Breaking Away Credits: Jeph Loeb (writer), Steve Skroce (penciler), Sellers/Smith/LaRosa/Conrad (inkers), Starkings/Comicraft (lettering), Mike Thomas (colorist)
Summary
Nate Grey, X-Man, has a vision of Cyclops helping him escape a cell. He mentally travels to the X-Men’s mansion where he overhears an argument between Bishop and Magneto. Forge calls Nate back to reality, waking him up. His fellow outcasts Forge, Toad, Soaron, Brute, and Mastermind are all gathered around him. Nate learns that while he was experimenting with his mental powers, he accidentally destroyed a large portion of the forest. Forge tells him to stop his unsupervised training and to get ready for the show. That night, they perform Shakespeare for the surviving humans of the cullings in the Midwest. When suspicious human authorities question the mutants, Nate uses his mental powers to make them go away. Forge warns Nate that every time he uses his powers, he could be drawing Apocalypse’s attention. Elsewhere, Cyclops tells Apocalypse that Sinister has fled and left his lab in shambles. Apocalypse brags that no one could match his power, which leads the Shadow King to warn him about X-Man. Domino is sent to the Midwest to find X-Man, with orders to either recruit him or kill him. In Kansas, a group of Apocalypse’s Infinite soldiers has begun rounding humans into trains. Forge’s group of mutants fights them off, along with the latent mutant Siryn. After the fight’s over, Nate demands that Siryn join them. As the group leaves town, a man named Essex stops them in the road.
Continuity Notes
According to the narrative captions, humans “still enjoy their freedom” in Europe. The few humans left in the Midwest were unwilling or unable to go there.
The human authorities harassing Forge’s group are called “Prelates”, even though that’s one of the terms used for Apocalypse’s mutant soldiers in this reality. Since it’s actually a term for clergy, intended to show Apocalypse’s rule over all aspects of this society, it seems odd to apply it to a pair of backwoods deputies.
Review
Due to the character’s muddled origins, Cable’s series was put in an awkward position during the “Age of Apocalypse” event. His existence is based on the premise that Jean Grey was believed dead for years while he was birthed from her clone. Not only that, but he was sent into the future as an infant and didn’t return to this timeline until he was an adult. If you’re starting a new reality where Xavier died twenty years ago and never formed the X-Men, where would Cable fit into this? Jeph Loeb answers this question by reinventing Cable as a teenager, while keeping his origin a mystery for the opening issue. I guess he split the difference between infant and adult and decided on teenage Cable. Loeb continues the plot thread introduced in the Cyclops & Phoenix miniseries that Cable is potentially the most powerful mutant alive by contrasting Nate’s infinite abilities with his immature attitude. This does have potential, but it leaves you saddled with a main character who’s supposed to be bratty and juvenile, which gets old very quickly. If he was surrounded by an interesting supporting cast, it could work, but it looks like X-Man has the leftovers from the rest of the X-line. Did anyone really care about how Toad and Sauron ended up in the Age of Apocalypse? And why exactly is mutant inventor Forge working as head of a theatre troupe in the Midwest? He couldn’t find a better use for his talents? The premise is rather lame, but I’ll at least give this issue credit for moving at a decent pace and not dwelling too long on some of the more absurd elements. For reasons I’ve never fully understood, Marvel allowed this series to continue after the AoA event was over, and it survived for seventy-five issues. It became one of the most ridiculed series of the ‘90s, although Warren Ellis’ revamp did bring some respectability to the title shortly before it was cancelled.
You beat me to it at the end of your review, G.--the worst X-title I can ever remember reading (especially once the AoA ended), until Ellis got ahold of it years later. This was in the period where I was reading anything with an 'X' on it (hey, I was younger then) and this was always the title I had to slog through at the bottom of the pile. Of course, Ellis (and Steven Grant) really did salvage it for a little while... by completely altering the concept.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to when you get to Nate's relationship with Madelyne Pryor, which I can only explain as a genuine effort to top the whole Legion/Gabrielle Haller thing.
ReplyDeleteI've been covering some 1970s-1980s X-friendly ground on my Defenders site at www.defendersfan.blogspot.com, but never followed the mutants during the 1990s. Thanks for getting those of us who abandoned ship during that decade up to speed.
ReplyDeleteThanks, James. I never read the Defenders run so it's interesting to see what was going on.
ReplyDeleteChad, X-MAN wasn't carried at my local stores after the AoA was over, so I think I missed out on all of that incest fun.
I loved the Ellis X-Man revamp, and was really bummed when it was canceled.
ReplyDeleteEverything leading up to it, however, was pretty much dreck (dreck, that as a completest X-Fan in those days, I of course bought and read) though I did enjoy the AoA portion.
Mainly because as a Cable fan, it was fun to see what Cable could do with his powers if he was healthy. I remember really enjoying the fight scenes with Nate and Sinister and Nate and Apocalypse towards the end of the AoA.