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STORY: "Operation: Zero Tolerance -
Last Exit" (21 pages)
Iceman and his allies track down Bastion and confront him.
What you need to know:
It's the final Scott Lobdell issue, hence the title.
Sabra turns up to help the X-Men (or
rather, Iceman's makeshift group). She's got a loose
plan to go after Bastion by attacking his "Achilles heel", by
which she seems to mean Rose Gilberti. In practice this
means that Iceman and co attack her mansion and try to rescue
Timmy Jones, and Bastion's already there waiting for them.
Bastion gives a vague account of his
origin, claiming that he was once "less than human" but was
reincarnated by a "judgmental god." He says that
Gilberti took him in and acted as his mother. This is
the closest he's come so far to explaining his actual origin -
he's the Master Mold robot that was blasted through the Siege
Perilous - and the full version is given in Machine
Man/Bastion '98.
Bastion also insists that he only wants to
wipe out mutants because he's convinced they can't co-exist
with humans. If Xavier's dream was workable, he says, he
would happily fight for it.
Kelly and Gyrich - who didn't even seem
that interested in the idea last issue - have talked the US
government into withdrawing support for OZT. Off panel.
SHIELD duly sweep in and shut OZT down, and the story ends.
Comments:
Horrible. Sabra's stolen information ends up being
nothing more than a plot device to get Iceman and Bastion in
the same room. They have a big fight, during which
Iceman delivers a fairly standard lecture about humanity and
the evils of bigotry. And then SHIELD turn up and story
ends. After a four month storyline sprawling across
multiple titles, it's about as unsatisfactory an ending as its
possible to imagine.
The art's great, of course, but
that's about all this has got going for it.
FEATURE CHARACTERS
None
GUEST STAR
Sabra (next in issue #72)
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Iceman, Cecilia Reyes and Marrow
Robert Kelly (next in issue #73)
Timothy Jones (no further appearances)
VILLAINS
Bastion (last in Wolverine vol 2 #117; next behind
the scenes in Wolverine vol 2 #118) and
Operation: Zero Tolerance (no further appearances)
Rose Gilberti (next in Cable/Machine Man '98)
GUEST APPEARANCES
Henry Gyrich (next in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #458)
SHIELD (continuity not analysed)
Written: 28 December 2005
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