STORY: "LegionQuest, part 4 of 4: Dreams Die!" (23 pages)  Legion tries to kill Magnus, but Xavier sacrifices his life instead.  The Age of Apocalypse timeline is created.

What you need to know:
More LegionQuest.  This is the issue which kicks of the Age of Apocalypse storyline which ran for the next four months, during which X-Men was suspended, and a title called Amazing X-Men ran in its place.  The Age of Apocalypse stories will be indexed together at a later date.

Legion's original plan was to kill Magneto; instead, he creates a horrible time paradox where he invalidates his own existence by killing his father before his own conception.  Fortunately, all of this is cancelled out at the end of the Age of Apocalypse storyline, in X-Men Omega - the X-Men from that timeline send their version of Bishop back to the divergence point, Xavier is saved, and everything gets reset to normal.

The X-Men and Legion both regained their memories in the previous chapter, by the way.

The public fight between Legion and the X-Men leads Apocalypse to come out of hiding years early.  This is presumably meant to justify why Xavier's death results in a world dominated by a villain who didn't even appear until the mid-1980s.

For reasons which were always a little tough to follow, the creation of the Age of Apocalypse timeline disrupts the M'Kraan Crystal, a giant cosmic crystal from early Phoenix stories in the late seventies, and causes a "crystallisation wave" which affects the whole universe.  This is why this issue, and all other X-books this month aside from Uncanny X-Men #321, end with the world turning to crystal mid-storyline.  The Crystal storyline was picked up in one of the minor Age of Apocalypse titles, Gambit & The X-Ternals, but for present purposes it's sufficient to say that everything was set right when the timeline was restored.

Rogue and Gambit kiss just before the world is frozen.  When time is restored, this works out badly for Gambit, who ends up in a coma. 

The final double-page spread shows scenes from all the other X-books that month, after they've been turned to crystal.  There's one panel which doesn't match any of those stories, and shows X-Treme fighting Eric the Red.  Fabian Nicieza finally picked up on this storyline when he was writing Captain Marvel.

Comments:
Given that it's really just a set-up for the Age of Apocalypse, it's surprising how well this holds up.  Okay, it's the destruction of the universe, which is pretty high stakes.  But everyone knows that's not going to stick - they're hardly going to blow up the Marvel Universe.

The story really comes together because Nicieza manages to sell this moment as the complete destruction of Xavier's dream.  And we do actually get a storyline which justifies that, even if it turns out to be self-cancelling.  To be fair, Age of Apocalypse was one of the superior 1990s crossover events (after all, at least it was story-driven and self-contained).  But LegionQuest did a great job giving it the launch it needed.  There's a genuine sense of something epic happening here, rather than just leading into another crossover. 

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last in Uncanny X-Men #321; next in Cable #20, then in X-Men Prime, then behind the scenes in Uncanny X-Men #322; also in the past, following Uncanny X-Men #321 and preceding X-Men Omega)
Cyclops, Archangel, the Beast, Phoenix III, Psylocke and Rogue (all last in Uncanny X-Men #321; all next in Cable #20, then in X-Men Prime, then Cyclops in flashback in Cable #46, then all but Rogue in Uncanny X-Men #322)
Iceman and Storm (both last in Uncanny X-Men #321; both next in X-Men Omega, then in X-Men Prime, then Storm in Uncanny X-Men #322)
Bishop (last in Uncanny X-Men #321; a divergent version becomes the Age of Apocalypse Bishop and appears next in X-Men Alpha; the mainstream Bishop appears next in X-Men Omega, then in X-Men Prime, then in X-Man #5, then in Uncanny X-Men #322, then in issue #43)
Gambit (last in Uncanny X-Men #321; next in Cable #20, then in X-Men Prime, then behind the scenes in issue #42)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Gabrielle Haller (in the past only; last in Uncanny X-Men #321; next in X-Men Omega)
Lilandra Neramani (next in Cable #20)
Magneto (last in Uncanny X-Men #315; next in flashback in Uncanny X-Men #393; also as Magnus in the past, following Uncanny X-Men #321; the Age of Apocalypse timeline diverges during this story, and the AoA version of Magneto appears next in X-Men Chronicles #1; the mainstream Magnus appears next in X-Men Omega)

VILLAINS
Legion (last in Uncanny X-Men #321; next behind the scenes in Cable #20)
Apocalypse (of the Age of Apocalypse timeline; first appearance of this version; last seen, before the point of divergence, in flashback in Cable '99; next in X-Men Chronicles #1)
Exodus (last behind the scenes in Avengers #382; next in X-Men Prime)
The Acolytes: Milan, Joanna Cargill, Carmella Unuscione (all next in X-Men Prime), Javitz (all last in Uncanny X-Men #315) and Katu (not analysed)
Eric the Red (last in issue #39; next in Captain Marvel vol 4 #2)

GUEST APPEARANCES
Cable and Domino (both between Uncanny X-Men #321 (Domino behind the scenes) and Cable #20)
X-Treme (last in issue #39; next in Captain Marvel vol 4 #2)

Revised: 4 January 2005

back | next