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STORY: "Deathbound Train" (19 pages)
Sinister uses a designer virus to turn a train of commuters
into "mutants" for his experiments.
What you need to know:
Since last issue, the Dark Beast has abducted the Beast
and replaced him on the team. That happened in X-Men
Unlimited vol 1 #10. Quite how he managed to fool
all the X-Men's telepaths, is never really satisfactorily
explained. The Dark Beast is trying to hide from Mr
Sinister by posing as one of the X-Men, although you'd have
thought this was a needlessly dangerous way of hiding from
him.
Nonetheless, the X-Men haven't twigged, so
the Dark Beast trots merrily off to help Gambit and Bishop
deal with Sinister's train of mutants. He's more
interested in exploring what's going on than actually helping
people, but in fairness to him, he does genuinely assist his "teammates."
And, of course, he duly blunders into the very man he's
supposed to be hiding from in the course of his very first
mission. He really hasn't thought this through, has he?
Sinister's virus turns people into mutants,
but they go back to normal when they're knocked out. So
the Dark Beast just uses a makeshift anaesthetic on them all.
Frankly, it's all a bit plot-convenient, and even Sinister
regards the whole scheme as a waste of his time.
Professor X finally gets Cerebro back up
and running. It was smashed during the fight with the
Phalanx in Uncanny X-Men #316.
Scott and Jean visit the Grey family.
Jean catches Scott surreptitiously testing Joey and Gailyn
(you know, her late sister's children) for mutant powers.
She isn't impressed that he's taking that sort of interest in
them. Anyhow, they're not showing any particular signs
of mutation.
Scott claims to be 25, which is a bit of a
stretch.
Professor X phones up Louis St Croix (the
ambassador from Uncanny X-Men #305) and asks whether
his Mutant Underground cell will be supportive if the X-Men
have to take "drastic measures" to stop Graydon Creed from
becoming president. This never goes anywhere; presumably
it was setting up a subplot that was abandoned after Mark Waid
left.
Reportedly this story was originally going
to be called "Hellbound Train", but this was back in the dark
days of the Comics Code Authority, and references to Hell were
considered highly problematic.
Comments:
Issues #51-56 are the abortive Mark Waid run. This
calls for a little explanation.
In 1996, Mark Waid was a solidly
established superhero writer. His run on Flash
had done well. He'd been getting good reviews for his
run on Captain America, which was finally starting to
gain sales after years in the doldrums under previous
creators. He'd also just been hired to write Avengers,
which had also been languishing. He seemed an eminently
good choice to write the X-Men, and apparently signed up for a
six-month trial period.
It didn't work out. Waid
and Uncanny X-Men writer Scott Lobdell singularly
failed to develop a working relationship, to put it mildly.
Waid was relatively polite about this in public. Lobdell
wasn't, and when Waid quit, he told Wizard magazine
that "I couldn't be happier."
On top of this, Marvel decided it
would be an excellent idea to hand over four of their
superhero titles to Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld to reinvent from
scratch. This was Heroes Reborn, an utter disaster on
many levels - although to be fair, it did re-restablish
the titles as top sellers, so it succeeded in its stated aim.
Waid was unceremoniously kicked off Captain America and
Avengers (before his run on the latter title had even
really begun). You can get a real sense of Marvel's lack
of internal co-ordination from the house ads around this time,
which are proudly pushing all the storylines that were just
about to be truncated to make way for Heroes Reborn. The
left hand really didn't know what the right hand was doing.
And as for X-Men? He
got to spend four months working on the Onslaught storyline,
which was not only an incoherent, badly planned mess, but
existed for the primary purpose of justifying his own firing
from Captain America and Avengers.
Waid stuck out his six months and
left. And frankly, who can blame him?
Anyhow. That leaves us with
the Mark Waid run - two issues of actual story, four issues of
Onslaught. This and the next issue are pretty much a
conventional superhero story, where a crisis emerges and the
X-Men rush off to deal with it. It mainly serves as a
backdrop to set up the Dark Beast as a member of the team.
His imposture was a somewhat interesting idea, but again,
never really went anywhere. He just hung around for a
few months before Onslaught exploded the whole situation,
without much of a pay-off for his involvement. Still,
he's quite interesting here, and despite all the credibility
problems, it almost makes me wish they'd run with this story
for a little longer.
Guest art comes from Pascual
Ferry, who hasn't really nailed his style at this point.
Of course, it's also a fill-in issue, which always encourages
artists to tone it down a bit. It's a bit floppy and
curvy, though, compared to the more angular style he later
developed. It could stand to be a bit tighter, but the
story is told well enough.
FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last in Wolverine vol 2 #102; next in
Uncanny X-Men #333, then in Storm #1, then in
issue #53)
Bishop and Gambit (both last in Uncanny X-Men
#331)
Cyclops and Phoenix III (both last in Wolverine
vol 2 #101; both next in Uncanny X-Men #333, then in
X-Force vol 1 #55, then in Storm #1-2, then in
Storm #4, then in Excalibur vol 1 #96; after that,
Phoenix appears in issue #53, while Cyclops appears in
Uncanny X-Men #334, then in issue #54)
The Beast (behind the scenes; last in X-Men
Unlimited vol 1 #10; next in issue #53)
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
John Grey, Elaine Grey, Gailyn Bailey and Joey Bailey
(all between X-Men vs Brood #1 and X-Man #30)
VILLAINS
Mr Sinister (last in X-Man #12)
The Dark Beast (last in Uncanny X-Men #331)
Graydon Creed (between Spectacular Spider-Man
vol 2 #237 and Uncanny X-Men #333)
OTHER CHARACTERS
Louis St Croix (last in Uncanny X-Men #305; no
further appearances)
Revised: 9 April 2005
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