STORY: "Warriors of the Ebon Night" (19 pages)  Wolverine, Archangel and Doctor Strange enlist the aid of annoying mystic Gomurr The Ancient in order to gain access to the mystical Crimson Dawn and thereby save Psylocke's life.

What you need to know:
This story introduces the rather annoying mystics Gomurr and Tar, who appear in this storyline and the later X-Men Unlimited #12.  It also brings in the rather ill-defined concept of the Crimson Dawn, which is elaborated on a bit (but not enough) in the next issue.  The Crimson Dawn later forms the basis of several stories by Ben Raab in Excalibur and the Psylocke & Archangel: Crimson Dawn miniseries.

Archangel spends this issue and the next making repeated references to his injured wing.  That's something that happened in the Sabretooth one-shot.

Doctor Strange's references to "catastrophic magic" are to do with an ongoing plot in his own title at this time.  I have a vague feeling it was something to do with chaos theory, but maybe not.  It really makes no difference to this issue.  Strange's appearance in this story is somewhat unusual for this period in Marvel history, at which point the Marvel Universe had effectively partitioned into various groups of titles (of which the X-books were one), with very little interaction between them.

Oh, and if you've ever wondered why Jeph Loeb is occasionally referred to as a former X-Men writer... this and the next issue are the stories in question.

Comments:
Issues #329-330 are the two part Crimson Dawn storyline, which were rather poorly received at the time and haven't aged that well either.  The plot is the ever-serviceable quest storyline, as Wolverine and Archangel go off to look for the mystical plot device that will save their friend from death.  Unfortunately, it's all rather obvious.  Take two characters who traditionally don't get on that well and put them in a story together.  Bring in a painfully unfunny comic relief sidekick (although his explanation that "not just anybody can be Gomurr the Ancient. First you have to be called Gomurr..." is pretty good, admittedly).  Throw in a significant amount of pseudo-mystical bullshit.  Have the power of love save the day.  Vomit copiously.

About the best thing that can be said about this storyline is that Madureira does turn in some decent artwork, and the computer graphics on the weird ninja creature made entirely from steam are excellent.  But the story itself is simply very bland.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Archangel (last in X-Men & ClanDestine #1)
Psylocke (last in X-Men vol 2 #48)
Wolverine (last in Uncanny X-Men '95)

GUEST STAR
Dr Strange (last in Dr Strange vol 3 #90)

VILLAINS
Tar (Proctor of the Crimson Dawn; first appearance; chronologically last in flashback in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #12)

OTHER CHARACTER
Gomurr the Ancient (first appearance; a sorceror; chronologically last in flashback in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #12)

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