburdens himself about his lack of killer instinct, and the others are like "Yeah, no, we get it, we're all walking murder machines here, it takes some getting used to."

They come across an underground recreation of an ancient Chinese village (or an actual ancient Chinese village that has been located underground? Unclear.) They also find very modern shipping containers containing slaves, or else it's one of those Japanese business hotels.

Unfortunately, they run into trouble.

That's right, this is The Goth, singular, the man behind The Goth, collective. If that seems unnecessarily confusing, don't worry. Of course it is, but worrying won't make it better.

Back in Hong Kong, the X-Men have located, and are squaring off against, the Crimson Pirates, the other kooky kwayzee villain squad of this picture.

They pummel the Pirates easily, but Killian will not yield. Rogue is attacked by his hound, who was once a woman named Kymri that Nightcrawler once encountered in an early issue of Excalibur, in case you were wondering what had happened to her.

This breaks the illusion -- it turns out Rogue alone and the other X-Men are imaginary! She takes that as her cue to skedaddle.

This was all a distraction so that the other X-Men could track the Waitress to the Pirates' base and steal their motorcycles.

Now they have motorbikes! Nothing can stop them! To be continued!

The Claremometer

1 "caper"

1 brainwashed hound

A lot more about China than a white guy should feel okay writing

Further Thoughts:

Aside from the fact that it feels like ww skipped a chapter where Beast and Jean rendezvous with the others (a stylistic choice that seems to have dropped Levin and Vazhin from thestory) there are a couple of quality-control issues in this one. Storm at one point is shown delivering Beldame's dialogue, and "Valerie Cooper's" hair is colored incorrectly for one panel (or else Mystique accidentally shapeshifts too early, har har.)

For quite some time, I've identified the main issue with this stretch of X-Men comics as the lack of directionality. The X-Men are beset by an endless supply of menageries of weirdos who all just want to fight them for reasons undef without any particular stories feeding into, or coming out of those fights. At the very least, this issue somewhat corrects that as something has happened that has to be dealt with -- several X-Men are kidnapped, and the remaining ones have to band together to liberate them. Is it the world's greatest, freshest, most compelling story? Maybe not, but it is a story, which means it has one up on most of the previous 7 issues. 

Oh, and the Goth and the Crimson Pirates are apparently in league despite seeming to have nothing to do with each other. And where's Tullamore Voge? Unfortunately, you don't have clearance for the answer to that question.

Yes, it is a story, and a fine, serviceable one, if bland and undistinctive. I think the major quarrel is that, as I've noted, the X-Men movie is in theatres right now, and if any excited filmgoers happen to blunder into a comic shop to check out their new favourite mutants, this is what they get: a just-okay, kinda-confusing caper (oh great, now I'm doing it) about interdimensional pirates that has nothing to do with the leather-bound freedom-fighters of the silver screen, except a brief interlude with, yes, Senator Kelly and Mystique. (Okay, in fairness, film stars Rogue, Storm and Wolverine are all prominent here, but there are as many key characters missing as present.)

Now, I'm not saying comics need to align with movies -- by now in 2026 we know there really isn't much connection between movie box office and comic sales -- but putting your best foot forward for the first major blockbuster adaptation would have been a nice way to start. When I started reading X-Men comics it was 1995 and they didn't exactly resemble the cartoon I loved, but I had a good time with them anyway, so bringing that energy to potential hypothetical newcomers in 2000 would have been... preferable.

And let's not even get into the fact that we left Cecilia Reyes fighting the Neo months ago with no indication what happened to her. Did she escape? Did the drugs wear off? Is she dead? Are the Neo still after the X-Men for their (nonexistent) part in accidentally killing a Neo when their powers all got turned off? Never mind that, we're onto something different now!