Thursday, November 09, 2006

Uncanny X-Periment # 71: "Omnious"

X-Man # 12, Excalibur # 95, X-Men # 48-50, X-Force # 52, Cable # 29, X-Man # 13, Cable # 30, X-Man # 14, Cable # 31, X-Men Unlimited # 10, Uncanny X-Men # 331

Nate Grey heads to Muir Island after bumping into Rogue. There, he meets Moira and Excalibur (whose ranks now include Wolfsbane, Colossus, and newcomer Pete Wisdom). Moira examines Nate and realizes that his power is slowly killing him and that he won't make to age 21. Nate overhears this, learns of her connections with Xavier (who he hates, because Xavier snuck around him), and goes postal. Excalibur intervines and eventually, with the knowledge that his life is running out, Nate takes off.

Over in NYC, Bishop has words with Scott and Jean regarding his newly acquired memories of the AoA. They give him some helpful advice. Meanwhile, Dark Beast and Surgar Man have a meeting in which they decide to off Bishop. Dark Beast sends his assassin-under-cover Fatale off to kill him. Bishop resists and Dark Beast calls it off when he spots the real Beast hanging out with Bishop!

After all this, Storm, Wolverine, Cyclops, and Iceman are abducted by a being known as Post. Post, as it turns out, is a herald of the mysterious Onslaught. The foursome take down Post after some nasty fighting, then are teleported back to the mansion. As it turns out, Gateway was the one responsible for zipping them all over the place. Onslaught and Post then warn the X-Men that trouble is still a brewin.'

Back over at Camp Hayden (remember that?), Syrin, Meltdown, and Domino go to check out the Nimrod and Sentinal programs . . . only to find the base abandoned, the Sentinals gone, the word "ONSLAUGHT" written along the side of a wall, and an uber-powerful Blob. The girls face down the Blob, with Meltdown going a little too far at one point. Blob is then extracted by Mimic.

Back, Blaquesmith has gathered Cable, Moira, Cyclops, Phoenix, Storm, and Professor X for a meeting about Nate Grey. They discuss and Blaquesmith eventually tells them that Nate Grey should not exist. Cable heads on out to find him and take him down. As they're having this mission, Nate bumps into Threnody, who has abandoned Sinister and is being chased by the Maraudars. Nate takes them down and he and Threnody head to where Nate landed - the Swiss Alps. There, they come upon one of Cable's safehouses.

Cable meets up with them, but there's some telepathic feedback when they get close. Cable tries to talk to Nate, but Nate rejects him. This awakens the regenerating Exodus (who we find out was an ancient agent of Apocalypse). Nate eventually tosses Exodus in some ice and freezes him.

(SPECIAL NOTE: He wakes up in 2099, fights a future X-Team called X-Nation, then travels back to the present. Neat, huh?)

Cable and Nate have a throw-down, eventually resulting in Nate burning out his own powers. Cable repairs his mind at the cost of losing control of his own techno-organic virus. They part ways and we learn that Onslaught has dispatched Post to keep an eye on Nate (regarding their "history").

At this time, Dark Beast begins to learn about his 616 counter-part. He meets with an old principle, whom he murders. He sees Hank's old girlfriend, and kills her. He blows up Hank's former priest. Eventually, he meets with Hank's parents, but can't bring himself to killing them.

Later, he taunts and then captures our Beast and takes his place within the X-Men. Not good. As soon as he gets there, he blows up his own lab.

Also, Iceman confronts Emma about the use and potential of his powers. It's neat, but lame at the same time.

So with fake Beast taking the place of real Beast and rumors of Onslaught going around, people are getting paranoid. Add in the whole Nate Grey mystery and it's a tough time for the X-Men and they barely even know it.

Nate Grey serves as a vital player is this era and I'll admit that his character is pretty neat. However, at many times, he's written just a little too rebellous for my tastes. So rebellous, it borders on cliched. His parallels with Cable are cool, with them both pretty much dying. I'll grant that his whole in overall Cable/Apocalypse mythology is far more important than I had originally thought. I'll shed some more light on that when the comes. Plus, the throwdown with Excalibur was really cool.

As for Onslaught, it's cool to have such a massive mystery lingering about. The X-Men have been just too darn busy with the Legacy Virus, Gene Nation, the fall of Avalon, Nate Grey, Sabretooth, Psylocke, and whatnot to really think that whoever tossed around Juggernaut is going to be much of a threat. Not anymore.

So, good job new writer Mark Waid and veterns Scott Lobdell, Jeph Loeb, Warren Ellis, and John Ostrander for an exciting, yet dark period for the X-Men. While their writing is not the best comic writing I've seen, they've managed to create some very good coordinated chaos into the X-Men's little world. And to be honest, we haven't seen much of that lately. The AoA was cool as shit, but what lasting effects did it have directly on the X-Men? Plus, other than Blink dying, only good things came out of the Phalanx Convenant (Generation X). With all this nastiness and just plain bad times for the X-Men, it's a energentic and exciting.

Plus, amazing art. Joe Mad on Uncanny, Andy Kubert on X-Men, Steve Skorce on X-Man, Carlos Pacheco on Excalibur, Ian Churchill on Cable . . . what great eye candy!

~W~

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