Monday, January 22, 2007

Uncanny X-Periment # 85: "The Hunt for Xavier"

Uncanny X-Men # 361, X-Men # 81, Uncanny X-Men # 362, X-Men # 82, Uncanny X-Men # 363, X-Men # 83, Uncanny X-Men # 364, X-Men # 84, Uncanny X-Men # 365

Gambit's back! During a mission to help the Juggernaut and Black Tom get the power of Cytorrak back (as Juggs is dying without it), Storm and Shadowcat come across Gambit. He helps them fight some cult of Cytorrak, get the gem back to Juggernaut, then head back home with the cajun in tow.

Gambit and Rogue then head to Baltimore to sort through their problems. Unfortunately, a woman named Kali attacks them. Kali is crazy and is defeated rather quickly. Rogue and Gambit still have some serious issues, with Remy really wanting to stay away from her, but with Rogue wanting to be with him.

After dealing with Pyro being attacked by a Cerebro unit (yes, there are more than one evil Cerebros running around – this called a Cerebrite), the X-Men use a Cerebro (this one good, not evil) to find Professor X. They lock onto two signals – one in San Francisco and the other in Russia.

Storm leads Gambit, Rogue, and Colossus to Russia. There, they find a monastery under attack by another Cerebrite. They eventually find out that the little girl – Nina - from “Onslaught Epilogue” is there and after a long battle, Storm and Nina are taken captive.

Meanwhile the others (Nightcrawler, Marrow, Wolverine, and Shadowcat) head to San Fran to find the Professor. They come across the brand-new Brotherhood of Mutants: Toad, Post, Blob, and Mimic. It turns out they’ve busted the Professor out to help them against Cerebro. A battle between the Brotherhood and the X-Men soon become bickering between the two of them when Cerebro attacks. Cerebro teleports most of the Brotherhood back to his base in Jersey, as well as Shadowcat. Wolverine then has the rest of the gang (save Kurt) get teleported away in the hopes of finding them. Nightcrawler, meanwhile heads off to get the rest of the X-Men.

It all comes down to a big battle in New Jersey. There, we find out that Bastion + Nanites + Cerebro + Shi’ar + Protective Virus = Living Cerebro. Whoops. Well, the X-Men won’t make that mistake again. Cerebro forces Nina to reactivate Professor X’s powers and he uses them to make Cerebro think that the X-Men are defeated. Then, when Cerebro threatens all life, Professor X and Nina show him the world and Cerebro (while dying) is sad. The day is saved and the X-Men take Professor X home (with Nina going back with Majcomb).

On Christmas Eve, then, Colossus chases ghosts, concluding with a meeting with his sister, who tells him not to forget her.

All in all, I don’t care for these stories. The Christmas Eve one is cute, but the “Hunt for Xavier” and “Gambit’s Return” stories are so very bland and overly complicated. Cerebro is one of the X-Men’s worse villains. I mean, it was just bad. I’d rather have had Arcade or Mojo as the villain.

I don’t know what was up the dialogue either. The characters kept describing what they were doing. What the? Is it 1968?

The art was pretty bad too, with just a few okay scenes from Yu and Bachelo. But other than that, this whole story in the X-Men’s history goes down in flames.

~W~

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