GENERATION NEXT #3 – May 1995

It Only Hurts When I Sing

Credits: Scott Lobdell (writer), Chris Bachalo (penciler), Mark Buckingham (inker), Steve Buccellato & Electric Crayon (colors), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters)

Summary

As Skin and Chamber continue to search the Seattle Core for Illyana, they witness one mutant guard ruthlessly kill a man and his daughter. Mondo emerges from the building and drops the guard to his death as retribution. Meanwhile, Husk and Vincente continue to masquerade as Quietus inside his personal office. They’re still unable to find any information on Illyana. Sugar Man enters, telling “Quietus” that Shadow King noticed someone psioincally searching Apocalypse’s files earlier. He wants Quietus to investigate. After he leaves, a frightened Husk seduces Vincente. At the main entrance to the Core, Colossus and Shadowcat wait for a signal from the others. Inside the Core, Mondo saves a young girl who was shoved off a ledge by a guard. When he brings her back to the top, he discovers Illyana nearby. Colossus gets word from Know-It-All that Mondo has rescued Illyana, and rushes inside to save her before Mondo’s power accidentally absorbs her completely. Simultaneously, Skin and Chamber are reunited with Husk and Vincente, who are still disguised as Quietus. Sugar Man enters, and demands that Quietus kill Skin and Chamber. "Quietus" draws his gun and shoots.

Review

This is another issue that mainly relies on Bachalo’s art to work. He certainly designs enough odd-looking freaks and monsters here. The multi-headed dog-type monster with facial piercings that shows up on the second page has got to be the weirdest looking thing in any mainstream comic from this era. The story consists of more scenes of the heroes wandering around the Core, with a couple of character moments thrown in. Since the previous issue already hammered home how horrible conditions in the Core are, I’m not really thrilled about reading another issue filled with depictions of nasty mutants killing innocent people. The interaction between Skin and Chamber is nicely done, capturing the anger and the helplessness anyone would feel after seeing innocent people casually murdered, but it doesn’t justify another issue dedicated to showing off how terrible the Core is. The seduction scene between Husk and Vincente feels strained, and it only seems to exist to emphasize how different this Husk is from her uptight counterpart in the original reality. And since Husk and Vincente were already (needlessly) searching through paperwork to find Illyana in the last issue, it feels like the plot’s really beginning to stall. Bachalo’s art does carry a lot of this, but the more you think about it, the more you realize that hardly anything’s happening.

GENERATION NEXT #2 – April 1995

Hither Comes the Sugar Man!

Credits: Scott Lobdell (writer), Chris Bachalo (penciler), Mark Buckingham (inker), Steve Buccellato & Electric Crayon (colorists), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering)

Summary

Inside the Seattle Core, Illyana and Ace, another young girl, narrowly avoid being killed by the Sugar Man. Outside of the Core, a disguised Skin picks up two of Apocalypse’s human workers on a shuttle, who are soon killed by Chamber. Nearby, Colossus and Shadowcat plan to infiltrate the Core through the back entrance. After Shadowcat is discovered by one of the Sugar Man’s Undercloak guards, Colossus decides that they shouldn’t wait any longer. Elsewhere, Husk poses as a human escort for the High Foreman, Quietus. When his vaporizer device reveals that she’s a mutant, Quietus determines that she must be associated with the X-Men. While in the process of beating her, he grabs the flask Husk kept with her. She tricks him into drinking the liquid inside, which turns out to be her teammate Vincente. He solidifies his body inside of Quietus, killing him. Husk and Vincente look through Quietus’s files for any information on Illyana. When they're finished, they combine their powers to disguise themselves as Quietus and leave. While escaping, they run into Mondo and meet up with Skin and Chamber, who are disguised as human workers. “Quietus” requests that they join him on his rounds. Inside the Core, Illyana is awakened for another day of work.

Miscellaneous Note

“Quietus” is defined as either death, a finishing blow, or a release from a debt or obligation (I’m pointing this out because I had no idea what the word meant).

