STORY: "Lost In Space" (22 pages)  Having crashed on an alien world, Bishop and Deathbird help a freedom fighter to return to his world, but are left stranded themselves.

What you need to know:
The main theme here is Bishop and Deathbird's relationship, as she starts off determined to drag him back to the Shi'ar Throneworld as her consort or slave (she doesn't seem too bothered which).  By the end, they're teasing romantic interest.  This subplot turns up again in the long-forgotten Team X 2000 one-shot before being quietly dumped.

Scott and Jean plan to return to the X-Men - and no, they never get around to explaining what Scott was going to tell everyone in issue #356.  However, they're stuck in Ptarmigan Creek after the buyer of their house falls through.  (When on earth did they put the house on the market?  The other X-Men are still there from the previous story.)  Apparently everyone now knows that Scott and Jean are mutants, and kids are throwing bricks through the windows.

Jean is hit by a psi-blast and left catatonic.  This is a tie-in with the Psi-War storyline in X-Men vol 2 #77, where the psionic plane is seriously disrupted - something which seemed at the time like it was going to be a major plot but, as with everything else of this period, was just quietly ignored instead.

Comments:
This one's actually not too bad, since the Bishop and Deathbird relationship is moderately interesting in its own right, even if it doesn't lead anywhere.  The story does read a little oddly in retrospect, since readers are invited to sympathise wholeheartedly with Karel, a lone freedom fighter who intends to use a devastating anti-metal weapon to drive invaders off his world.  One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, as they say.

According to subsequent interviews, backstage relations between the creators and editors were pretty bad by this stage.  The issue is scripted, perfectly well, by Joe Harris, who later went on to write Bishop's shortlived solo series, Bishop: the Last X-Man.  Allegedly the editors rearranged the order of the pages before sending it to Harris for scripting - though the story reads quite naturally to me.

Chris Bachalo is back on the art in this issue, and does some of his better work.  The story isn't great, but does have its moments - this is one of the brighter moments of this fairly grim period.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
The Beast (next in Uncanny X-Men / Fantastic Four '98)
Iceman (leaves the X-Men after this story and appears next in X-Force / Champions '98)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Archangel (next in Excalibur vol 1 #125)
Bishop (next in Team X 2000 (one-shot))
Cyclops (last in X-Factor #149)
Phoenix III

VILLAINS
Deathbird (next in Team X 2000 (one-shot)
The Chnitt (last in issue #353; no further appearances)
The Ursaa and Tu (first and only appearance for both)

OTHER CHARACTER
Karel (first and only appearance)

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