X-MAN #23 - #25, January 1997 - March 1997

#23 (Kavanagh/Cruz/Clark/LaRosa/Comicraft/Thomas) - Even by X-Man standards, this one is surprisingly aimless. X-Man spends a few pages recapping his issues with Threnody (he likes her, but is still afraid that Mr. Sinister is playing both of them), then has a visit from Bishop and Rogue (they’re concerned about him, but he’s still unwilling to trust the X-Men). Meanwhile, Madelyne Pryor spars with Scribe and Mountjoy in order to earn the role of Black Rook in the Hellfire Club. Finally, X-Man has a vision of the Age of Apocalypse, which leads into the X-Man ’96 annual. The end. Cruz’s art is still improving, so at least most of the issue has somewhat attractive cartooning, but the story is obviously filler. And reviving the Hellfire Club in a lower-tier spinoff just feels wrong to me.

#24 (Kavanagh/Cruz/LaRosa/Comicraft/Thomas/GCW) – Remember when Marvel decided that Spider-Man and X-Man were going to be best pals? This issue takes place after an X-Man guest appearance in Amazing Spider-Man, which I assume ended with X-Man being attacked by a shadowy figure. The mystery villain turns out to be Morbius, whose bite is transforming X-Man into a vampire. (Morbius’ powers don’t actually work this way, but it’s explained that X-Man is “telempathic”, which forces him to follow Morbius’ example. I suspect that the story was plotted out before someone realized that Morbius doesn’t actually turn people into vampires, and a quickie explanation had to be found). X-Man wants to be near Threnody, so Spider-Man helps him find her. Threnody is across town at a hospital, feeding off the death energies of terminally ill patients. I’ll give Kavanagh credit for using her powers in creative ways, and for finding a Spider-Man villain with a thematic connection to her.

Eventually, Morbius meets up with Threnody in a graveyard and entices her over to his side. Spider-Man and X-Man arrive, X-Man fights off Morbius’ influence, and Morbius flees (into the pages of Peter Parker, Spider-Man according to the footnote). X-Man realizes that Threnody needs help and tells her to stay away until she’s willing to admit it. The story’s “X-Man is a vampire” gimmick doesn’t work, but some interesting things are done with Threnody, and the Spider-Man guest appearance isn’t totally gratuitous. The Madelyne Pryor subplot in this issue has her drawing closer to Sebastian Shaw (and healing his mysterious scar), as Tessa watches on in disgust. The issue ends with Madelyne tracing X-Man’s steps on the final page, which finally moves her extremely long-running subplot into the title character’s direction.

#25 (Kavanagh/Cruz/Jones//LaRosa/Martin/Comicraft/Thomas/GCW) – The Madelyne Pryor mystery receives some resolution in this anniversary issue, but questions still linger. Askani member Sanctity contacts Jean Grey, telling her to kill X-Man. She refuses to kill him, but she does track him down, shortly after he’s reunited with Madelyne. Just in case you didn’t think their relationship was disgusting enough in the previous issues, X-Man and Madelyne share a long, open-mouthed kiss before they’re interrupted by Jean. Madelyne attacks Jean, which eventually leads to X-Man and Jean combining their mental powers against her. X-Man finally learns that he created Madelyne after he subconsciously longed for Jean Grey (you know, his mother figure) when he first arrived in this reality. This explains why the Askani want him dead (his ability to psionically create people from thin air is deemed too dangerous), but many other questions are left unanswered.

It’s not stated in the issue, but since Madelyne has access to all of her memories, I assuming that he pulled her soul out of…somewhere…and gave it physical form. Why exactly he became sexually attracted to the woman he created to replace his need for a maternal figure isn’t even brought up, which is a shame since it should’ve at least been played for a joke. When X-Man tries to erase Madelyne, he can’t, because she’s somehow independent of his consciousness. The story doesn’t explain this either, and even has Madelyne comment that it raises “so many more questions without answers”. The story ends with her teleporting away (she can do that now, I guess) and rejoining Sebastian Shaw in Hong Kong. It’s heavily implied that she’s now sexually involved with Shaw, which makes the hook-up connections amongst the various X-characters even more tangled.

