STORY: "Putting the Cat Out" (22 pages)  Sabretooth escapes his cell when the electronic security devices fail in a blackout. Bishop and Jubilee capture him again. Meanwhile, Iceman tries to protect Emma Frost when the X-Men's medical equipment switches off, but gets caught in a burst of feedback and is left in a coma.

What you need to know:
Well, Sabretooth escapes... but gets captured again. Gripping stuff, huh?

Something very unusual about this story is that it contains an explicit, unambiguous statement that Sabretooth kills because of mental illness, and not innate evil. It's on page 8 if you want to check for yourself.

Another side effect of the blackout is that Iceman (who's guarding Emma Frost at the time) is left in a coma after some of the X-Men's Shi'ar technology goes horribly wrong. This is a set-up for issue #314.

Jubilee has a panic attack while fighting Sabretooth. Bishop attributes this to Wolverine's departure from the team (in Wolverine #75).

Storm meets with Yukio in a club, and they get attacked by the Phalanx, in a subplot leading into the next issue.

Contrary to popular opinion:
Or at least, to the script's opinion... Despite what the Beast implies on the first page, his mutant powers didn't emerge at puberty.  They were there from birth.

This issue also contains a bemusing piece of pseudo-science for Bishop.  According to the script, Bishop can charge up by sitting out there in the snow, and abosrbing the energy released by each snowflake as it melts on his skin.  Now, the obvious problem with this is that snowflakes melt because they're heating up, which means they're absorbing energy, not releasing it.

Comments:
Well, yes, we've seen this one before, haven't we? Nasty villain escapes, heroes run around in the dark, all turns out well in the end. A bit ho-hum, and plagued by several examples of ludicrous science. As well as the example above, Bishop also seems somehow to be able to charge himself up by tearing holes in the mansion walls, sticking his hands into them, and running down the hall leaving a big gash behind him - since when did the Mansion have paper walls? Actually, aside from the dreadful science, it's not such a bad story, but nothing to write home about.

This is John Romita Jr's final issue as regular penciller, and he does a pretty good job. His Phalanx look wonderful, far more menacing than they would under the more cartoony style of his successor Joe Madureira. At the time, many fans considered Romita's art to be pretty shaky, but although it's far from his best work, it's still aged pretty impressively.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
The Beast (last in X-Men vol 2 #32)
Storm (last in X-Factor vol 1 #102)
Bishop (last in What If? vol 2 #60)
Iceman (last in the second story in X-Men: The Wedding Album)

SUPPORTING CHARACTER
Yukio (last in Wolverine vol 2 #60)
Jubilee (last in X-Men vol 2 #30)

VILLAINS
Sabretooth (last in X-Men vol 2 #31)
The Phalanx (last in issue #306)
Emma Frost

Revised: 6 October 2004

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