STORY: "Moving Day" (23 pages)  A prelude to Generation X (what, for the fourth month running?!)

What you need to know:
Effective from this issue, the X-Men's Mansion is renamed The Xavier Institute For Higher Learning. The former Massachusetts Academy becomes Professor Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters. (It's since changed back.)

Cyclops and Jean Grey are back on the active roster and tell Professor X what happened to them in the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix miniseries. Basically, they were taken into the far future and spent a decade raising Cable as a child. I have grave problems with this entire plot - see Comments. Oh, and from this issue on, Scott and Jean move out of the mansion and set up home in the boathouse.

In a classic example of foreshadowing without having worked out the plot in advance, Professor X muses that he fears Cyclops and Phoenix will "pay the dearest price" before the Legacy Virus is defeated. Never referred to again, naturally.

Sean and Emma are revealed as the headmasters who will be training Generation X, although given how widely that was promoted in advance, it can't have surprised too many readers.

Iceman goes to visit Emma to ask how she did all those great tricks with his powers back in issue #315. She basically tells him to try harder and doesn't help him at all.

Comments:
And oh look, here comes more prelude stuff for Generation X. For the fourth bleeding month in a row.

Now, if you're a Generation X reader, all well and good. The story does show us the new team in a situation where they aren't about to get killed, and so it's a nice introduction to the team. The subplot with the extremely cynical Skin threatening to walk out does work, and there's a nice sense of the X-Men's role as trainers being formally handed over to Sean and Emma, even if it's a bit meaningless since the X-Men weren't really doing any training before.

But if you're looking for X-Men stories... well. There's some worthwhile development of the ongoing subplot with Iceman feeling insecure after Emma used his powers better than he could, although the scene is undermined by some pretty dreadful artwork. The way in which the X-Men's plots are being crammed in is all too clear from the treatment of Scott and Jean, though. These characters have supposedly been away for a decade (their time), yet they slip back in as if they'd never been away. This is just plain wrong.

So far as the art's concerned, Roger Cruz - still in his bad Jim Lee phase - turns in work that varies from okay through to just plain awful. The cover, though, is one of Joe Madureira's best. So that's alright, then...

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last in X-Force vol 1 #38; next in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #7, then in Secret Defenders #19, then in X-Men Annual vol 2 #3, then in Bishop #1-2, then in Bishop #4, then behind the scenes in Generation X #1, then in Excalibur vol 1 #84-85, then behind the scenes in X-Factor vol 1 #108, then in X-Men vol 2 #38, then in X-Force vol 1 #40)
Archangel (last in Cable #16; next in Secret Defenders #18-19, then in X-Men Annual vol 2 #3, next in Bishop #4, then behind the scenes in Excalibur vol 1 #83)
The Beast (last in Cable #17; next in X-Men Annual vol 2 #3, then in Bishop #4, then in X-Men vol 2 #38, then in X-Force #40)
Bishop (last in Cable #16; next in X-Men Annual vol 2 #3, then in Bishop #1-4, then in Excalibur #83, then in X-Men vol 2 #38, then in issue #320)
Cyclops (last in Cable #17; next in X-Men vol 2 #38-40, then in X-Force vol 1 #43, then in issue #321)
Gambit (last in Cable #16; next in X-Men Annual vol 2 #3, then in Wolverine vol 2 #87 and #89, then in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #7, then in Bishop #4, then in X-Men vol 2 #38, then in Rogue vol 1 #1-4, then behind the scenes in Marvel Holiday Special 1994, then in X-Men vol 2 #40, then in issue #321)
Iceman (last in Cable #16; next in Secret Defenders #18-19, then in X-Men vol 2 #38)
Phoenix III (last in Cable #17; next in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #7, then in X-Men vol 2 #38-39, then in issue #320)
Storm (last in Cable #19; next in X-Men Annual vol 2 #3, then in X-Men Unlimited #7, then in Bishop #1, then behind the scenes in Bishop #2, then in Rogue vol 1 #1, then in Marvel Holiday Special 1994, then in issue #320)

GUEST STARS
The Banshee, Emma Frost, Monet St Croix II, Everett Thomas, Paige Guthrie, Angelo Espinosa and Jubilee (all last in X-Men vol 2 #37; all next in Generation X #1, except Jubilee, who appears next in X-Men Annual vol 2 #3)

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