The extremely brief scene with Shaw is the only appearance of the Hellfire Club in the story, which makes me wonder why exactly the group has been receiving so much attention in this title. Even the double-sized anniversary issue doesn’t bother to resolve their storyline, or answer all of the questions surrounding Madelyne. I haven’t read any issues of this series after this one, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most of these plot threads never had a real resolution. Not only does X-Man still have no real reason to exist, but it’s also copying the worst traits of the various X-titles. It’s hard to believe that the series went on for another three years before someone decided to reboot it.

X-MAN #20-#22 (October 1996 – December 1996)

#20 (Kavanagh/Skroce/LaRosa/Comicraft/Morsehead/Malibu) – X-Man’s new logo debuts with this issue, and if I were cynical, I’d say it’s been redesigned to trick readers with poor eyesight into thinking it’s a more popular title. This issue reveals that the shadowy figure Threnody ran into in the last issue is the Abomination. Conveniently enough, Threnody actually has a past with him. When she was younger, the group of outsiders that Abomination leads took her in. Her powers went out of control, accidentally killing two of his people, forcing Abomination to kick her out of their home. I’m not quite sure where the idea that Abomination leads a group of outcasts comes from (is this what Peter David decided to do with him after the “Hulk Smash” era ended?), but this issue certainly runs with it. When the group learns that Threnody has taken a leather jacket that belonged to a deceased member, she’s attacked. X-Man finds her and saves her, and then spends the rest of the issue fighting the Abomination. X-Man learns about Threnody’s past from Abomination’s memories, but decides to trust her because she doesn’t deny what happened. There’s a slight variation on X-Man’s powers, as he mentally tricks Abomination into thinking that he won a physical fight him, allowing him to escape with Threnody. This is at least preferable to seeing his powers explode for the five hundredth time. This is a mediocre issue, but X-Man doesn’t behave like a total idiot in it, and the art has its moments, so it’s above par by X-Man standards.

#21 (Kavanagh/Cruz/LaRosa/Comicraft/Thomas/GCW) – This begins a new direction for the title, as X-Man and Threnody move to New York and Roger Cruz debuts as artist. Cruz’s art is extremely inconsistent, but you can see some promise on a few pages. Moving X-Man to New York seems like a waste, since the character could live anywhere and NYC is already overpopulated with Marvel heroes. However, Kavanagh manages to use the city well in this issue. X-Man actually uses his powers creatively, by conning the con artists in Central Park, and connecting to the normal people around him in a human way. He spends a nice day with Threnody until he accidentally uses his telekinetic powers in public, which of course causes a riot. X-Man surprisingly doesn’t behave childishly, declaring instead that he’s actually going to grow closer to humanity. This seems like a deliberate attempt to address some of the more egregious problems with this series, and it’s a stronger story than I would expect from Kavanagh at this point.

The Selene subplot continues, as she proposes reuniting the Hellfire Club with Sebastian Shaw. Trevor Fitzroy, who is now serving Selene, makes the argument that the time is right for mutants to unite because of the threat of Operation: Zero Tolerance. It’s implied that Fitzroy knows Bastion’s plans because he’s from the future, which isn’t a bad way to use the character. Forcing disparate mutants to unite in the face of OZT has a lot of potential, and it’s too bad the actual crossover did little with this. For the record, the Statement of Ownership in this issue lists average sales for the year at 227,315 copies, with the most recent issue selling 243,916.

#22 (Kavanagh/Cruz/Clark/LaRosa/Geiger/Comicraft/Thomas/GCW) – Not an awful lot going on in this issue. X-Man kills a few pages stopping an arsonist, and then travels to Central Park, where he’s developed a following. He charges for his services and uses his telepathic powers in positive ways, such as helping the mother of a kid fighting cancer find her inner courage. I like this direction, as it gives the character some type of purpose and answers the basic question of “how does he afford food and shelter?”. There’s an inordinate amount of time spent on X-Man and Threnody shopping for clothes and looking for an apartment, which unfortunately drags the issue down towards the end. The alternating scenes have Selene introducing Madelyne Pryor to Sebastian Shaw, teasing the idea that Madelyne will help them defeat the X-Men. It seems like every issue has Selene/Madelyne subplot pages, and they never go anywhere. Last issue’s scenes had promise, but now it looks like the characters are just being gathered to fight the X-Men (who, you know, aren’t the stars of this book). There's also a one-page scene that teases a Bastion appearance in Silver Surfer of all places. Overall, this isn’t too impressive, but the new direction has promise.