X-MEN #102 (July 2000)

The Cruelest Cut

Credits: Chris Claremont (writer), Lenil Francis Yu (penciler), Mark Morales (inker), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters), Liquid! (colors)

Summary: Wolverine and Dani Moonstar investigate the remains of Mr. Sinister’s base in Sage, Nebraska. Using her powers, Moonstar recreates Domina’s assault on Sinister and Sabretooth. In Brooklyn, Cecilia Reyes attempts to fight off the Neo with the aid of the drug, Rave. Rogue’s team of X-Men arrives as backup, soon joined by Archangel and Wolverine. Domina channels the powers of her fellow Neo, embarrassing the X-Men in battle. The Neo known as Barbican seals up the church complex, forcing the X-Men to escape through a disappearing tunnel, leaving Reyes and Charlotte Jones behind. Elsewhere, Senator Kelly visits his wife’s grave. Tessa appears, broaching the subject of his presidential run.

Continuity Notes:

• Wolverine’s using the font Comicraft devised for the concurrent story in his solo book. It’s intended to appear Eastern-influenced (as the Wolverine story had him returning to Japan), but doesn’t seem to suit the character. We’re around a year away from Marvel realizing Wolverine doesn’t need his own font.
• Presumably, the Sabretooth working with Sinister is a clone. Although Claremont always believed most Sabretooth appearances were actually clones, subsequent writers in his absence established Sabretooth as the one Marauder Sinister couldn’t truly clone.
• The first X-Man to appear without a new costume is Wolverine. Editor Mark Powers said they considered updating his look as well, but decided against it.
• Sinister’s base in Nebraska is explicitly referenced as the orphanage Cyclops grew up in. It last appeared in X-Men #34, during the Nicieza/Kubert X-Men run.
• Moonstar, we’re told, is working as Forge’s assistant, aiding the X-Men part time, and looking into college. Claremont did mention in interviews his plans for the Forge/Moonstar team, but nothing came of it.
• According to Tessa, she’s “parted company” with her employer, Sebastian Shaw. She’s returned to an “earlier affiliation.” Later, Claremont will establish a history between Tessa and Xavier.
• Senator Kelly is still explicitly declaring “Mutants are a threat,” which is hard to reconcile with a later twist in this story arc.
• Despite what we saw last issue, it would appear Rax didn’t shoot Cecilia Reyes with his bow. Maybe?
• Archangel was last seen losing consciousness over New York’s skyline. His cliffhanger is ignored.
• According to the narrative captions, Thunderbird has never seen Wolverine in action before.
• How the team (and independently Wolverine) knows where to locate the Neo for this fight, or knows Nightcrawler is in trouble, is not revealed.

Continuity Notes - Special Neo Edition:

• Wolverine’s impressed by Domina’s ability to eliminate Sinister’s operations singlehandedly. According to him, Sinister’s base in Nebraska was the seventeenth hit by Domina.
• Rax and his team of Neo from the previous cliffhanger don’t appear this issue.
• This issue fully introduces Anteus, a “man-mountain,” Salvo, the Living Gun, and Barbican, who alters the exterior of the building, sealing in Reyes and Jones.
• Domina proclaims she’s adopting the powers of Static, another Neo, but the story’s not clear on which one this is.
• Tartarus, the boy taken hostage by Delgado, isn’t seen or mentioned this issue. Neither is Delgado.
• According to Domina, the Neo can “adapt to their adversary’s powers.” Later in the fight, Domina displays another new ability and neutralizes every X-Man’s power.
• Domina declares her team as the Neo’s “Warclan.” As she explains: “The power of the Domina is to assume unto herself the abilities of the members of the Warclan, as a personal gestalt.” She’s still drawing upon Jaeger’s powers, even though he was killed two issues ago.

Creative Differences: Judging by the cover, you’d guess rookie member Thunderbird had a large role to play in the story, right? I’m going to assume his reduced role was another victim of editorial “input.” As these issues were being released, fan backlash against the character intensified, mostly from readers upset the Archangel/Psylocke romance was being threatened. (Who knew so many cared?) If you were to judge the character solely from these appearances, I’m not sure how you’d have an opinion on him either way. There’s no obvious reason for him to be here.

Critics’ Corner: Another poorly received issue at the time. I recall Rogue’s sudden ability to literally catch bullets (and I’m talking machine gun fire here) as an example of a “Claremont Warrior Woman.” Rogue delivering a monologue, explaining her powers to Salvo as she kisses him, also reads as something that shouldn’t have survived the Silver Age. Even accepting the conceit of “every issue is someone’s first,” the same info could’ve been conveyed with omniscient narrative captions.

