STORY: "Eyes of a New York Woman" (22 pages)  Bishop exposes the mysterious waitress as the supervillain Fatale.

What you need to know:
Pamela Greenwood, the waitress from back in Uncanny X-Men #299, is revealed as a disguised Fatale.  This whole story makes remarkably little sense; we're apparently supposed to take it that Fatale has been hanging around working in a bar ever since then, in the vague hope of getting close to Bishop (whom she's met twice in that entire period).  And, at the same time, she's been offing vexing X-Factor in their book.  It just doesn't hold up, but that's the story.

Despite the fact that he's supposedly been around for 20 years, the Dark Beast is shocked to see the Beast, apparently for the first time.  Since the Beast is a well known public figure, and makes no secret of his dual identity, it's difficult to decipher how the Dark Beast could possibly not have noticed him before now.  But again, that's the story.  Anyhow, this leads into a storyline where the Dark Beast abducts the real Beast in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #10, and then takes his place on the X-Men in the run-up to "Onslaught."

For some reason Bishop's on the verge of collapse near the beginning of this story.  I think we're meant to take it that it's the stress of his visions of the Age of Apocalypse.

The Dark Beast finally decides that Bishop is too dangerous to have around, and orders Fatale to kill him.  Then he loses interest in the whole idea a few pages later, and never gets back to it.

The Onslaught storyline continues, as Gateway abducts Chamber of Generation X.  His teammate M telepathically reads the word "Onslaught" in Gateway's mind.  Next issue, we're told that Gateway simply brought Chamber back again shortly after; the suggestion is that Onslaught thought better of having a telepath in his test, but I rather suspect this is just another example of them making up the storyline as they went along.

As for Gateway's involvement, we establish next issue that he's reluctantly working for Onslaught and trying to find ways of undermining him.  Again, none of this ever really makes much sense.

Comments:
Yes, well.  There's a mildly interesting idea in here, teasing that Bishop might be losing his grip on reality altogether as a result of his visions of the Age of Apocalypse.  Otherwise, it's a bit of a mess, as the Dark Beast and Fatale storyline is riddled with severe credibility problems.

This month's guest artist is Jeff Matsuda, who more usually worked on X-Factor.  Matsuda's never really been to my taste, as he has a tendency to deformed proportions which don't really work in superhero comics.  But he tones that down in this issue, and his basic storytelling is sound.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
The Beast (next in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #10, then in Uncanny X-Men #330, then in X-Men vs Brood #1-2)
Bishop (next in X-Men vs Brood #1-2)

VILLAINS
Fatale (next in X-Factor vol 1 #124)
The Dark Beast (next in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #10)
The Sugar Man (next in X-Man '96)
Onslaught (behind the scenes; last behind the scenes in issue #46; next behind the scenes in Cable #31)

GUEST APPEARANCES
The Banshee, Chamber and M I (next in Generation X #12; all last in flashback in Generation X #½)
Gateway (last in Exiles vs X-Men #0)
Havok (between X-Factor vol 1 #118 and #124)

Written: 5 January 2005

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