Review

It’s an entire issue dedicated to moving the cast inside the Core, which is pretty excessive. The plotting is a little odd, since the story opens with the team already divided up, pursuing different ways to get inside and find Illyana. It comes together fairly well at the end, but why exactly Colossus and Shadowcat are on their own isn’t made clear. Bachalo’s art helps to sell the thin plot, though, and the story does at least move at a reasonable pace. Unlike this month’s Astonishing X-Men, Lobdell doesn’t focus on a lot of characterization, choosing instead to showcase more of Bachalo’s bizarre new designs. Bachalo’s dark environments do suit the AoA world, but some of the villain designs are more quirky than intimidating. Quietus is essentially a giant nose with kinky hair and a bad polyester suit. It’s not necessarily a bad design, but I don’t buy him as a villain. He looks like something out of ‘70s underground comix, not someone who should be beating up a mutant superhero. Bachalo inserts all kinds of random weirdness into the background of Quietus’s home, such as a photostat of Farrah Fawcett, McDonald’s wrappers, and an Opus doll. I can’t tell if he’s doing this because he’s bored, or if he really thinks it’s adding something to the book. It was the ‘90s, so I guess we were just supposed to accept the arbitrary non-sequiters.

GENERATION NEXT #1 – March 1995

From the Top

Credits: Scott Lobdell (writer), Chris Bachalo (penciler), Mark Buckingham (inker), Steve Buccellato/Electric Crayon (colors), Richard Starkings/Comicraft (lettering)

Summary

Chamber, Husk, and Mondo train under Colossus and Shadowcat’s supervision. Colossus calls Chamber weak when he discovers that everyone is still alive. Skin and Vincente join their teammates and spar against their teachers. Magneto enters, asking to speak to Colossus and Shadowcat in private. He tells them about Bishop’s claim that reality fractured twenty years ago, and asks them to find a way to travel back in time. Apocalypse has already killed all known mutants with the ability to time travel, so Magneto uses the young mutant Know-It-All to scan Apocalypse’s records for any information that can help them. She learns that Illyana, Colossus’ sister, was erroneously reported dead earlier, and is currently in Portland.

Continuity Notes

Know-It-All is the AoA version of M. Her body is connected to a giant workstation and she speaks with a computer’s voice. Vincente is a new mutant introduced in this reality who exists in a gaseous form. This version of Shadowcat uses gloves with Wolverine-esque claws. Chamber is still missing part of chest but does have a mouth in this reality.

Chamber says that Colossus and his brother were “Russia’s greatest heroes” before his brother joined Apocalypse and Colossus followed Magneto.

Review

I guess this is an attempt to counteract the laidback, warm tone of the regular Generation X series. Considering how bleak the “Age of Apocalypse” is supposed to be, that would of course make sense, but I think the creators take things way too far. The first half of the issue hammers home the fact that these training sessions are “kill or be killed” and that Colossus honestly wants to see his charges die. That’s just incredibly stupid. I can buy that Magneto is supposed to have a harder edge than Xavier, but I refuse to believe that he would allow Colossus to oversee the deaths of the next generation of mutants. I don’t know if the series later backs off on Colossus’ bloodlust, but it’s certainly overplayed here. The training scenes are also extremely long, and while they do serve to re-introduce the cast and provide some characterization, it feels like the issue’s killing time after a certain point.

Bachalo turns in a lot of great work in this issue, and I think his costume redesigns look much better than the standard yellow/red Gen X outfits. His storytelling is starting to get choppy, though, as there are a couple of action pages that are hard to follow. The scene where Husk attacks both Skin and Shadowcat is especially confusing (what exactly is she supposed to be doing?). There are also some shaky plot elements, like the opening scene that has Chamber running from a series of explosions, and then being attacked by wooden objects. He talks to an off-panel character called “Claudia”, and says that he should sense her thoughts but can’t. Claudia? Is this supposed to be confusing? Was Lobdell referring to Husk but using the wrong first name? The final scene doesn’t make a lot of sense either. Know-It-All is apparently searching for mutants who haven’t manifested their time traveling abilities yet, but how exactly would Apocalypse have records on that? And if Illyana’s “possibility of mutant manifestation” is “infinitesimal”, how exactly did she come up in the search? (And if both her siblings are known mutants, why would she be labeled that way?) Since Magneto absorbed Bishop’s knowledge of the original timeline, the story could’ve had Magneto already know about Illyana’s latent time travel powers and specifically searching her out. That’s not the best solution in the world, but it’s better than the awkward scene we’re given here. Bachalo’s art can only distract from so much shaky plotting. I do actually remember liking the AoA incarnation of this series, even if the first issue doesn’t hold up that great, so hopefully things will improve soon