STORY: "Broken Promises" (22 pages)  The Promise go back into hibernation, but Lucy Robinson wakes herself and frees the Angel.  Meanwhile, Messenger has dumped the rest of the X-Men into an underground chamber, where they end up fighting the Mole Man.

What you need to know:
Tobias Messenger gives us his origin story, although there's really not much to it.  He's born in 1859, he starts travelling the world to meet other mutants, and when he gets old, he comes up with the suspended animation thing.

Messenger's solution for dealing with the X-Men (well, the ones that he didn't put in suspended animation) is to lock them in a great big chamber full of giant plants and insects.  Quite what he's trying to achieve there is something of a mystery.  The chamber is obviously underground, and the Mole Man soon discovers the X-Men on a camera that he handily has trained on it.  Really, none of this makes much sense at all.

The origin of these underground chambers and tunnels is presented (in passing) as a mystery.  Issue #21 reveals that they were built by the Deviants, although it doesn't really matter.

On the plus side, the Mole Man promptly announces that he wants revenge on the X-Men for the time they beat him back in X-Men vol 1 #34, which is at least a motive of some sort.

Once again, there's a thrilling one-page subplot of nothing much happening with Professor X and Teri Martin.  Because they're all either underground or in suspended animation, Xavier's lost telepathic contact with the team.

The hidden cover number is #85.  It's way off in the background, just below the Beast's left thumb.

Comments:
With only four issues left to go, you might think Byrne would direct his attention to wrapping up the enormous number of subplots, but instead he's creating new ones.  And they're not even really X-Men subplots - since when is the Mole Man an X-Men villain?  (Yes, I know they fought him once in 1967, but it wasn't exactly a classic.)

Visually, the action sequences and the underground set pieces are good work.  And the Promise storyline, however glacial, still looks intriguing at this stage.  But otherwise, you have to wonder where the hell this is supposed to be going.  And even after re-reading it several times for this index, I still honestly don't know.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X, Cyclops, the Angel, the Beast, Lorna Dane, Havok (the latter two both next in issue #21), Iceman and Marvel Girl I

SUPPORTING CHARACTER
Teri Martin

VILLAINS
The Promise: Tobias Messenger (also in flashback which is his chronologically earliest appearance, preceding Amazing Adult Fantasy #14), Tad Carter, Craig, Gene, Gracie, Simon (all next in issue #21) and Lucy Robinson (leaves the Promise)
The Mole Man (last in Fantastic Four #90) and his Moloids

Written: 2 June 2006

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