STORY: "The Phalanx Covenant, book one: Generation Next, part three: Enter Freely And Of Your Own Will" (22 pages)  The Phalanx capture M, Skin, Husk and Blink, but they escape. Meanwhile, the Banshee and Emma Frost break into a SHIELD base to try and find out where the kids are.

What you need to know:
From an X-Men point of view, not much. This is another part of the Phalanx Covenant crossover, and once again the X-Men aren't in at all. It's really an issue of Generation X.

And from that point of view, you may be thrilled to learn that it has the debut appearances of Skin and Blink - a throwaway character who nonetheless developed a big fanbase.  She only made two appearances, dying in X-Men vol 2 #37, but a parallel universe version was introduced in the Age of Apocalypse before ultimately ending up in Exiles.

It's also the first issue where M comes out of her catatonic state to do something, and the first issue where M, Skin and Husk meet. Other than that... not much you need to know.

Comments:
More Generation X stuff, and consequently another issue you can safely skip if you're only interested in the X-Men. However, if you actually are interested in Generation X, this is a decent introduction to most of the team. Sure, they're all a bit one dimensional at this stage - Husk acting as if she's much more experienced than she really is, M being arrogant and enigmatic, Skin as a sarcastic bastard - but the story does make a decent job of setting up some of the team dynamics and persuading you that you might want to read about these people again.

The subplot with Emma and Sean isn't anywhere near as interesting, though. So they bicker - it's hardly unexpected. Having them waltz straight into a SHIELD base without being noticed (after Sean somehow disrupts all their sensors sonically? Uh?) is just plain silly, though. And while Harvest has a nice little speech about how he joined the Phalanx for decent reasons but has abandoned them all now that he's in the collective, it's very difficult to get worked up about villains as bland as the Phalanx. Sure, they're powerful, but they're not very interesting.

Oh, and this story is one of only two appearances for Blink (or at least, the mainstream version), who unfathomably had an enormous fanbase that kept demanding her return for a while. Eventually, the Exiles version seemed to satisfy them.  The appeal of this version, I've never understood - she's really just a poor whimpery thing who heroically sacrifices herself in the end to lend a bit of finality to the story. I mean, she's okay, but throwaway characters usually have to be a lot more special than this to get fans.

Anyhow, at the end of the day this is a decent enough story if you're interested in Generation X. If you're actually looking for an X-Men story, look elsewhere.
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FEATURE CHARACTERS
None

GUEST STARS
Monet St Croix II, Paige Guthrie, Everett Thomas (all last in X-Men vol 2 #36), Angelo Espinosa (chronologically last in flashback in Generation X #34) and Clarice Ferguson (first appearance for the latter two; all next in X-Men vol 2 #37)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
The Banshee, Emma Frost and Jubilee (all between X-Men vol 2 #36-37)

VILLAINS
The Phalanx and Harvest (all between X-Men vol 2 #36-37)

GUEST APPEARANCE
SHIELD (???)

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