STORY: "The Nature of Evil" (22 pages)  Having failed to persuade Rogue to return to the team (in X-Men #45), Gambit is thoroughly depressed, and takes it out on the captive Sabretooth. Meanwhile, Professor X and the Beast stage an argument at a WHO conference on the Legacy Virus to try and undermine the media coverage, though the Beast has misgivings about the whole plan.

What you need to know:
The Legacy Virus plot gets advanced very slightly in this story. However, subsequent comments by writers from this period make it clear that that X-books office had no clear idea of where they were going with the whole thing and often just shoved in ideas in the vague hope that it would lead somewhere.  So really, anything you read about the Legacy Virus from this period is worth bugger all. But if you care, the story goes out of its way to suggest that the Virus acts like "a designer gene."  And god alone knows what that was supposed to mean.

However, one plot which does seem to have been more or less thought through is Gambit's secret, and there's quite a bit on that. Why is Gambit going to such efforts to make sure Sabretooth remembers his past?  It seems that he's decided that if he's not allowed to put the Morlock massacre behind him and move on, he's damned if Sabretooth is going to get the same chance.  Or, more charitably, perhaps he genuinely thinks that Sabretooth needs to be reminded of these events if he is to have a real chance of improving himself.  In any event, this story makes a lot more sense in the light of issue #350's revelations that Gambit was himself associated with Sabretooth's team the Marauders and was peripherally involved in the massacre.

Curiously, the Beast and Professor X wheel out Valerie Cooper to support their argument at the WHO conference.  Although Cooper does have a doctorate and it's possible that she may have scientific qualifications, she's certainly not a practicing scientist, and there's something almost quaint about the way the story acts as if a statement from the US government is a reassuring thing.

Comments:
Ah, now this is a good one - an all too rare example of the A and B plots both working well, fitting into the larger picture, complementing one another and raising some interesting ideas. Honest.

Gambit's rather enigmatic motivations provide the main interest in this story.  There's a very well handled scene with Storm early on which almost manages to turn the absurd issue #325 into a virtue - she can only justify her killing of Marrow by claiming that "the true nature of a person cannot be changed", which is precisely what Gambit doesn't want to hear when he's trying to convince himself that he's left behind his time as an associate of the Marauders. Gambit's sudden interest in trying to get Sabretooth back on track, unfortunately filtered through a complete lack of subtlety or psychiatric ability on his part, also makes interesting reading.

The Legacy Virus plot, meanwhile, does contain some rather dull information about the Virus itself but is far more interesting for the Beast's moral qualms about manipulating the media in this way. Even though the position he's trying to get reported is simply that the Virus is a small scale thing and not something to panic about - not essentially misleading, although Xavier does throw in some complete lies himself - he's obviously unhappy about the methods he's being forced to adopt, rather than the message he's trying to send.

Which is not to say the issue is flawless by any means.  Wheeling out Valerie Cooper as some kind of scientific authority just doesn't work, the Legacy Virus itself is as boring and poorly thought through as ever, and there are serious problems with Storm's reactions on finding Gambit tormenting Sabretooth.  Although she does intervene, her sympathies evidently lie far more with him, and for her to respond by leaving Sabretooth in a tiny cell - drawn by Madureira as too small for him to stand - is far worse than anything Gambit was doing.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last in Wolverine vol 2 #92; next in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #8, then in Excalibur vol 1 #88, then in Cable #23, then in X-Man #10, then in Wolverine vol 2 #93, then in Exiles vs X-Men #0, then in X-Men & ClanDestine #1-2, then in X-Man #11-12, then in X-Men vol 2 #47, then in X-Force vol 1 #48, then in issue #328)
The Beast (next in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #8, then in Wolverine vol 2 #93, then in Exiles vs X-Men #0, then in X-Men & ClanDestine #1, then in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #9, then behind the scenes in Excalibur vol 1 #93, then in Spider-Man Team-Up #1, then in Age of Innocence, then in issue #328)
Gambit (last in X-Men vol 2 #45; next in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #8, then in Exiles vs X-Men #0, then in Ghost Rider vol 3 #67-68, then in X-Men vol #2 46-47, then in Spider-Man Team-Up #5, then in X-Force vol 1 #51, then in X-Men vol 2 #48, then in issue #330)
Iceman (behind the scenes; last in X-Men vol 2 #45; next in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #8, then in Exiles vs X-Men #0, then in X-Men/ ClanDestine #1, then in X-Men vol 2 #46-47, then in Sabretooth: In the Red Zone, then in X-Men vol 2 #48, then in X-Men vs Brood #1-2, then in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #10, then in X-Men vol 2 #50, then in issue #331)
Storm (next in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #8, then in Cable #23, then in Wolverine vol 2 #93, then in Exiles vs X-Men #0, then in Wolverine vol 2 #96, then in X-Men/ClanDestine #1-2, then in Uncanny X-Men '95)

VILLAIN
Sabretooth (between X-Force vol 1 #47-48)

GUEST APPEARANCES
Boomer (between Wolverine vol 2 #93 and X-Force vol 1 #48)
Valerie Cooper (between X-Men: Prime and X-Factor vol 1 #114)
Moira MacTaggert, Douglock and Meggan (all between Excalibur vol 1 #87-88)
Renee Majcomb (between Cable #23 and Onslaught: Epilog)
Nightcrawler (between Excalibur vol 1 #87 and #89)

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