STORY: "Fresh (Up)Start" (23 pages)
Trevor Fitzroy, a mutant criminal from the future, is taking part in the Upstarts' competition, which involves killing people for points. He slaughters the Reavers, and then attacks the Hellfire Club. Despite the X-Men's efforts, he leaves the White Queen in a coma and abducts her along with the Hellions.

What you need to know:
The new Gold Team - Storm, Iceman, Archangel, Colossus and Jean Grey - make their debut appearance in the title, although they first appeared in X-Men Vol 2 #1 a couple of weeks earlier.

The Upstarts, a group of mutants killing other people for points in a competition, are mentioned for the first time, though only Trevor Fitzroy and Shinobi Shaw are revealed as members.

Trevor Fitzroy makes his first appearance. I can tell you're all thrilled. But he was a major villain at the time, and more to the point he's the first character we meet from Bishop's home time.

The Reavers all get killed, aside from Lady Deathstrike and Cylla Markham, who escape, and Donald Pierce. Actually, Pierce is supposedly killed here but showed up alive and well in Domino a few years later, so perhaps the other Reavers are healthier than you'd think. Fitzroy's attack on the Reavers is somewhat inconsistent with other stories in which the Upstarts are said to only kill mutants. The Reavers are non-mutant cyborgs (that being sort of the point of their storyline).

Two of the Hellions, Beef and Jetstream, die. Ah well. Empath doesn't, on the other hand - despite his having a speaking part, it was later decreed that he wasn't in the story after all.

Emma Frost goes into a coma which she doesn't emerge from until issue #310. This is effectively her last appearance as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club, since Shinobi instals his own Inner Circle shortly after this story and on being revived from her coma, Emma never resumes the role. Not that that seems to stop writers calling her the White Queen anyway.

Strictly speaking, this isn't really the first post-Claremont issue of the title. That was issue #280. But that issue tied up one of his plots, so this is the first one that really counts.

Empath's appearance in this story isn't a continuity error. There's no reason why he couldn't have made it back from Nova Roma (where he was last seen) in time to join his teammates in suicidal battle against Fitzroy.

Comments:
Whilce Portacio's run as writer on the X-Men was pretty short, since he got lured away to Image early on. An unfortunate side effect of this is that a lot of his plots never really got resolved very well, and prime among those is the Upstarts, who wandered around the X-books looking impressive in 1991 and 1992, before being quietly shoved under the carpet. Eventually the plot was kicked into touch when an X-Force storyline contrived to incapacitate most of the relevant characters.

Another problem with the Upstarts was that they could never have been made to work as recurring villains. Since there just aren't that many characters available to be killed, they're doomed to lose mostly of their fights, and ultimately they end up looking rather stupid. The Dark Riders had the same problem. To be fair, they get off to a reasonably good start here as Fitzroy puts in a genuinely impressive performance - there's no denying he's a credible opponent for the team. It's a shame it had to be at the expense of the Reavers and the Hellions, who were well developed characters that deserved better.

The other major problem with this issue is that (apparently because of enormous backstage confusion among the creators) they botched the ending. Consequently, issue #282 opens with a cringe-inducing speech from Storm in which she explains what really happened.

For all that, though, it's not quite as bad a story as it's often made out to be. If the Upstarts plot had ever gone anywhere interesting, we might be looking back on this as an exciting introduction to the new villains. But as it turned out, this is an introduction that never went anywhere, and you can pretty much live without it.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
The X-Men: Archangel, Colossus, Jean Grey, Iceman and Storm (all last in X-Men vol 2 #5)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Gateway (between Wolverine vol 2 #36 and #52) and Robert Kelly (between issues #246 and #298)

VILLAINS
The Upstarts: Trevor Fitzroy (first appearance; a mutant from the same timeline as Bishop, with the power to drain human life forces and use the energy to open portals in time and space; chronologically last in flashback in issue #287) and Shinobi Shaw (last in X-Factor vol 1 #67)
The Reavers: Donald Pierce, Bonebreaker, Murray Reese (all last in Wolverine vol 2 #39), Pretty Boy (last in issue #267), Wade Cole, Angelo Macon (the latter two last in issue #269; the latter five all die), Lady Deathstrike (between Wolverine vol 2 #46 and #76) and Cylla Markham (last in issue #269; next in Wolverine vol 2 #55; the Reavers cease to exist as a team in this story following the death of most of their members)
The White Queen II (last in the fifth story in New Warriors Annual #1; she enters a coma in this story)
The Hellions I: Bevatron, Catseye, Roulette II, Tarot, Beef and Jetstream (the latter two die; all last in New Warriors vol 1 #10)

next