STORY: "Relativity" (22 pages)  Creed has Iceman's father beaten up after he makes sympathetic comments about mutants in a TV interview, and Iceman decides to leave the X-Men to take care of him while he recovers.

What you need to know:
This issue ties up the running subplot about Iceman's father being a bigoted moron which had been prominent over a year before. And does so fairly satisfyingly, in fact.

Sam's been so successful at his undercover work that he's now Creed's personal assistant.  Yet another example of the sort of cretinism on Creed's part that made him such a failure as a villain. Fortunately, this is the last we see of Creed - his storyline is shunted over to X-Factor, where he is mercifully killed.  Mercifully for us, anyway.

This story also has the first appearance of Creed's absurdly large bodyguards, later named as Boyd and Mathers.  It's vaguely hinted in future stories that they're somehow involved in the plot to kill Creed, but do you really care?  They'll be back in Operation: Zero Tolerance, anyhow.

Comments:
It's still the god-awful Creed plot, but this one's got something to recommend it.  It's basically a load of characters - Bobby, Sam, Ororo and Creed - talking about their relationships with their fathers, which is a bit more interesting than it sounds.  Particularly good is Ororo's monologue about how she relates to parents who have been dead for years, which ends up with the obvious "I wish they were alive", but gets there by a more interesting, and accurate, route than you might imagine.

Joe Madureira is back on the art, and does a pretty decent job considering that this is a conversation story - not exactly what he's best known for.  In fact, some of his artwork here is extremely good, when he's keeping his manga tendencies under control and using a bit of understatement.  When he goes melodramatic, on the other hand, it's all a bit much to take seriously.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Cannonball II (last in X-Men vol 2 #59; next in DC/Marvel: All Access #3-4, then in X-Men '96, then in X-Factor #130, then in X-Men Forever #2, then again in X-Factor #130, then in X-Men vol 2 #60, then in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #455, then in Beast #1-3, then in X-Men '97)
Gambit (last in X-Men vol 2 #58; next in DC/Marvel: All Access #2, then in X-Men '96, then next in X-Men '97)
Iceman (last in X-Men vol 2 #59; leaves the X-Men; next in DC/Marvel: All Access #3)
Phoenix III (last in X-Men vol 2 #59; next in the Cyclops & Phoenix story in Marvel Valentine Special #1, then in DC/Marvel: All Access #3-4, then in X-Men '96, then in X-Men vol 2 #60-61, then in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #455, then in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #13, then in Silver Surfer vol 3 #123, then in the second story in X-Man '96, then in X-Man #25, then in Uncanny X-Men '97)
Storm (next in DC/Marvel: All Access #3-4, then in X-Men '96, then in X-Men vol 2 #60-61, then in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #455, then in X-Men '97, then in Cable #41-42, then in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #14, then in Uncanny X-Men '97)
Wolverine (last in X-Men vol 2 #59; next in DC/Marvel: All Access #2, then in X-Men '96, then in Wolverine vol 2 #107-110, then in Marvel: Shadows & Light #1, then in Marvel Fanfare vol 2 #2, then in X-Men vol 2 #61, then in Wolverine: Black Rio, then in X-Men '97, then in Wolverine vol 2 #111-114, then in Psylocke & Archangel: Crimson Dawn #1, then in issue #341)

SUPPORTING CHARACTER
William Drake

VILLAINS
Carly Alvarez (in flashback; last in X-Men vol 2 #59; no further appearances)
Graydon Creed (between X-Men vol 2 #58-29)
The Creed Campaign Team (between X-Men vol 2 #59 and X-Factor #130)
Agent Boyd and Agent Mathers (first appearance of both; Prime Sentinels, as revealed in issue #346; both next in X-Factor #130)

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