STORY: "Fatal Attractions: Dreams Fade" (38 pages)   After Magneto attacks the world with a devastating electromagnetic pulse, Professor X leads a group of X-Men to Magneto's satellite headquarters to fight him.  Magneto tears out Wolverine's adamantium.  Professor X wipes Magneto's mind, leaving him comatose.

What you need to know:
This is part of "Fatal Attractions", a weird little storyline which isn't really a storyline and isn't much of a crossover at all.  It's more of a banner which was applied to a particularly major issue of each X-book.

The UN activates the Magneto Protocols, which appear to consist of surrounding the planet with protective satellites designed to keep him out.  The satellites prove completely useless.  A touch oversensitively, Magneto treats this as an attack.

Magneto's response is to use an EM pulse to temporarily knock out most power and technology on the planet.  Not unreasonably, Xavier decides that drastic action is required.  In the interests of keeping the number of characters to a reasonable level, and getting the right dramatic combinations, "drastic action" means taking a small number of X-Men and using an exoskeleton to go up himself.  (Unlike the Silver Age leg braces, these ones require "tremendous exertion" to use, which is why he doesn't use them again.  Bit of a fudge, really.)

Anyhow, the selected team is Professor X, Wolverine, Gambit, Jean Grey, Rogue and Quicksilver, who isn't even an X-Man, but was at least a member of X-Factor at this point.  He's also Magneto's son, which is presumably the real reason for including him.

Rather conveniently, the X-Men have a previously unmentioned and never subsequently mentioned teleportation device which lets them just beam straight up to Avalon.  Uh-huh.

Colossus, technically a member of the Acolytes by this point, tries to avoid getting involved.  He doesn't tell the Acolytes that the X-Men have boarded the station.  Lucky he was on monitor duty at the time, really.

The X-Men's big plan - which actually makes some degree of sense - is to hijack Avalon's computer system, and then teleport everyone but Magneto and Colossus back down to Earth.  Surprisingly, it turns out to work.

Magneto rips out Wolverine's adamantium.  This plotline is continued in Wolverine vol 2 #75, as the X-Men race back to Earth with Wolverine to get his injuries seen to.  Wolverine remained without his adamantium for a few years until it was finally restored in a largely forgettable adjunct to the Twelve storyline.

Professor X retaliates by wiping Magneto's mind, leaving him in a coma.  That remained the status quo for the next year or so.  After that, Marvel introduced Joseph, who was originally meant to be Magneto, but eventually turned out to be a copy.  The end result is that the real Magneto doesn't turn up again as an active participant until Uncanny X-Men #350.  In the meantime, Colossus insists on remaining on Avalon to take care of him.

Xavier's mindwipe of Magneto was later - in Wolverine #104 - used as the explanation for the origin of Onslaught.  It's a bit tenuous, and doesn't have much bearing on this story.  Nonetheless, it was used to justify Onslaught as a hybrid of Magneto and Xavier's personas.

Yes, I know Captain Britain is on page 5, and he isn't in the listings below.  It's a continuity error - Captain Britain was tied up in a subplot in Excalibur at the time, so for continuity purposes he isn't really there.

That black rectangle on the cover is a hologram of Gambit.  Doesn't come out in the scanner, unfortunately.

Comments:
Time has not been kind to this one.  It's a big flashy fight issue which exists primarily to... well, if we're being honest, to justify having a big anniversary issue with a hologram on the cover.

The storyline purpose of this issue is to knock Magneto out of action, and to remove Wolverine's adamantium.  Both storylines ended with Marvel whacking the reset button, which makes it difficult to get that worked up about them.  The idea of removing Wolverine's adamantium was apparently suggested as a joke by Peter David during script conferences for the X-Cutioner's Song storyline.  I always liked the idea - it always seemed to me that the bone claws were much more in keeping with the feral nature of the character.  But fandom said otherwise, so the reset button was hit.

Nicieza tries to play this up as the big conflict where the urgency of the situation makes Xavier go into moral grey areas.  It's not a bad idea, but it doesn't really come off - Magneto seems to be sitting around peacefully on his satellite until he's provoked, and there's not really enough build-up in this storyline to justify this as the epic confrontation that the story would like to suggest.  Ridiculous contrivances like the exoskeleton and the teleporter don't help either - do the X-Men really have this stuff lying around the Mansion all the time and never use it?

Unfortunately, Andy Kubert's art is back to its histrionics in this issue.  I really don't like the visual for the removal of Wolverine's adamantium, where it appears almost liquid - shouldn't Magneto just be ripping chunks of solid metal out of Wolverine's body?  I suppose that would have caused problems with the Comics Code, but the art here just doesn't work for me.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last behind the scenes in Wolverine: Evilution; appears concurrently in flashback in Wolverine vol 2 #104), Cyclops and Jean Grey (both last in Uncanny X-Men #306; all next in Wolverine vol 2 #75, then in Excalibur vol 1 #71, then in X-Men Annual vol 2 #2)
The Beast, Bishop (both last in Uncanny X-Men #306), Iceman, Rogue (both last in Uncanny X-Men #305), Gambit (last in Gambit vol 1 #4) and Psylocke (last in Uncanny X-Men #304; all next in Wolverine vol 2 #75, then in X-Men Annual vol 2 #2)
Archangel (last in Uncanny X-Men #306)
Storm (last in Uncanny X-Men #306; next in Avengers vol 1 #368)
Wolverine (last in Wolverine: Evilution; next in Wolverine vol 2 #75, where he leaves the X-Men)

GUEST STAR
Quicksilver (not yet analysed)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
The Banshee (last in Uncanny X-Men #308), Moira MacTaggert and Revanche (all next in X-Men Annual vol 2 #2)
Jubilee (between Wolverine: Evilution and Wolverine vol 2 #75)
Sunfire (between Wolverine vol 2 #60 and Namor #45)

VILLAINS
Magneto (last in Uncanny X-Men #304; concurrently in flashback in Wolverine vol 2 #104)
Colossus and Exodus (both last in Uncanny X-Men #304)
The Acolytes: Joanna Cargill, Javitz, Harlan Kleinstock, Sven Kleinstock (all next in Cable #11), Milan, Carmella Unuscione (both next in Cable #9; all six last in Uncanny X-Men #304), Rusty Collins (next behind the scenes in Cable #10), Skids (next in Cable #10; the latter two both last in X-Force vol 1 #25) and Katu (between Uncanny X-Men #300 and Cable #9)
Onslaught (created behind the scenes in this story; his creation is actually seen in flashback in Wolverine vol 2 #104)

GUEST APPEARANCES
Forge (last in Uncanny X-Men #306; next appearance not yet analysed)
Mr Fantastic, the Thing and Nightcrawler (appearances not yet analysed)

Written: 30 September 2004

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