STORY: "...For What I Have Done" (51 pages)  Magneto steals the Acolytes away from Fabian Cortez and then gatecrashes Illyana Rasputin's funeral. Disillusioned with the X-Men, Colossus leaves the team and joins the Acolytes.

What you need to know:
The Acolytes find out that Fabian Cortez was a traitor to Magneto, because Magneto's new sidekick Exodus shows up and tells them. For some reason, Magneto apparently doesn't want any action taken against Cortez aside from stealing the Acolytes from him. The Acolytes go to live with Magneto on his new space station, Avalon.

Exodus's comments that Cortez will be "a victim of someone else's legacy" were widely interpreted as an allusion to the Legacy Virus, but nothing ever came of this.

This story confirms that Chrome died in saving Magneto's life in X-Men vol 2 #3.

Curiously, Bishop doesn't seem to understand the whole concept of mourning. This is flatly contradicted by subsequent stories which revealed details of his home timeline.

Magneto's powers have been vastly increased, which he attributes to his "near discorporation within Earth's EM field", whatever that means. It's perhaps worth noting that X-Men vol 2 #1-3 established that the more energy Magneto tries to control with his powers, the madder he gets, which might account for some of his actions in this story.

In a frankly ridiculous scene, Magneto kills the Acolyte Senyaka for the crime of killing humans without his permission, even though he claims he would have given his permission if asked. Cable #12 reveals that Senyaka in fact survives this story because of his mutant powers.

Avalon includes loads of technology which Magneto appropriated while he was living with the X-Men and training the New Mutants. This was widely criticised as an attempt to rewrite that period of his history, but in fairness, it is consistent with Magneto's increasing involvement with the Hellfire Club towards the end of that storyline that he could have at least removed some technology from the X-Men's mansion, even if he didn't have Avalon in mind at the time.

Magneto apparently intends to gather mutants on Avalon and then destroy the Earth, judging from his comments in this story. Needless to say, nothing ever comes of this.

And finally, Colossus leaves the X-Men and joins the Acolytes. He eventually returns to the X-Men in issue #360.

Contrary to popular belief:
This issue supposedly commemorates the X-Men's thirtieth anniversary, and issue #1 is indeed cover dated September 1963.  However, since Marvel shifted their cover dated back a month or so in the late 1980s, I strongly suspect it's slightly out from the correct date.

Stan Lee's editorial says that the X-Men have been around for "three continuous, non-stop decades."  Very nearly true, but not quite.  There was a gap of nine months between issues #66 and #67, when the book was cancelled and revived as a reprint title.  Actually, since pretty much everything in the years 1970 to 1975 was reprint material, the claim's dodgy however you look at it.

Comments:
Oh, god. This one. The story that destroys Magneto.

While I've tried to give it the benefit of the doubt in the notes above, there's just no getting away from the fact that this issue is utterly disastrous as far as Magneto's character is concerned. For some fifteen years, Magneto had been used as an opposite of the X-Men's dream. The power of the character came from the fact that not only were his views sincerely held, but that the backdrop of anti-mutant hatred made it disturbingly plausible that he was right. In other words, Magneto works because he provides a rival viewpoint.

This, though... well, this is just a raving lunatic. He gatecrashes the funeral of somebody he supposedly cared for deeply, and starts a fight. He kills one of his own Acolytes for no reason (a scene doubly moronic because none of the other Acolytes have second thoughts about siding with him, utterly destroying their credibility as intelligent characters). He doesn't have a philosophy any more, despite the incoherent trappings in the dialogue. He's just a venomous little spitball of hatred, and that's not what Magneto's about.

All this is a dreadful shame, since it totally undercuts the good points in the story. The story gets off to an excellent start with Exodus disrupting Cortez's plans at a stroke. And the concept of Colossus running off to join Magneto wasn't such a bad one - it only looks bad because Magneto is such a laughable idiot in this story. Why would anybody through their lot in with this psycho? This could have been an absolutely classic story if Magneto had shown up at the funeral in a suit and tie, had a sensible conversation with the X-Men, and taken Colossus with him at the end. But the idiotic parts of this story overpower everything else, leaving this issue among the worst X-Men stories there are.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last in X-Men vol 2 #24; next in Gambit vol 1 #1)
Storm (next in Gambit vol 1 #1)
Colossus (last in X-Factor vol 1 #93; leaves the X-Men; next in X-Men vol 2 #25)
Iceman (last in X-Factor vol 1 #93) and Bishop
Psylocke (last in X-Men vol 2 #24; next in X-Men vol 2 #25, then in Wolverine vol 2 #75, then in X-Men Annual vol 2 #2, then in X-Men vol 2 #27, then in issue #308)
Rogue (last in X-Men vol 2 #24; next in Gambit vol 1 #1-4)
Jean Grey, the Beast (both last in X-Men vol 2 #24) and Archangel (all next in issue #306)
Cyclops (last in X-Men vol 2 #24; next in X-Men vol 2 #25, then in Wolverine vol 2 #75, then in Excalibur vol 1 #71, then in X-Men Annual vol 2 #2, then in Avengers vol 1 #368, then in X-Men vol 2 #26, then in Avengers West Coast #101, then in issue #307)
Gambit (last in X-Men vol 2 #24; next in Gambit vol 1 #1-4, then in X-Men vol 2 #25, then in Wolverine vol 2 #75, then in X-Men Annual vol 2 #2, then in Avengers vol 1 #368, then in X-Men vol 2 #26, then in Avengers West Coast #101, then in issue #307)
Wolverine (last in Wolverine vol 2 #74; next in Gambit vol 1 #1, then in Marvel Comics Presents #138-142, then in Wolverine & Punisher: Damaging Evidence #1-3, then in Wolverine: Evilution, then in X-Men vol 2 #25, then in Wolverine vol 2 #75, where he leaves the X-Men)

GUEST STARS
Shadowcat (between X-Men vol 2 #24-25)
Nightcrawler (between Excalibur vol 1 #70-71)
X-Factor II: Havok, Polaris, Wolfsbane, Multiple Man, Strong Guy (all between X-Factor vol 1 #94-95) and Quicksilver (last in X-Factor vol 1 #94)
X-Force I: Cannonball II, Boomer, Rictor, Shatterstar, Feral, Sunspot and Warpath (behind the scenes; all between X-Force vol 1 #25-26)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
The Banshee and Revanche (both between X-Men vol 2 #24-25)
Lilandra Neramani (between Excalibur vol 1 #70 and X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #5)
Jubilee (between Wolverine vol 2 #74 and X-Men vol 2 #25)

VILLAINS
Magneto (between X-Force vol 1 #25 and X-Men vol 2 #25; also in flashback following the flashback in the second story in Classic X-Men #12 and preceding the flashback at page 12 panel 3 of X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #2)
Exodus (between X-Force vol 1 #25 and X-Men vol 2 #25)
Fabian Cortez (between X-Factor #92 and X-Men vol 2 #26)
The Acolytes: Sven Kleinstock, Harlan Kleinstock, Joanna Cargill, Carmella Unuscione, Scanner, Milan, Javitz  (all next in X-Men vol 2 #25), Amelia Voght (next in Cable #9) and Senyaka (next in Cable #12; all last in X-Factor vol 1 #92)

Last revised: 29 September 2004

back | next