STORY: "Untapped Potential" (23 pages)  Iceman takes Rogue to meet his parents for dinner, only for his father to wreck the evening with his bigoted comments. Meanwhile, Archangel and Psylocke go to a restaurant and declare their love for one another.

What you need to know:
In a scene foreshadowing the upcoming Age of Apocalypse storyline, Legion visits his father in a dream, and helpfully explains the plot. According to the good Professor, Legion has apparently merged all his seperate personalities into one. Supposedly this accounts for his enormous power increase in this storyline. Anyhow, he plans to go back in time and kill Magneto, thereby allowing Professor X to proceed with his dream unopposed.

Warren finally gives an explanation of why he's so rich even though an X-Factor plotline had him supposedly losing the family fortune to Cameron Hodge. It turns out he just lost the family business, but there's a fair bit besides which he still owns.  (By 2003, he seems to have somehow got the business back.)

Comments:
This issue comes as something of a relief simply by virtue of actually containing an X-Men story. For an indication of the state the title was in at around this time, consider this. The preceding four issues are all devoted to plugging Generation X. The next two issues are lead-in material for the Age of Apocalypse crossover, and then the book gets put on hiatus for four months while a load of miniseries carry the crossover (which has bugger all impact on this title in the long run). So basically, this is the only issue in about a year long period which is really devoted to advancing the plot.

Unfortunately, it's rather a mixed issue. On the plus side, the Psylocke and Archangel stuff is good. Sure, it gets a tad mawkish at time, but it scores heavily for openly acknowledging the drivel which normally plagues X-Men relationships and promising to play it straight. A nice change, and consequently one of the many reasons why the later Crimson Dawn plot that complicated Psylocke enormously was such a dreadful error.

The Rogue and Iceman stuff ought to work, and on a few moments comes close to something worthwhile, but blows it by writing Iceman's father so far over the top that it's impossible to imagine what he can be thinking. This is really beyond melodrama, although Steve Epting's excellent artwork goes a long way to saving it.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last in X-Force vol 1 #40)
Archangel (last behind the scenes in Excalibur vol 1 #83; next in X-Men vol 2 #40, then in X-Force vol 1 #43, then in issue #321)
The Beast (last in X-Force vol 1 #40; next in Marvel Holiday Special 1994, then in the second story in Force Works #10, then in X-Men vol 2 #39-40, then in issue #321)
Iceman (last in X-Men vol 2 #38; next in Marvel Holiday Special 1994; also in flashback which is his chronologically earliest appearance, preceding the flashback in X-Men Forever #5)
Psylocke (last in X-Men vol 2 #38)
Rogue (last in X-Men vol 2 #38; next 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)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
William Drake (last in issue #308; next in X-Men vol 2 #58; also in flashback which is his chronologically earliest appearance, preceding the "Origins of the X-Men" story in issue #44)
Madeline Drake (last in issue #308; next in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #15)

VILLAIN
Legion (between pages of X-Factor vol 1 #109)

Last revised: 1 December 2004

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