STORY: "The Mask behind the Facade" (22 pages)   The X-Men find Nyoirin's diary, and an explanation (of sorts) of what happened to Revanche and Psylocke.

What you need to know:
The Samurai gets beaten up by the Psylocke Twins in the first five pages.  Thanks for dropping by, Kenuichio.

The battle conveniently exposes a hidden compartment containing Nyoirin's diary.  This gives us the original version of "What happened to Psylocke and Revanche."  In this version, Kwannon was on an assignment from Nyoirin when she found Psylocke, who had just been through the Siege Perilous.  When Kwannon touched her, their minds fused together, resulting in the mindswap.  Psylocke ran off in Kwannon's body, while the real Kwannon ended up being nursed back to health by Nyoirin.  (Revanche's interpretation of all this is that they never swapped minds at all, but simply swapped a few traits around.  However, she's probably lying about that, and in any event Nyoirin turns up at the end to clarify the point.)

This version is relatively straightforward, but nothing is ever so simple in early nineties X-books.  Because it doesn't work.  It contradicts Uncanny X-Men #255, which established that Psylocke still looked British when she was taken in by the Hand.  Oops.  Hence the overhaul in issue #31.

There's a meeting of Japanese crimelords, attended by Matsuo, Tatsuo, Nyoirin and Shinobi.  (If you're struggling to remember who Tatsuo is, he was the guy responsible for the cyborg samurai who tried to kidnap Opal Tanaka.  A fairly obscure villain, and he doesn't do anything all that significant here.)  Shinobi turns up late and treats the meeting flippantly, until he realises that he's crossed the line and starts making insincere apologies.

The other Japanese crimelords don't want to move in on Hong Kong, since they assume the Mandarin is bound to return from the dead at some point and claim it for himself.  Shinobi doesn't seem so sure.

Shinobi claims, for the first and only time, that his main concerns are to be left alone to pursue his business, and to protect his mother from other criminals.  Apparently Shinobi feels that "she suffered enough at the hands of my father."  This plot thread never goes anywhere.

In Alaska, Scott recaps the last few years of Madelyne and Nathan plots for the benefit of his grandparents.  They are understandably befuddled.

Mr Sinister turns up at the house as "Mike Milbury", a neighbour with whom the Summers are apparently familiar.  It's unclear whether he's impersonating a real person, or alternatively whether Milbury is simply a cover identity and Sinister really is maintaining an entire life in Anchorage.  Scott drops by to visit him and ends up being confronted by Sinister.

Comments:
The confusion!  The confusion!

Many of the plot revelations about Psylocke and Revanche in this issue can be ignored, because they were superseded in issue #31.  It's a fairly complicated explanation to start with (mind swap, but not going quite right), but in theory it might have led to some interesting stories about identity.  However, in practice the story is getting tied up in knots by this point, and any wider point is being lost in the chaos.

Shinobi is still being uncharacteristically interesting in his subplot scenes.  Also, the art is improving - Kubert is at least toning down the histrionics a bit, and characters are being posed more naturally, though it would be going too far to say that anything in this issue was subtle.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
The Beast, Cyclops, Gambit and Psylocke

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Revanche
Deborah Summers and Philip Summers (both next in issue #30)

VILLAINS
Lord Nyoirin, Shinobi Shaw, Matsuo Tsurayaba and the Silver Samurai
Tatsuo (between X-Factor vol 1 #64 and #112)
The Gamesmaster (next in Uncanny X-Men #301)
Mr Sinister (last in X-Force vol 1 #18)

Written: 8 September 2004

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