STORY: "Casualties of War" (23 pages)  The X-Men go to the Shi'ar Throneworld and defeat the Phalanx, stopping them from killing a generation of Shi'ar children.

What you need to know:
For the first time, we're shown a Shi'ar collective womb, where Shi'ar eggs are incubated.  Deathbird makes a nice little speech about this being the one aspect of Shi'ar society with no class elements, making this easily the best idea in the entire storyline.

Joseph is understandably drawing parallels between the Phalanx's massacre of the Shi'ar and Magneto's experiences in the Holocaust.  Of course, since we're told a few months later that Joseph isn't Magneto after all, it kind of makes nonsense of the whole thing.  Anyhow, Gambit starts worrying whether exposure to all this is going to bring back the real Magneto personality, which is certainly an interesting idea but doesn't really go anywhere.

Bishop and Deathbird are paired up throughout the issue in order to build up their romance.

In foreshadowing for the Operation: Zero Tolerance plot in X-Men, Robert Kelly and Henry Peter Gyrich discuss their concerns about the whole project.  They'll ultimately be responsible for the political manoeuvring that leads to OZT being shut down, although in a storytelling masterstroke, we won't get to see any of it.

Comments:
Thank god that's over.  Not that it's particularly worth the effort - all that, just for the Beast to blast the Phalanx into oblivion with a jury-rigged weapon?  We're expected to believe that a race who defeated what's supposed to be the most heavily armed interstellar army in the Marvel Universe can be knocked off that easily?  Load of nonsense.

The clunky rehabilitation of Deathbird continues, and once again Lobdell oversells it wildly, attempting to portray her as simply a political rebel rather than the vicious bastard she was clearly written as in previous stories.  The stuff with Joseph and Gambit is rather more interesting, though, and at least livens up a dull story a little bit.

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

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Deathbird
Trish Tilby
Lilandra Neramani (last in flashback in Imperial Guard #2)
Robert Kelly (last in X-Factor vol 1 #123; next behind the scenes in issue #346)

VILLAINS
The Phalanx (next in Warlock vol 4 #7)
Operation: Zero Tolerance (between Generation X #27 and X-Men vol 2 #64)
Magneto (in flashback; last in flashback in New Mutants vol 1 #49; next behind the scenes in flashback in Excalibur vol 3 #7)

GUEST APPEARANCE
Henry Peter Gyrich (last in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #456; next in issue #346)

OTHER CHARACTERS
The Shi'ar (...)

Last revised: 27 November 2004

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