STORY: "Home is Where the Hurt is..." (22 pages)  Professor X and the Beast investigate Ashley Martin and her pet Sentinel, while Cyclops, Marvel Girl and Candy Southern set out to rescue Angel.

What you need to know:
Professor X takes Marvel Girl to Muir Isle so that Moira can check out any after-effects from her encounter with Phoenix last issue.  Moira verifies that "something" happened but says it's all returned to normal and there's no trace of it now.  Which begs the question of how she knows it happened in the first place... but perhaps she's got some earlier tests as well.

This is the first time Marvel Girl has been to Muir Isle - the other X-Men don't get to visit until X-Men vol 1 #104.  Jean has met Moira before this point, in a flashback in Uncanny X-Men #273, but since that flashback didn't take place on Muir Isle, there's no outright contradiction here. 

Marvel Girl is getting increasingly worried about the number of things Professor X is keeping from the rest of the team.  She finally challenges him on the point directly and gets a rather paranoid reply to the effect that the other X-Men aren't safe, because they can't stop people reading their minds.

Cerebro detects Ashley Martin, so Professor X and the Beast go to investigate.  Her pet Sentinel duly attacks Hank on sight, causing all manner of damage.  Ashley tries to order it to stop, but for cliffhanger purposes, it doesn't.  It changes its mind next issue.

Ashley's mother Teri makes her first appearance; the series goes on to hint at a possible relationship between her and Professor X but never gets around to doing it before cancellation strikes.

For the third consecutive issue, Candy Southern turns up at the mansion to remind everyone that she's got some news she'd like to share with Warren.  Cyclops and Marvel Girl track Angel down using Cerebro, and reluctantly take Candy along with them.  For maximum confusion, Marvel Girl wears her black-and-yellow costume in this arc, while Candy wears the regular Marvel Girl outfit.  Cyclops queries the whole arrangement and gets a vague reply from Marvel Girl to the effect that she finds her old costume comforting.  Possibly this was intended to tie into the subplot of Xavier seeming to live in the past, but nothing ever really comes of it.

Anyhow, Cyclops, Marvel Girl and Candy track Angel to Krueger's freighter, which is full of low-level mutant sideshow freaks.  They soon find a winged figure in terrible condition - we're obviously meant to assume it's Angel, but you won't be surprised to learn that it turns out to be Avia. 

Down in the Savage Land, we spend three and a half pages reminding everyone that Sauron, Iceman, Havok, Lorna and Ka-Zar are still doing the same things.  While narrating a flashback, Sauron finally gets around to mentioning that he's set up home in a building left behind by an abandoned German expedition which was trying to exploit geothermal energies, and he's hoping to use their technology to provide safe energy for him to feed off.

Amphibius finally fishes Magneto out of the water and gets him to land.  Presumably this is a flashback, because Magneto would surely be dead by this point if he'd been unconscious and underwater since issue #5.

The hidden number for this cover ought to be #76; the only thing resembling it is some texture lines just above Cyclops' head.

Comments:
We're now getting deep into the phase where the book is juggling far, far too many subplots for its own good. By this point so much time is being spent on things like the Savage Land that nothing is really managing to come to the fore any more.  This would be okay if all these plots were actually moving forward, but all too often they're not really moving at all - the main purpose of the scenes is simply to remind us that they're there.

This issue kicks off the Ashley Martin and Krueger storylines, which don't really tie in with one another at all, although you could attempt a loose thematic argument that they contrast Ashley as the normal suburban mutant with Krueger's sideshow freaks.  Neither story is desperately compelling, and it's hard to avoid concluding that by this point the book is losing focus.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X, Cyclops, the Beast and Marvel Girl I
Lorna Dane and Havok (both between issues #8 and #12)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Teri Martin (Ashley's mother; first appearance)
Ashley Martin (last in flashback in issue #11)
Moira MacTaggert (last in flashback in Uncanny X-Men #300; next in the back-up strip in X-Men: Deadly Genesis #1)
Edna McCoy (between Uncanny Origins #6 and Marvel Team-Up vol 1 #124)
Iceman (next in flashback in issue #12)
Avia (last in issue #8)
Candy Southern

VILLAINS
Krueger (behind the scenes; last in issue #8) and his freaks
Sauron (next in flashback in issue #12)
Magneto (last in issue #5) and Amphibius (last in issue #4)

GUEST APPEARANCE
Ka-Zar (last in issue #8; next in Astonishing Tales #1)

Revised: 31 May 2006

back | next