The X-Men discover new mutants while on a mission to London
Originally Published August 2001
We begin in Merrie olde England, where pop tartlet Sugar Kane is mobbed by her adoring fans.
But it appears they may adore her a bit too much as the crowd overwhelms her personal bodyguards. Luckily, the mob is dispersed by the ostentatious arrival of Jon Starsmore, aka Generation X's Chamber, aka the guy with the cool flames coming out of his chest.
Before you can say "Oi! Kill the mutie, wot wot!" Jono gets away, leaving the startlet mystified.
Also in London are a detachment of the X-Men, specifically Archangel, Iceman and Nightcrawler, the latter two of whom don't seem to have gotten much more chummy since their first meeting.
Bobby is of course hard at work trying to prove what a skilled and successful heterosexual he is by scamming on local waitresses, when Warren calls them away to investigate a secret underground colony of mutants that has popped up on Cerebra's scanners. They find a community that "makes the Morlocks look like supermodels."
As it happens, one of the mutants is pregnant and going into labor right this second. Kurt asks everyone to stand aside, saying "I'm a priest," which is not the first person I would trust in this situation.
But hey, Kurt delivers and all is well.
Until the Undergrounders decide they actually don't like these interlopers, and resolve to do something about that.
After avoiding being pounded into mush by Literal Cyclops, the X-Men beat a hasty retreat.
Meanwhile, Chamber is summoned from his fleabag motel by Sugar Kane via her goons. She who wants to repay his kindness.
At considerably finer lodgings, Nightcrawler video calls Wolverine to debrief him on the tunnel-dwellers. Seems the missionary position didn't go so well.
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| Phrasing! |
They're also looking for Chamber -- unsuccessfully, until Bobby comes in and reveals that, conveniently enough, Jono's become front page news.
Meanwhile, as the new parents ooh and ahh over their sewer baby, the clan gets another unwelcome visitor.
In short order this mystery man wipes out most of the clan, causing fear and panic.
And by what name is this fearsome figure known?
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| Hey, um... that's, uh... that's taken already. |
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Further Thoughts:
I want to preface my comments here with a bit of housekeeping and refreshing of what we're about here at Uncanny X-Cerpts. In the course of reading every issue of X-Men and delivering a frank, hopefully well-reasoned opinion on them, you're going to have to say some things that are not nice. From creators I've talked to on the subject, some of whom I have written about on this very blog, many of them accept negative critiques as part of the job that shouldn't personally affect them at all, if they're being professional and I'm being professional. My personal take, as a commentator and as someone who actually does write sometimes, is that if you know why you wrote what you wrote, and you stand by it, nobody else's opinion should matter, even if they hate it.
What's more, I'm not a dullard, and I know that complaining about comics that were published twenty-five years ago is the very definition of yelling at clouds. My hope, as I've said before, is that some of what I say here today can be taken by those who might need to hear it today. I strive to provide context and distinguish between complaints that are situational, and those that might be evergreen. If I'm lucky, that might inform (god forbid) what creators do in their comics, and how you readers interpret the comics you are buying and form a framework for what you think is good.
On top of all that preamble, I've recently been made aware of Joe Casey's Substack. He seems like a darn nice, thoughtful guy. In a series of posts he reflects on the time period, noting he was young, getting his highest-profile gig to date, and facing some pressure to run alongside top tier writer Grant Morrison, whose mould-breaking debut on New X-Men we just covered with great relish. It behooved Casey to bring big ideas and big vibes to this series. 2026's Casey is, if anything, a bit hard on his younger self -- I liked the previous issue, even if it was a bit soft and non-momentous for a big relaunch.
So, with that all in mind, let's get heartless: I'm not sure at all what I'm supposed to like about this comic book.
The X-Men go to England. Ok. They're looking for Chamber, who has not been name-dropped in the main X-Men book... maybe ever? But Casey had him drafted onto the main team, and why not, he's cool. He's also beginning a relationship with ersatz Britney Spears -- good for him, but the track record of mutants dating non-mutants is quite low. There's something to be said there about tabloid fame intermingling with mutantcy, about haves and have-nots, which all has potential... unfortunately, this issue came out right at the same time as Milligan and Allred's X-Force #116, which took that same idea and ran a lot further with it. Oops.
Our heroes encounter a tribe of off-brand Morlocks below London. Been-there-done-that. In what might be a very humanizing moment, we witness the miracle of birth, but not a heartbeat later, the sewer-dwellers are ready to beat our heroes to death. Talks about ingrates. Then at the end of the issue, they're faced with a retread of the Mutant Massacre, a one man army named after a household cleaning product, yuk yuk (Casey: "He probably should have been bald.") Why do I care that these people just got roasted? Well, surely there are some innocents among them, like the new parents and their baby, but mostly they were ready to murder the main characters. I suppose the terror comes in when you realize this guy with the flame thrower might be coming for the X-Men, or someone we care about, next, but... do we really think that's going to be an exciting battle?
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| I mean, I guess we know he could take out Iceman |
I noted in my write-up of New X-Men that the single issue was becoming less vital as we entered the world of story arcs and long-term plotting. Unfortunately, this one's got some growing pains as it tries to reckon with that transition, as much as Casey was trying to get in the same ballpark as Morrison. Among three 2001 marquee launches for the X-Men, this one might prove neither here nor there between Morrison's idea-heavy New and Claremont's action throwback X-Treme. The best I could say about it is that it actually looks great, and that any Marvel comic is 2026 would be fortunate to have this artistic team.
If I'm a reader in 2001, I'm probably not seeing this as a bad comic, but one that raises an eyebrow of befuddlement as to where the story goes, and which suffers considerably in comparison to its contemporaries.
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