STORY: "Collector's Item" (19 pages)  Sinister abducts Bishop, Gambit and "the Beast" after they thwart his train plan.  They escape.

What you need to know:
Sinister's very interested in Bishop.  He claims to have been tracking all the mutants in the world and to know about their bloodlines.  (As the narration points out, this has got to be an exaggeration, since he doesn't know about characters like the Dark Beast.)  He doesn't have any of that information for Bishop, which intrigues him. 

On scanning Bishop's mind, Sinister finds out that he's a time traveller, which explains things.  He also finds out that Bishop "came to our era to capture a traitor to the X-Men."  This seems to be the first time Sinister learns about the X-traitor plot, which is being brought up again so that they can resolve it during Onslaught.  (The X-traitor turned out to be Onslaught himself.)  Actually, Sinister's psi-scan is wrong.  Bishop came back to capture Trevor Fitzroy; he only got worked up about the traitor later on.

Sinister also starts to discover information about the Age of Apocalypse, but doesn't get very far before the X-Men escape.

The Dark Beast correctly works out that there's some sort of connection between Mr Sinister and Gambit.  This ended up referring to Gambit's involvement in the Morlock Massacre, as finally revealed in Uncanny X-Men #350.  The Beast plans to keep this information to himself and exploit it later.  He never does.

Bastion debuts, turning up to inspect the wreckage of the train.  At this point he's just a shadowy figure in a trenchcoat, who's got some sort of official standing.  He doesn't get fleshed out until after Onslaught, when Scott Lobdell established him as the leader of the anti-mutant Operation: Zero Tolerance.  A couple of years later, in the Cable and Machine Man annuals for 1998, Bastion was finally revealed as the reincarnation of Nimrod and the Master Mold, who had gone through the magical Siege Perilous portal way back in Uncanny X-Men #247.

Rogue sets up home in Pine Bluff, South Carolina.  Again, this doesn't really go anywhere, because in the next few issues she hooks up with Joseph, and the two of them get swept up by the Onslaught storyline.

Comments:
One of those stories which is perfectly effective so far as it goes, but in retrospect, you can tell that it's setting up for all sorts of stories which never happened.

For some reason, Sinister's a bit of a wimp this month.  Normally he can take down the team without breaking a sweat, but this time he's having trouble with Bishop and Gambit.  It's actually a change for the better, because Sinister's mad scientist gimmick doesn't need to be backed up with insane personal power levels.  But it does read a little strangely if you're used to Sinister wiping the floor with everyone.

Regular artist Andy Kubert returns.  It's typically over the top nineties art, although the style works quite well on Sinister.  After all, with a costume design like that, he really needs to be as far over the top as he can possibly go.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Gambit and Bishop (next in Generation X #13-14, then both in Uncanny X-Men #333-334, then in issue #54)

SUPPORTING CHARACTER
Rogue (between X-Man #11 and X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #11)

VILLAINS
Mr Sinister (next in X-Man #18)
The Dark Beast (next in Uncanny X-Men #333)
Bastion (first appearance as Bastion; last in flashback in Machine Man/Cable '98; next in X-Force vol 1 #54)

OTHER CHARACTERS
Mrs Watkins (Rogue's landlady) and Stevie Watkins (her son; first and only appearance for both)

Written: 6 April 2005

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