STORY: "Trials And Errors" (36 pages)  Magneto, disguised as Erik the Red, puts Gambit on trial for his involvement in the Morlock Massacre.  The X-Men escape, but Rogue abandons Gambit in the Antarctic.

What you need to know:
Ah yes.  This one.  The key point of this story is that Gambit recruited the Marauders on behalf of Mr Sinister, and he showed them where the Morlocks were living. Rogue (on behalf of the X-Men) then kicks Gambit out of the team and abandons him in Antarctica when the rest of the team return home.  Gambit's solo title subsequently reveals that he gets rescued by the New Son.

Now, this causes a certain continuity problem, in that the original Morlock Massacre told us that the Marauders had simply followed some Morlocks back from the surface.  This story is irreconcilable with that.

A flashback shows us that Gambit gathered the Marauders for Sinister in exchange for a vial, the contents of which were hotly debated over the years but are now the subject of a storyline in his solo title.  According to Gambit, the vial means that he will never again have to take a job he does not want.

Gambit points out, quite correctly, that Sinister could easily have collected the Marauders himself.  Sinister doesn't reply to that, although he gives us what's presumably meant to be an enigmatic smile.  One possible interpretation is that Sinister didn't need Gambit to collect or lead the Marauders at all, and that it's all a set-up to frame Gambit, but quite why Sinister would want to do that is unclear.

Something which has gone pretty much unnoticed over the years is that Gambit only takes the vial in payment for gathering the Marauders.  He at first refuses Sinister's request to lead the Marauders, until Sinister offers him yet another unspecified price. Pretty much nothing has been said about what that price was.

Spat and Grovel are revealed to be working for Magneto.

This time around, Archangel actually presses Psylocke for an explanation of what bothers her so much about Maggott.  She replies that part of him is missing, claims that she feels "compelled to discover what it is within him that attracts me so", and then teleports to Antarctica with him and Archangel for absolutely no good reason other than to get everyone into Antarctica at the same time.  How helpful.

Curiously, when Gambit is being addressed by Magneto in darkness, he claims to recognise the voice as Mr Sinister. Assuming that Gambit really does recognise Sinister's voice, this would raise the question of how Magneto knew it.

Bizarrely, Magneto lists Prism as one of the victims of the Marauders despite the fact that he was a Marauder himself.  The other victim he names, Scaleface, was a genuine bit part character from the original storyline.

Joseph collapses when he gets near Magneto, presumably because he's overpowered by the presence of the original.

Professor X is in jail following Operation: Zero Tolerance, and has a dream of the X-Men (in various line-ups) asking where he is and why he has left them.  Gambit offers to tell the other X-Men why the Professor has left (though he doesn't get any further before the Professor wakes up), and Cyclops keeps telling Xavier that "He's here again, Professor", presumably a reference to the return of Magneto.  The significance of this scene is not immediately apparent.

Maggott recognises Joseph as Magneto and claims to view Magneto as a friend.  However, when the real Magneto turns up, Maggott recognises him as well and accepts Magneto's instructions to "co-operate and you shall be free."  Again, this bears little resemblance to the back story Maggott was eventually given. In any event, Maggott turns on Magneto to join the X-Men's attack on him (without any comment being made by Magneto).

For no apparent reason, Magneto wears an Erik The Red costume to conduct Gambit's show trial.  This is the costume originally used by Cyclops as a disguise back in the 1960s, and later reused as a Shi'ar supervillain identity (without any real explanation) in the 1970s.  Other than the obvious fact that Magneto doesn't want the X-Men to recognise him, it's not at all clear why he's chosen this costume.

In a subplot page reminding us of what the other half of the team are up to following Operation: Zero Tolerance (going home, basically), Cannonball is shown having doubts about his place on the team.

For the benefit of anyone who cares, Magneto's robotic aide Ferris first appears here.  Geddit?  Ferris, ferrous...  How we laughed.

According to Psylocke, she has known about Gambit's involvement with the Morlocks since she read his mind in issue #330, but the memories have been locked away until now.  Seems a bit unlikely.

We're shown a flashback to the Morlock Massacre which confirms for the avoidance of doubt that Gambit rescued the young Marrow from the Marauders.

Oddly, according to Ferris, there are two lifeforms left in the citadel after Magneto and the X-Men have all left.  Since Gambit is outside the building at this point, he might conceivably be referring to Spat and Grovel.

Comments:
Um...

