The Long Way Home
Credits: Jeph Loeb (writer), Rob Haynes & Randy Green (pencilers), John Lowe & Bud LaRosa (inkers), Mike Thomas & Malibu Hues (colors), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters)
Summary
Genoshan rebels Philip Moreau and Jenny Ransome meet with the mysterious Essex, who has been providing them with weapons and classified documents. He tells them that they’re close to uncovering Genosha’s darkest secret, and that this will be their last meeting because he’ll likely be discovered soon. Nearby, Cable and Domino materialize after their trip through time. They’re attacked by the Magistrate’s drones, which leads them to wonder how they ended up in Genosha. They come across Philip and Jenny, who recognize Cable as an associate of the X-Men. Cable and Domino follow them to their underground base, where humans and Mutates are working together to overthrow the secret power behind Genosha. Suddenly, the base is raided by Genoshan Magistrates.
Continuity Note
Essex is the alias often used by Sinister, and unless there’s some upcoming twist I’ve forgotten about, it’s safe to assume that this is really supposed to be him. The implication that he’s afraid of the Sugar Man finding him out seems out of character to me, since Sinister never seemed worried about much of anything before. It’s implied that he’s responsible for somehow sending Cable and Domino to Genosha.
Review
This is the first part of a three-part Genosha storyline, and like most of the Jeph Loeb issues, I have no memory of this story whatsoever. It’s mainly a setup issue, using a lot of space to recap Genosha’s history and reintroduce Philip Moreau and Jenny Ransome. To Loeb’s credit, he does try to merge the old Genosha continuity with the new retcons that are cropping up by focusing on Philip and Jenny, two mostly forgotten characters who played a large role in the original Genosha storyline. There’s also some time spent on Cable and Domino’s relationship, but it’s nothing new (Domino’s worried about Cable, but Cable’s too grizzled to actually express his feelings). Nothing in the story stands out as truly bad, but you can’t say it’s that interesting either. Most of the issue is drawn by Rob Haynes, who has an abstract style that I like. He plays around with a lot of shadows, creating a mix of Rick Leonardi and Mike Mignola that looks pretty cool.
2 comments:
I hate this storyline. One of the worst. Retcons. EVER!
Inserting the Sugarman into Genosha's history was a pointless way to build up the character ("He matters!" I can picture the people behind the scenes trying to tell us), and after shoving him down our throats, he ended up going nowhere as a character.
Funny that Sinister seems scared of him, I remember in another story, SM was meeting up with the Dark Beast, and they were both scared of Sinister...
I forgot how all through this era Genosha was being used as a heavy-handed allegory for the Kosovo War.
I'm also starting to remember how, even as a kid, I thought making Sugar Man responsible for Genosha's mutates was stupid. Maybe all in all it wasn't as bad as the retcon involving the Dark Beast and the Morlocks, since the Morlocks already had a clearly defined origin that was incompatible with the retcon, but still, really dumb.
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