STORY: "Return to Hellfire!" (20 pages)  Archangel and Psylocke visit the Hellfire Club, and have a showdown with Shinobi Shaw.

What you need to know:
Sabretooth is now wearing shackles so that he can be brought out of his cell from time to time.

Psylocke appears to be flirting with Sabretooth, while simultaneously admitting her discomfort at the thought of having anything in common with him.

Warren's relationship with Charlotte Jones and Hank's relationship with Trish Tilby have both apparently hit the buffers.  This amounts to little more than a convenient excuse to kick both supporting characters to the kerb without formally writing them out. 

In Warren's case, it frees him up for a romance subplot with Psylocke.  That starts this month, as she accompanies Warren to the annual Hellfire Club gala.  Both of them inherited membership of the Club's legitimate social club from their parents.  They accept Shinobi's invitation in the hope of finding out what he's up to.

Shinobi makes a rather baffling attempt to recruit Warren into the Inner Circle.  He appears to be serious about it.  It's such an unlikely suggestion that you have to wonder what he's thinking.

A brief flashback to Shinobi's childhood establishes that daddy was nasty to him, but mummy was very nice.  No surprises there.

Tessa, the future Sage, turns up as Shinobi's aide.  As per a 21st century retcon, she's actually a double agent for Xavier (which begs the question of why the X-Men need to do something as silly as show up to the party).

There are a couple of oddball inclusions in the Hellfire Club's guest list.  Ronald Parvenue is a villainous businessman who had appeared in a couple of Wolverine storylines.  I'm not honestly sure why he's here - perhaps they were setting him up for a future storyline, and then abandoned the idea. 

Night Thrasher of the New Warriors also turns up.  He's there to trail X-Force vol 1 #32, the first part of a crossover between X-Force and New Warriors which wrapped up the Upstarts storyline (by kicking all the characters into touch rather than actually resolving anything). 

Preparations are underway for next month's wedding.

Comments:
Bit of an odd issue.  It comes across as part time-killer to fill a month before next month's wedding, and part a rushed attempt to do something with Shinobi Shaw before the Upstarts imploded next month (in the X-Force/New Warriors crossover "Child's Play").

Anyhow, it doesn't really work.  The idea seems to be that Shinobi has built his life around trying to achieve personal power so that he'll be at the top of the heap, rather than because he has anything particular plans for what to do with it.  Having got there, he finds it all a bit hollow.  Unfortunately, Shinobi's character doesn't come across very well in this story - his inexplicable attempt to bond with Warren, based on a handful of childhood meetings, might have worked if drawn out over a longer period, but it comes across as delusional here.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last in Uncanny X-Men #309)
Jean Grey (last in Uncanny X-Men #309; next in X-Men: The Wedding Album)
The Beast (next in Uncanny X-Men #310, then in pages 1-2 of What If? vol 2 #60)
Cyclops (next in Uncanny X-Men #310)
Psylocke (appears in X-Force vol 1 #32 between panels 3-4 of page 11)
Archangel (last in Avengers vol 1 #369; appears in X-Force vol 1 #32 between panels 3-4 of page 11; next in Uncanny X-Men #310; also in flashback following Logan: Shadow Society and preceding the Origins of the X-Men story in X-Men vol 1 #54)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Jubilee (next in X-Men: The Wedding Album)
Warren Worthington Jr (in flashback; last in Logan: Shadow Society and preceding the Origins of the X-Men story in X-Men vol 1 #54)

VILLAINS
Shinobi Shaw (between pages 7 and 21 of X-Force vol 1 #32; also in flashback which is his chronologically earliest appearance, preceding X-Factor vol 1 #67)
Tessa (between Uncanny X-Men #247 and Spider-Man Team-Up #1)
Ronald Parvenue (last in Wolverine vol 2 #77; no further appearances)
Sabretooth (next in Uncanny X-Men #310)
Sebastian Shaw (in flashback; last in Logan: Shadow Society; next in flashback in X-Men: Hellfire Club #4)

GUEST APPEARANCES
Night Thrasher (between New Warriors vol 1 #44 and X-Force vol 1 #32) and Vance Astro (behind the scenes concurrently with X-Force vol 1 #32)

OTHER CHARACTERS
Shinobi's mother (in flashback; first and only appearance)

Written: 7 October 2004

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