STORY: "...Show Me The Way To Go Home..." (22 pages)  Cable visits the mansion to talk to Cyclops about their relationship. They join forces to stop the X-Cutioner from killing Emma Frost.

What you need to know:
There's a lot of stuff in here about Cyclops and Cable's relationship. Cable was obviously amazed to get an invitation out of the blue to Scott's wedding when he doesn't really regard Scott as a father figure. As for Scott, a flashback following on from X-Factor #68 (where he sent the infant Cable into the future to save his life) shows him substantially more affected by the experience than we'd seen in the original story. In fact, sections of this story read like a slight swipe at X-Factor #68 for underdoing Scott's reaction.

In a slightly contrived sequence, Scott says that he wishes he had been there to act as a father to Cable, and Cable replies that there were two people who did that for him. We'll find out in a couple of months time that these people actually were Scott and Jean, travelling through time in Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #1-4. Surprisingly, Cable claims not to be able to remember their names, although he might just be sparing Scott's feelings at being replaced by another man in Cable's affections.

Bishop delivers a dreadful speech (so bad that even the other characters heckle it) explaining that marriage was frowned on in the XSE, and that the closest equivalent of a bachelor party was something called the Passing. Understandably, nobody shows the faintest interest in this nonsense, which is rapidly starting to seem like Ross from Friends banging on about dinosaurs.

Interestingly, it's Sabretooth who alerts Cyclops and Cable to the X-Cutioner's arrival in the X-Men's Mansion. He claims that he does this because he can detect, by scent alone, that the X-Cutioner is carrying enough ordnance to destroy the building, but we don't necessarily have to believe him about this.

From the way he's acting at Scott's bachelor party, it looks like Gambit is trying to stir up the other X-Men against Sabretooth. Ironically (in the light of subsequent stories), it's Archangel who tells Gambit to shut up, claiming that he doesn't care what Gambit's past connection with Sabretooth is. This isn't what he'll say in issue #350 when he finds out what it is.

If you care about such things, the X-Cutioner reveals that Emma Frost's middle name is Grace.

One wonders quite how much the X-Cutioner knows about Emma. For some reason, he regards her biggest crime as failing to prevent the deaths of the Hellions, which of course isn't a crime at all. You'd have thought he could have come up with something better than that.

Comments:
A mixed one, this. The scenes with Scott and Cable talking about their bizarre father-son non-relationship are generally pretty good. Lobdell writes the scene as if he's just doing a story about a child finding the father who abandoned him rather than getting into the problematic stuff about their relative ages, and thereby manages to get some genuine emotional mileage out of a very convoluted area of continuity. There's also some nice moments at the bachelor party.

And then there's the X-Cutioner, who seems to show up here for no terribly good reason other than that there hasn't been a fight scene in the last two issues, so there'd better be one here. Although he's an alright villain, and he tenuously serves as somebody to unite Cable and Cyclops, the subplot with him trying to kill Emma is dull at best. Plus, as noted above, Bishop is now getting seriously annoying.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Cyclops (last in X-Men vol 2 #29; next in pages 1-11 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in page 10 of What If? vol 2 #60, then in pages 12-14 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in the second story in X-Men: The Wedding Album, then in pages 17-20 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in pages 26-27 of What If? vol 2 #60, then in pages 21-22 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then writes the thank-you card at the end of X-Men: The Wedding Album, then in Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #1-2, then in flashback in the fifth story in Marvel Valentine Special #1, then in Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #3-4, then in X-Men vol 2 #35, then in issue #316; also in flashback between X-Factor #68-69)
The Beast (last in X-Men vol 2 #29; next in pages 1-2 of What If? vol 2 #60, then in pages 1-11 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then behind the scenes in page 10 of What If? vol 2 #60, then in pages 12-14 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in page 18 of What If? vol 2 #60, then in page 16 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in the second story in X-Men: The Wedding Album, then in pages 17-20 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in X-Men vol 2 #30-32)
Archangel (last in X-Men vol 2 #29; next in pages 1-11 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in What If? vol 2 #60, then in pages 12-14 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in the second story in X-Men: The Wedding Album #2, then in pages 16-20 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in X-Men vol 1 #31-32, then in issue #314)
Gambit (last in X-Men vol 2 #28; next in pages 1-11 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then behind the scenes in page 10 of What If? vol 2 #60, then in pages 12-14 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in page 18 of What If? vol 2 #60, then in page 16 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in the second story in X-Men: The Wedding Album, then in pages 17-20 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in pages 26-27 of What If? vol 2 #60, then in X-Men vol 2 #31-32, then in issue #312)
Iceman (last in X-Men: The Wedding Album; next in pages 1-2 of What If? vol 2 #60, then in pages 1-11 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then behind the scenes in page 10 of What If? vol 2 #60, then in pages 12-16 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in the second story in X-Men: The Wedding Album)
Bishop (last in X-Men Unlimited #3; next in pages 1-11 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then behind the scenes in page 10 of What If? vol 2 #60, then in pages 12-14 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in pages 4-6 of the second story in X-Men: The Wedding Album, then in page 16 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in pages 7-12 of the second story in X-Men: The Wedding Album, then in pages 17-20 of X-Men vol 2 #30, then in pages 26-27 in What If? vol 2 #60)
Jean Grey (as Marvel Girl in flashback between X-Factor vol 1 #68-69)

GUEST STAR
Cable (between Cable #11 and X-Men vol 2 #30)

SUPPORTING CHARACTER
The Banshee (between X-Men vol 2 #28 and #30)

VILLAINS
The X-Cutioner (between Uncanny X-Men Annual #17 and Cable #21)
Sabretooth (between X-Men vol 2 #29-30)
Emma Frost (last in issue #284)

GUEST APPEARANCES
Nightcrawler (last in Cable #9) and Forge (last in X-Factor vol 1 #100; both next in X-Men vol 2 #30)
Havok (between X-Factor vol 1 #100 and What If? vol 2 #60)
Strong Guy (between New Warriors vol 1 #46 and What If? vol 2 #60)

Revised: 6 October 2004

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