Saturday, November 25, 2006

Uncanny X-Periment # 75: "The Creed Assassination"

X-Men # 58, Uncanny X-Men # 339, X-Men # 59, Uncanny X-Men # 340, X-Factor # 130, X-Men # 60-61, X-Men Unlimited # 14, Generation X # 25

Joseph is obsessed with helping Rogue. Getting into the Z'Nox Chamber, he plays around with the equipment and hopes that by adjusting her bio-electrical field, she can touch people. However, as Joseph approachs Rogue at night, Gambit misreads this as him peepin' at her. A throw-down follows, with Rogue getting pissed at both of them. Meanwhile, J. Jonah Jameson gets some information about Presidential Canidate Graydon Creed and heads off to France to retrieve it.

Spider-Man tells this to the X-Men and the follow in secret. A board the plane, Havok attacks and he and Cyclops battle it out in a freefall. Havok reveals that he's no longer living in his brother's shadow and that he's not under anyone's control - he's evil now! He then teleports away and Storm rescues Cyclops. Over in France, Bastian kills Jameson's source.

As Scott deals with everything by seeing "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" with Jean. It's cute. Also, Hercules shows up at the mansion and promptly tosses Bishop threw a wall. He approaches Beast about forming a new team of Avengers, but Beast declines. Quicksilver joins Hercules in departing after an angry confrontation with Joseph.

Now, Iceman and Cannonball have hidden themselves in the Creed campagin, taking the names Drake Roberts and Samson Guthry. However, during a live television interview in front of an audience, Bobby's bigot father stands up and goes off on a tyrat to Creed about how Mutants are just people and whatnot. Creed finds out this is "Drake Roberts" father and has his father beaten. Bobby pulls out of the operation, but Sam remains in. Bobby also takes a leave of absence to take care of his Dad, who have both finally made amends.

X-Factor is then called in to protect Creed as Election Day Eve comes around. Mystique, however, has other plans. During a final speech, she approaches her son with what appears to be a weapon. X-Factor takes her into custody and Val Cooper drives away with her, leaving X-Factor behind. On their way to X-Factor base of Fall's Edge, Mystique rants about how it wasn't a weapon she was brandishing and that there are many hidden levels of government that Val doesn't know about.

Back at the rally, X-Factor takes down Pyro. Right afterwards, unfortunately, someone blasts Creed. He is vaporized into dust. It turns out that Mystique is right - the device she had was a force field generator. She was trying to protect Creed.

As Sam deals with his failure to protect Creed, Storm and the External Mutant Candra battle it out with the Shadow King in regards to Storm's ever-changing jewel.

Beast, Storm, Gambit, Leech, Artie, and Franklin Richards then head to Hank McCoy's parents house for some down-time. Franklin is still depressed about the loss of his parents and has decided to blame it on Joseph. As a druken lynch mob attacks the gang, Franklin teleports Joseph to the farm and seeks to punish him for the death of the Fantastic Four. After the lynch mob is dealt with by the police, the others rush in to help calm Franklin down.

Except things aren't exactly all better for lil' Franklin. After returning to the Xavier's School, it is attacked by Black Tom Cassidy, who has taken Generation X captive with the help of the now revealed traitor Mondo. Jubilee, on her way to get help, is intercepted by Bastian, who then kills Mondo and takes her captive. Franklin, Leech, Artie, an alien named Tana Nile, are rescued from Black Tom by Howard the Duck and his girlfriend, Beverly. With the help of Man-Thing, the gang teleports away. Banshee then wakes up in a lair Black Tom constructed for himself and forces Sean to kill or be killed by the mind-controlled Emma Frost. If not, then the kids die. Emma forces Sean to scream at her, knocking her out. Black Tom then reveals that the Generation X kids before him are in fact husks and that the real kids aren't there. Then, as Black Tom prepares to kill Sean, there's one he didn't account for - Peneance. She tears into Tom and he's gone. With all that out of the way, the Generation X kids wake up in the middle of the ocean.

It's really hit and miss here. I enjoyed the Generation X issue a lot. Scott Lobdell does a great job of creating a nightmare situation for Emma and Sean, with Chris Bachelo picking up the fantastic art chores. Brillant work on both their parts.

The Franklin story is quite good too. Terry Kavanaugh does a good job of portraying Franklin's depression and need to to restore his family and general status quo. The art lacks, but it's an enjoyable story.

Other small things are good about these issues too. Scott and Jean's movie-going is a nice break and allows for some character and relationship building for this couple. I enjoyed the Gambit/Joesph fight. Hercules and Spider-Man showing up are pleasent treats.

But despite all that, there's a lot of bad to go around. I found the entire Graydon Creed presidential campagin underdeveloped and very unrealistic. I mean, who was this guy? He was able to keep his parents a secret, which is pretty impossible to do during any sort of campagin in general. He was member AND founder of a hate-group. His entire campagin was about hating Mutants . . . but what did he plan for them? Sure, he hates Mutants, but what was he planning on doing once he got into office? Sentinels? Surely, after the way they tore up NYC, they would not be good public symbols of the future.

Not to mention that Creed seems to have nothing more to say than "hey! I hate Mutants!" What was his stance on abortion? Gay rights? Flag burning? Church and state? Was he Democrat or Republican? Independant? None of these questions were ever even bothered to be addressed. Besides "I hate Mutants" and keeping his family secrets a secret, Graydon Creed was nothing more than a idiotic blip on the RADAR.

And let's talk about just how crappily the whole story of his assassination was handled. Sure, we got a fairly entertaining X-Factor story out of it (which is saying a lot seeing as how bad X-Factor was in those days), but what did they do about it? Obviously, not a whole lot as we didn't get to see who the assassin was for another five years. And let's face it - a story could and should have been done right then and there. Heck, how about a team-up with the X-Men to help solve the mystery? We had two very craptastic issues of X-Men that could have very easily been shoved out of the way (and into X-Men Unlimited or something) to make room for a four-part X-Men/X-Factor adventure. How much better would that have been? We could have Havok pop up to go "I'm evil!" and had Scott and Lorna get all angsty.

While, I'm ranting, I need to speak briefly about the whole Bobby/Father subplot. As good as that issue was when Bobby and his Dad make amends, I felt a little gyped. We know Bobby's Dad's an asshole, so what made him decide to play hero? Love for his son, I guess. But I remember just before that issue came out, reading an article that had Scott Lobdell saying that we would see Bobby's Dad having a long talk with Hank's Dad. Both fathers are great characters and it would have been great to see them interact.

SO.

To sum up. Creed stuff? Bad. Small moments? Good. Generation X and Franklin? Good. Overall? Not that great.

~W~

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