“Huh?” Moments: While escaping the complex, Wolverine declares: “X-Men and Nightcrawler’s Morlocks are clear.” Uh, who? This is the first reference to any Morlocks in this story. Nightcrawler did state last issue that the residents in the apartment complex next to his church could be in danger from the Neo, but there’s no reference to them being Morlocks. Additionally, we never see any of these alleged Morlocks in the story.

There’s also some seriously jumbled geography here. Cecilia Reyes somehow knows Charlotte Jones is inside the church (or complex that includes a church, which is maybe a thing in Brooklyn?) The last we saw Charlotte Jones, she was chasing Delgado in the building neighboring the underground clinic she took Nightcrawler to, which is blocks away.

Soon to be a Major Motion Picture! : The title and credits are using Marvel’s approximation of the X-Men movie logo. Having Senator Kelly run for President, very possibly, also could’ve been an attempt at synergy with the film.

Miscellaneous Notes: Bill Jemas is now being listed as Marvel’s president in the indicia. Jemas will be the first Marvel higher-up to acknowledge the online fanbase, and the decision to remove Claremont from the main X-books ultimately resides with him.

Review: I’ll open with something nice.

When Claremont embraces the lore of the X-Men—a large portion of it created by him, of course—there’s a sense we’re not merely reading pointless fight scenes. Wolverine investigating not just any Sinister base, but specifically the location of Cyclops’ orphanage (and arriving with Dani Moonstar of all people), is a fantastic way to open the story. And, through the magic of Moonstar’s power, we see the Neo perform their first non-nonsensical act. If they’re to be attacking anyone for the mutant erasure storyline, it should be Sinister, as he was at the heart of it.

Reviving Senator Kelly, picking up where Claremont left off all the way back in 1989, is another treat for longtime readers. It was evident Claremont was going somewhere with the death of Kelly’s wife, (given Claremont’s sudden revelation of her past with the Hellfire Club, and his reminders of Kelly’s friendship with Sebastian Shaw, it would seem he had a lot in mind for this story). For one, brief page, fans are teased that their patience just might pay off.

Indicating once again that he’s trying to play fair, Claremont also has one of his characters react to events from the post-Claremont years. Now that Magneto has effectively blackmailed the planet and been granted his own nation, how would Kelly react to this? It’s the perfect continuity reference for the moment, tying together the current status quo with the lingering threads of Claremont’s original run.

I could be exposing my own bias here, but I think the best hook for any Claremont X-comic is the promise of resolutions to these unfinished stories. I understand his desire to continue adding to the canon, to play with some ideas and introduce even more characters, but for an audience of diehards (pretty much the only ones left in 2000), the most alluring story is the one that finally pays off the resolutions you were cheated out of years earlier.

Regarding the rest of this…yikes. I’m going to guess some behind the scenes chaos contributed to the messiest issue of the relaunch so far. During his time on X-Treme X-Men, Claremont once explained some wonky issue-to-issue continuity by revealing the editor sent the wrong draft of the script to the artist. That’s exactly what this reads like—as if it’s following a version of issue #101 that was never published.

Characters aren’t where they’re supposed to be, cliffhangers are simply ignored, major plot points suddenly appear in quickie dialogue exchanges, and somehow, all of these disparate X-Men can magically appear where the plot needs them. We also have the second instance in three issues of the team leaving a member behind…even though the first abandoned X-Man still hasn’t been dealt with (and isn’t referenced this issue.)

Admittedly, the panel to panel storytelling has improved a bit, but there isn’t much Yu can do if he’s handed a plot this messy. My standard complaints about Yu remain; he either drops important facial features or just does quick sketches of characters whenever too many are on a page, but there are fewer instances of this.

When Yu clearly isn’t rushing through a page, he’s doing impressive work, actually. And I’ve noticed this issue he’s drawing some of his own sound effects, perhaps inspired by Adam Kubert over on Uncanny. I’ll always prefer this over computer lettering…but I’ve got to wonder how much time he squandered lettering “BRAKA-BRAKA” repeatedly, when he could’ve been drawing in those missing pupils.

This entry exists thanks to those who posted Amazon reviews of my new novel, Black Hat Blues. I’ll continue posting installments in this series—one for every review the book receives. So if you want this series to continue, please, leave a review!