First of all, for anyone who's wondering, I've listed Scott Lobdell as an uncredited co-writer on this story because Steve Seagle's comments on Usenet after the issue came out included the explanation that part of the issue had already been written, and indeed drawn, before he got near it.  Certainly several of Lobdell's ideas did make it into the final storyline.

The issue is technically the first issue for Lobdell's replacement Steve Seagle, who came as something of a surprise given that at the time he was working on an eccentric relaunch of Alpha Flight and a decidedly arthouse Vertigo title called House of Secrets. While undoubtedly an extremely talented writer, he didn't seem the obvious choice for a mainstream superhero book.  This was widely viewed as a positive thing.  Of course, this issue was a rush job for Seagle, and it's hardly fair to treat this as the real beginning of his run.  (Seagle indicated at the time that issue #353 should be seen as the "real" start of the run.)

This is also the end of Joe Madureira's run on the book.  After this he went off to join Cliffhanger, where he published issues of BattleChasers on the rare occasions that he could be bothered. Despite what they tell us about the declining state of the comics industry, showing up for work is apparently still an optional extra for the top names.  In typical style, Madureira draws about half the issue, leaving the remainder to Andy Smith, a fill-in artist who cropped up from time to time in books like X-Men Unlimited but would not normally be found on a flagship title.

The net effect is that this issue looked at the time, and looks in retrospect, like a bit of a rushed mess.  The ending, with the X-Men dumping Gambit in the Antarctic and effectively leaving him to die, has been widely criticised as hopelessly out of character.  At the time, Seagle explained that Rogue had been motivated by Gambit's own self-loathing, which she had picked up when she kissed him earlier in the issue.  Problem is, Gambit's conscious at the time (so she shouldn't have his personality), and in any event, the other X-Men should step in to stop her.  It's a ridiculous scene however you look at it, and it's a miracle that Fabian Nicieza managed to sledgehammer it into some kind of decent starting point for a story in Gambit's solo series.

Not so much a story as a monument to the chaos that the X-Men office was in at the time, unfortunately.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Cyclops and Phoenix III (both last in Wolverine vol 2 #118; both next in X-Men vol 2 #70, then in Cable #50, then in Journey Into Mystery #513, then in flashback in issue #376, then in X-Men vol 2 #71, where they leave the team)
Storm and Wolverine (both last in Wolverine vol 2 #118; both next in X-Men vol 2 #70-71)
Archangel (next in issue #352)
The Beast (next in X-Men vol 2 #70, then in Journey Into Mystery #513, then in X-Men vol 2 #71, then in issue #352)
Cannonball II (last in Wolverine vol 2 #118; next in X-Men vol 2 #70-71, then in issue #352)
Joseph (next in X-Men vol 2 #70, then in issue #352)
Rogue (next in X-Men vol 2 #70-71, then in issue #352; also in flashback preceding this story)
Psylocke (next in Iron Man vol 3 #1, then in issue #353)
Gambit (expelled from the X-Men; next in flashback in Gambit '99; also in flashback preceding this story; also in flashback following the flashback in Wolverine/Gambit: Victims #3 and preceding Uncanny X-Men #266; between page 31 panels 6-7 of that flashback, he appears in flashback in Gambit vol 3 #7)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Trish Tilby (next in X-Men vol 2 #70)
Maggott, Meany and Eeny (all next in X-Men vol 2 #70)
Professor X (last in Wolverine vol 2 #115; next in flashback in X-Men vol 2 #83)
Marrow (in flashback following the flashback in Gambit #7 and preceding the flashback in Cable #15)

VILLAINS
Magneto (next in X-Men vol 2 #72)
Ferris (Magneto's robot; first appearance; last in flashback in Gambit '99; next in X-Men vol 2 #85, where he is named)
Grovel (no further appearances)
Spat (next in Gambit cybercomic)
Landscape (behind the scenes; no further appearances)
Mister Sinister (in flashback; last behind the scenes in issue #193; next behind the scenes in flashback in X-Factor #38)
The Marauders: Sabretooth (in flashback following Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #119 and preceding his appearance behind the scenes in issue #210; also in flashback following his appearance behind the scenes in issue #210 and preceding X-Factor #10), Scalphunter (in flashback following the flashback in issue #215 and preceding issue #210; also behind the scenes in flashback between pages of issue #210), Arclight, Blockbuster III, Harpoon, Prism, Riptide, Scrambler and Vertigo II (all in flashback ...)

GUEST APPEARANCE
Jubilee (between Wolverine vol 2 #118 and Generation X #32)

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