For more than a year from the debut of X-Men #1 in fall 1991, the X-books remained crossover-free. The
interim saw some creative upheaval, with Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld
and John Byrne all leaving, and Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza becoming the
main architects of the X-verse, with new names like Andy Kubert and Greg
Capullo coming up on art.
The new crew got their first big story in 1992’s “X-Cutioner’s
Song,” a 12-part event that spanned Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Force, and X-Factor.
The main antagonist of the Song was Stryfe, the pointy, silver-suited
supervillain who had shown up about the same time as Cable, the paramilitary
leader who turned the New Mutants into X-Force. Stryfe is out for revenge on a
number of important X-characters, including Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Grey,
Cable and Apocalypse. Late in the story, he appears to reveal himself as the
baby Cyclops sent to the future in X-Factor
#68, all grown up. This is later debunked, with Cable proven to be the child
and Stryfe the clone. Stryfe is defeated, but in a last act of villainy tricks
Mister Sinister into releasing the Legacy Virus, a disease that will go on to
kill a number of mutants. He also unleashes Stryfe’s
Strike File upon the world, so that’s two posthumous F-Yous.
In 1993, after 30 years of existing, Magneto gets to be the
main bad guy of a crossover. “Fatal Attractions” sees Big M build a new
orbiting space base, regain control of the Acolytes from Fabian Cortez and
invite along any X-Men who would like to completely isolate themselves from
civilization. Colossus bites, getting up in the middle of his sister’s funeral
(she died of the Legacy Virus) to join the X-Men’s sworn enemy. Professor X
launches an attack on Magneto’s new digs, which results in Magneto ripping the
adamantium from Wolverine’s body, which remains one of the most badass things
I’ve seen in a comic. Xavier responds by turning Magneto into a vegetable.
Wolverine – whose claws are revealed to have been part of his skeleton all
along – leaves
the team to go find himself.
Magneto’s goons weren’t done playing with the X-Men, though.
“Fatal Attractions” was quickly followed by “Bloodties,” an X-Men/Avengers
story in which Fabian Cortez, the former leader of the Acolytes, kidnaps Luna,
Magneto’s granddaughter by Quicksilver and the Inhuman Crystal, and foments
civil unrest in Genosha, which can’t get its act together in a post "X-tinction
Agenda" world. Things go from bad to worse when Exodus, Magneto’s current capo
di mutie, shows up and drops and big-ol’ psionic dome over the Genoshan
capital. The good guys win, but the Avengers lose their U.N. charter for
interfering in Genoshan political stuff.
As the crossovers continue through the years, the number of
X-books expands, and writers and editors struggle to spread the events to all
the books in the line, as opposed to three or four books. “The Phalanx
Covenant,” for example, is spread out over Uncanny
X-Men, X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force, Excalibur, Cable, and Wolverine (By today’s standards, that’s a downright reasonable
number of X-books. Scary). The Phalanx are a techno-organic alien race that
crept on the scene immediately after Fatal
Attractions (and who would many years later team up with Ultron to menace the Kree Emprie in Annihilation: Conquest), assimilating thought-dead characters such as Stephen Lang,
Cameron Hodge, Doug Ramsey and Candy Southern. At the opening of the covenant,
the Phalanx have taken the X-Men, and it’s up to a B-team made up of Banshee,
Emma Frost, Jubilee and Sabretooth to gather more mutants, specifically the
team that would become Generation X. Elsewhere, Cyclops and Jean Grey, fresh
from their honeymoon in the future raising Baby Cable, team up with long-rogue
Wolverine and Adult Cable to shoot, snikt, teke-blast, and eyeball-laser their
way to the rest of the X-Men. The ancillary teams, meanwhile (Factor, Force and
Calibur), are charged with figuring out a way to stop the Phalanx on Earth from
contacting reinforcements from their home planet.
Just a few short months later, Xavier’s son, Legion, goes
back in time and accidentally kills his father (he was gunning for Magneto),
forking the timestream and creating everyone’s favorite Age, “The Age of
Apocalypse.” For 30 years, Bishop is trapped in a world where Apocalypse rules
all of North America, Magneto leads the X-Men, Cyclops has one eye, Wolverine
has one hand, Colossus has one red do-rag and so-on. All the X-books, right
down to the just-started Generation X,
were put on hold for four months to create an alternate reality that Marvel’s
revisited a couple times since and is making part of the Secret Wars’ Battleworld. Uncanny
and adjectiveless X-Men became Astonishing and Amazing X-Men and were about Magento’s core team. X-Force became Gambit & the Xternals, in which the thief is hired to swipe the
Shi’ar M’Kraan Crystal. X-Factor
became Factor X, about the Summers
Brothers working for Mr. Sinister. Excalibur
became X-Calibre, about
Nightcrawler’s adventures in the Savage Land. Generation X became Generation
Next, about a team of young mutants overseen by Colossus and Kitty Pryde. Wolverine became Weapon X, about Wolverine and Jean Grey running covert ops. And Cable became X-Man, about the genetically engineered child of Scott Summers and
Jean Grey. In the end, Magneto (quite awesomely) kills Apocalypse, and four
characters – Nate Grey, Holocaust, the Sugar Man and the AoA version of the
Beast – escape to the restored 616 reality. As a result, the X-Man series became an ongoing. For
those of you keeping score at home, that means we’re up to nine ongoing
X-titles, plus the quarterly X-Men
Unlimited.
In our next installment, we’ll traipse through yet more
X-overs, from Onslaught as far as my self-imposed word counts will allow.
Expect Bastion to show up a lot.
No comments:
Post a Comment