STORY: "X-Cutioner's Song, part 3 of 12: Fingers on the Trigger" (22 pages)   Stryfe has infected Professor X with a techno-organic virus in an assassination attempt (while impersonating Cable).  Meanwhile, Mr Sinister has kidnapped Cyclops and Jean Grey.  The X-Men set out to rescue their teammates and track down Cable, whom they still think was responsible for the shooting.  Apocalypse is woken; Cable returns from the far future; the X-Men and X-Factor confront X-Force; and Mr Sinister attacks the Mansion.

What you need to know:
This is the first month of X-Cutioner's Song, the big summer crossover for 1992.  The story began in Uncanny X-Men #294 and X-Factor vol 1 #84.  After this story, it continues into X-Force vol 1 #16, Uncanny X-Men #295 and X-Factor vol 1 #85 before leading into the next issue.

Sinister trades Cyclops and Jean Grey to Stryfe in exchange for a canister, which he believes contains a "genetic matrix."  He seems confident that it's something really worth having, but we never really find out why.  It doesn't matter, because as we find out at the end of the arc, the canister contains nothing of the sort - it actually holds the Legacy Virus, which Sinister will go on to release when he opens the canister.  (Of course, Stryfe could just have released the thing himself, but that wouldn't have been nearly villainous and scheming enough for him.)

Apocalypse is woken by his henchmen, the Dark Riders.  He's meant to be in some kind of recuperative sleep, and he's not best pleased about being interrupted, because it means he's underpowered for the rest of the storyline.  The Riders woke him because the Horsemen of Apocalypse claimed to be acting on his behalf when they kidnapped Cyclops and Jean Grey.  (In fact, they were working for Sinister, who was impersonating Apocalypse - but they don't know that.  It's that kind of storyline...)

There's an odd aspect about Apocalypse's awakening.  He's been in a temple in Egypt, and we're told that the place has been silent for "centuries" until Apocalypse woke up.  That seems a little odd, because he was running around fighting the original X-Factor team only a few months before.  It's presumably just an error, and it certainly never led to anything.

Cable returns to the present day from a vacation in the far future.  Not surprisingly, he's a bit alarmed to discover that everyone thinks he tried to murder Professor X.

This issue came in one of those early-nineties polythene bags that you're apparently not meant to leave the comics in, because they're full of acid.  It also contained the obligatory X-Cutioner's Song trading card - in this issue, it's Apocalypse.  On the reverse side, in excruciating purple prose, Stryfe basically reiterates the point that he's out for revenge on Apocalypse.  ("It will be a river of blood which spills between us, master of the forever past.  And it will be your ancient, congealed, dry-caked ichor which will splatter the landscape like dry heat, washing me down in its dusty tears of time."  Come to think of it, how the hell do you splatter the landscape with dry heat, and in what sense does Apocalypse's blood have "dusty tears of time"...?)

In the next four parts of the story:

Comments:
Ah, crossovers.  To be fair, "X-Cutioner's Song" was the first really significant interaction between X-Men and Uncanny X-Men.  It's also a storyline that I've already written about when I did the Uncanny X-Men index, so I can probably be fairly brief here.

As I've said before, though, I've got a soft spot for this storyline.  Okay, there was no need to drag X-Factor into it, and X-Force spend half the storyline sitting around doing nothing.  It's all about the X-Men and Cable, when you get down to it.  But as the antidote to decompressed comics, this is just great fun.  It's ridiculously convoluted, lots of people are running around in brightly coloured costumes, and they're all hitting one another.  And to be fair, the storyline actually hangs together pretty well, albeit that they reversed the ending only a couple of months later.

Andy Kubert debuts on art, beginning a very long association with the X-books - at the time of writing, almost 12 years later, he's pencilling Ultimate X-Men.  The early Andy Kubert is very much an early nineties artist and it's easy to see why Marvel put him on the book.  He's rather rough around the edges and he's not much for subtlety, tending to go hugely over the top at points.  His Bishop is particularly absurd, waving huge guns around like a man in need of urgent psychiatric assistance.  But there's a lot of energy there, which goes a long way towards making up for his faults.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Archangel, Bishop, Gambit, Psylocke, Rogue, Storm and Wolverine (all last in X-Factor vol 1 #84) and Iceman (last in Uncanny X-Men #294; all next in X-Force vol 1 #16, then in Uncanny X-Men #295, then in X-Factor vol 1 #85)
Professor X, the Beast (both last in X-Factor vol 1 #84) and Colossus (last in Uncanny X-Men #294; all next in X-Force vol 1 #16, then in Uncanny X-Men #295)
Cyclops, Jean Grey (last in X-Factor vol 1 #84; next in X-Force vol 1 #16, then in X-Factor vol 1 #85)

GUEST STARS
Cable (between Cable: Blood & Metal #2 and X-Force vol 1 #16)
X-Factor II: Havok, Madrox, Polaris, Quicksilver, Strong Guy and Wolfsbane (all between X-Factor vol 1 #84 and X-Force vol 1 #16)
X-Force II: Cannonball, Boomer, Feral, Rictor, Shatterstar, Siryn, Sunspot and Warpath (all between X-Factor vol 1 #84 and X-Force vol 1 #16)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Jubilee (last in Excalibur vol 1 #58) and Stevie Hunter (last in Uncanny X-Men #279; both next in X-Force vol 1 #16)
Moira MacTaggert (between X-Factor vol 1 #75 and Uncanny X-Men #295)

VILLAINS
Apocalypse (last in the third story in Namor Annual #3; next in Uncanny X-Men #295)
Mister Sinister (between X-Factor vol 1 #84 and X-Force vol 1 #16)
The Dark Riders: Barrage, Foxbat, Gauntlet, Harddrive, Psynapse and Tusk (all last in X-Factor vol 1 #68)
The Mutant Liberation Front I: Forearm (last in X-Factor vol 1 #84), Zero (both next in X-Force vol 1 #16) and Reaper (between X-Factor vol 1 #78 and #85)

GUEST APPEARANCES
Valerie Cooper (between X-Factor vol 1 #84 and X-Force vol 1 #16)
The Professor (between Cable: Blood & Metal #2 and X-Force vol 1 #16)

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