STORY: "Digging Deeper Between Hope and Sorrow" (21 pages)   Rogue and Gambit go on a date, while and Jubilee deals badly with the death of Illyana Rasputin.

What you need to know:
Rogue and Gambit finally go on a proper date.  Unusually, no supervillains attack and nothing out of the ordinary happens.  The big event is that Rogue shows her trust in Gambit by offering to tell him her real name.  He stops her - apparently Gambit's happy enough just to know that she'd be willing to tell him if he wanted.  (Consistent with Gambit's own less-than-forthcoming approach to his history.)

Gambit still wants to kiss Rogue, though he won't press the point.  Oddly, Gambit still seems irrationally convinced that he might somehow be immune to Rogue's powers.  This is eventually paid off after the LegionQuest storyline, when we establish conclusively that he isn't.

Sean Cassidy returns to the Mansion.  Two main reasons for this.  Firstly, he was quietly written off in order to send him hunting for Moira MacTaggert when she got upset about rewriting Magneto's personality.  Since that plot was dropped and Moira returned to treat Illyana Rasputin, Sean's plot was similarly derailed.  Secondly, they need Sean at the Mansion because in a few months time, they're going to launch Generation X, and he's going to be in the cast.

Sean and Moira talk about rekindling their relationship, but since they quickly get split up by the launch of Generation X, this goes nowhere.

Scott Summers returns from Alaska, and we quickly re-establish that his relationship with Jean is back on track.  The whole "seduction by Psylocke" thing has been superseded by the new storyline about Psylocke's identity crisis.

Scott passes on to the X-Men the lecture he got from Mr Sinister last issue.  Reasonably enough, the X-Men aren't convinced they want to trust anything Sinister says.

Psylocke and Revanche spend a few pages sparring, in what seems to be an attempt to keep their storyline ticking over until Nicieza and get back to it properly.

Shadowcat tries to comfort Jubilee, who's very upset about Illyana's death.  Jubilee won't let her.

Comments:
A downtime issue with various subplots simmering.  Far be it from me to suggest that they wanted to kill a month because the Fatal Attractions crossover wasn't going to be until issue #25.  But this isn't a bad issue, actually - Nicieza uses the breathing space as an opportunity to bring the character subplots into the foreground.

I like the idea of using Rogue's real name in this way.  By this point, unless Rogue revealed herself to be the daughter of a supervillain or something along those lines, the revelation of her real name was always going to be a crushing anticlimax. 

Unusually, there's no inker credited on this issue.  (The art credits simply say "Andy Kubert and company".)  Given Kubert's reliance on fill-in artists, I'd be surprised if he had had the time to ink his own work here.  In fact, it's a very distinctive looking issue, and certainly doesn't seem to be the work of multiple inkers.  It looks a little like somebody trying to mimic Bill Sienkiewicz's inking style, come to think of it.  The end result is much rougher and less slick than Kubert's usual work from this period, and all the better for it.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last in X-Factor vol 1 #93; next in Uncanny X-Men #304, then in Gambit vol 1 #1, then in Uncanny X-Men #305-306, then behind the scenes in Wolverine: Evilution)
The Beast (last in the Infinity Crusade crossover) and Jean Grey (last in Uncanny X-Men #303; both next in Uncanny X-Men #304, then in Uncanny X-Men #306)
Cyclops (last in X-Factor vol 1 #93) and Psylocke (both next in Uncanny X-Men #304)
Gambit and Rogue (both next in Uncanny X-Men #304, then in Gambit vol 1 #1-4, then Rogue in Uncanny X-Men #305)
Wolverine (last in X-Factor vol 1 #93; next in Wolverine vol 2 #72-74, then in Uncanny X-Men #304, then in Marvel Comics Presents #138-142, then in Wolverine & Punisher: Damaging Evidence #1-3, then in Wolverine: Evilution)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Revanche
Moira MacTaggert (last in flashback in X-Men Omega)
The Banshee (between Moon Knight vol 3 #41 and Uncanny X-Men #308)
Jubilee (last in flashback in Generation X #27; next in Wolverine vol 2 #72)

GUEST APPEARANCE
Shadowcat (between Uncanny X-Men #303-304)

Written: 30 September 2004

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