STORY: "Where No X-Man Has Gone Before!" (22 pages)  The X-Men team up with Deathbird to escape the Phalanx, who were responsible for the massacre.  They make their way to one of her safehouses and then teleport to the Shi'ar Throneworld to fight the main army.

What you need to know:
This issue sees the character design for the Phalanx being given a total overhaul.  The Phalanx Covenant storyline was generally considered to have been rather unsuccessful, and this story marks a second attempt at getting it right.  Unfortunately, it just confused matters, since everyone had previously assumed that the Phalanx were the same race as Warlock and Magus (the Technarch).  Since the Phalanx as seen in this issue look nothing like them and dismiss the Earth Phalanx as "transient unit", the effect was to throw Phalanx continuity into a state of chaos where it remained for years until Warlock made a stab at resolving matters.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, we're reminded that Bastion has captured Jubilee in Generation X #25.

Comments:
Somebody wake me when this storyline is over?  This is moving at a snail's pace, and it's not like there's that much material to stretch out.  The new design of the Phalanx isn't that great even allowing for the continuity problems - if they're supposed to be a collective consciousness, how come they now have individual names, for example?  They come across as a lot less powerful than they were before, overall.  This is probably deliberate, since one of the problems with them was the contrived ways in which the X-Men had to defeat them before.  But it makes it hard to believe that these people are the real Phalanx and the much more powerful versions were just some kind of agents.  Besides, the Phalanx have no real motivation for anything they do in this story, so who cares what they do anyway?  And god, those speech patterns are annoying.

Lobdell is also making a pretty heavy handed bid throughout this storyline to rehabilitate Deathbird and turn her into a sympathetic character.  This is presumably being done with a view to setting her up as a love interest for Bishop, as seen in subsequent issues.  In principle, humanising an evil thug like Deathbird is generally a good move, but Lobdell's overdoing it here.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
The Beast, Bishop, Gambit, Joseph and Rogue

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Deathbird and Trish Tilby

VILLAINS
The Phalanx
Operation: Zero Tolerance (between X-Factor #135 and Generation X #26)
Bastion (between Generation X #25 and X-Men vol 2 #64)
Harper (between Cable #40 and Wolverine #117)

GUEST APPEARANCE
Jubilee (between Generation X #2 and X-Men vol 2 #64)

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