X-Factor # 148, Excalibur # 122-125, X-Factor #149, Mutant X # 1, Uncanny X-Men # 360, X-Men # 80
Once more, another strange coincidence hits the X-Periment!
As we dive into issues celebrating the 35th anniversary, I’ve found myself posting this entry on the 1-year anniversary of the X-Periment! Yay! Not necessarily here on blogger, as it all started on my blurty.
Getting down to business, this small batch of comics sees the end of two long-running X-Books (X-Factor and Excalibur – until 2006, at least), the kick off of a new one, and a new team for the X-Men.
Starting with X-Factor, Havok meets up with Polaris. As they deal with Gyrich and Mandroids, Havok explains that everything he had done was to defeat Dark Beast. I don’t know the details of the stories leading up to it, but all one needs to really gleam out of this book is that Havok is really a good guy, didn’t mean to endanger his big brother and all the people on the plane. And Polaris may or may not still love him, but probably doesn’t.
Across the pond, Nightcrawler has a lead on Professor X’s location. They head to Peru, where they discover an abandoned Operation: Zero Tolerance base. They deal with some Prime Sentinels who have regained their individuality and are under attack by a prisoner within the base. Excalibur discovers the prison to be none other than our old pals Mimic! As they do everything they can to get him back to normal, Captain Britain returns to Muir Island (he left?) and proposes to Meggan.
After Feron and Crazy Gang crash the bachelor and bachlorette party, the wedding is held. A who’s-who of Excalibur characters guest-star in this wedding. It’s tons of fun. However the team decides to disband, with Shadowcat, Colossus, and Nightcrawler agreeing to head back to the X-Men.
Meanwhile, Havok gathers up the remains of X-Factor in the hopes of forming a new team. This includes Bishop’s holographic sister Shard, time-travelers Greystone and Fixx, Polaris, and Madrox. Things go crazy when Greystone decides to head back to his own time. He high-jacks a jet and launches it, but the time machine is all messed up and will potentially destroy all of DC. Havok gets on board and manages to destroy, but at the cost of his own life!
. . . Or is it?! (dun-dun-dun!) Havok awakens in a parallel reality, where he is the leader of the old school X-Factor-like team called the Six. Who are the Six? Goblin Queen/Marvel Woman (Maddie Pryor – again) is his wife and mother his child, Scotty. Ice-Man is there, but can’t touch anyone without freezing them. Beast is there, but is stupid. Archangel, aka the Fallen is all messed up post-Apocalypse. Storm is a vampire now, called Bloodstorm. Oh, and Elektra is lil Scotty’s nanny. Cute, huh? These guys are anti-heroic X-Men – and Havok is stuck with ‘em.
In the real world, a team of “new” X-Men attack Colossus, Shadowcat, and Nightcrawler on a cruise. They manage to save the boat, but Kitty is captured and brought to a rather emotion-less Professor X. Meanwhile, what’s left of the X-Men (as, in between issues, many of them have moved on) meet up with Val Cooper to discuss the disappearance of Peter Corbeau and his connection with a experimental shuttle going to launch at Camp Citadel (on the anniversary of their battle there). The X-Men head to Camp Citadel to deal with the launch, but are sidetracked when the faux X-Men attack them. As this is happening, Kitty does something to some computer for the strange Professor X. With Nightcrawler and Colossus joining the X-Men, they run and hide in the swamps of Florida. Kitty, in the meantime, finds Corbeau and they escape. It’s the a race of Citadel, which culminates in the X-Men blowing up the shuttle after a crappy launch and defeating the imposter Xavier and the faux X-Men. It’s discovered at some point that the shuttle’s had on board a weapon that could destroy Mutants from space. The X-Men then head on home, roster established: Storm, Rogue, Marrow, Wolverine, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, and Colossus.
It’s a mixed bunch. While it’s nice to see Mimic again and Excalibur dealing with the fall-out of OZT, the Excalibur issues are all fairly weak – save one. The final issue, which stands head and shoulders above the rest. Probably the best out of this group. It’s a fun story, with some great appearances, some nice nods at previous stories, puts a nice capper on the series.
X-Factor suffers a harsher fate. Other than fixing the whole Havok-is-a-bad-guy sub-plot, we’re really just seeing X-Factor shuffling off Havok to “Mutant X.” I don’t even care so much for Havok being not a bad guy as I thought it was a crappy change of character in the first place, but even I feel like it’s a cop-out. Plus, the Creed assassination is still up in the air. It’s just a crappy finale. Mutant X is a terrible book, but putting an evil Havok in there and making the book about him turning good despite being around all this dark reflections of his friends and family would have been better.
Plus, we never once see Cyclops deal with the loss of brother.
X-Men is pretty weak. I’ll admit it’s nice having Kitty, Peter, and Kurt back, but the story is quite silly. Fake new X-Men that are given complete origins? A living Cerebro unit is the villain? A government-authorized death ray? What? Joe Kelly and Steve Seagle are smarter than this. Luckily, we get some nice character development, though that’s a little on the downside. It is nice to have an established team now instead of the fluidic “whoever is around” we’ve had for the past couple of issues.
~W~
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