STORY: "Little Girl Morlock Lost" (23 pages)  Marrow goes on the run after Callisto tells her that she's leaving.  Storm, Cannonball and Callisto bring her back to the team.

What you need to know:
Callisto turns up at the Mansion, to tell Marrow that she's leaving.  It's not entirely clear what's going on here, since the wider storyline gets aborted after this issue.  Callisto's apparently been brought back to health by the character who abducted her in issue #74 (the Dark Beast, although he's only seen in shadow).  He's got plans to ensure Marrow remains with the X-Men, although it's never clear why, and nothing comes of it.  Callisto is somehow supposed to factor into these plans, although again, it's never clear why. 

Callisto has apparently escaped and gone to the Mansion without the Dark Beast's permission, so presumably she's intending to go underground.  On the other hand, the narrator says that she's been "unwittingly corrupted", so it's possible that she's under his influence.  It's all very murky.

A whole bunch of characters leave the team after this issue, in order to make way for the reshuffle next month.  Cannonball's mother is ill, and he returns home to look after her.  Cecilia Reyes, as we find out in Uncanny X-Men #360, quits to set up in practice as a doctor.  The Beast just disappears without explanation.  Maggott seems to be a victim of miscommunication - there's a scene here where the Beast suggests that he join Generation X, but he never actually does.

In a particularly glaring colouring error, the New York City scenes are shown (correctly) in darkness, but when we cut back to the Mansion on page 9, it's in broad daylight.  There's also a broken caption on page 17 leading into a flashback with Cannonball and Marrow that takes place earlier in the day, which wrongly labels the scene as taking place "weeks ago" and confuses matters no end.  It was presumably meant to run together with the previous caption ("...the minute she walked through the doors to the Xavier Institute weeks ago").

Comments:
To all intents and purposes, this is the final issue of the Joe Kelly run proper.  From here on in it's editorially mandated storylines and permanent ongoing crossover.  Kelly sticks around until issue #85, before publicly quitting, but it's not really his book any more.

Fortunately, it's a good issue to wrap up.  This issue finally completes Marrow's character arc and completes the transition that makes her a credible member of the team.  Even though the mechanics of the story don't quite make sense, because we never did find out what the whole Dark Beast/Callisto thing was about, the character moments hold up nicely.  Marrow's reaction to any obstacle, as ever, is to run away and find something to yell at.  Storm and Callisto play competing mother figures, and even the aborted subplot with Marrow's attraction to Cannonball is resolved.  Crucially, it really does feel like a turning point for Marrow, who finally learns the important lesson that she's got more in common with the other characters than she thinks, setting her on the road to being socially functional at last.

Of course, this is also a story where the well-meaning liberal superheroes - and particularly Storm - overcome their prejudices and learn that it's important to try and heal the poor, damaged terrorist.  Consequently, it might not play so well to today's American audiences; sentiments of this sort went rather out of fashion after 2001.  But Marrow really is a mentally damaged character rather than a true zealot, so the story really should hold up.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Storm (last in Uncanny X-Men/Fantastic Four '98; next in Uncanny X-Men #360; also in flashback preceding this story)
Marrow (next in Uncanny X-Men #360; also in flashback preceding this story)
The Beast (last in Uncanny X-Men/Fantastic Four '98; next in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #21, then leaves the X-Men)
Cannonball (last in Uncanny X-Men/Fantastic Four '98; leaves the X-Men after this story and appears next in X-Force vol 1 #83; also in flashback preceding this story)
Maggott (leaves the X-Men after this story and appears next in Generation X #48)
Cecilia Reyes (leaves the X-Men after this story and appears next in Uncanny X-Men #360)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Eeny and Meany (both last in issue #77; both next in Generation X #48)
Callisto (last in issue #74; next in Peter Parker, Spider-Man vol 2 #4)
Josh Guthrie (behind the scenes between Uncanny X-Men '95 and Uncanny X-Men #437)
Lucinda Guthrie (behind the scenes; last behind the scenes in Generation X #23; next in X-Force  vol 1 #83; also behind the scenes in flashback preceding this story)

VILLAINS
The Dark Beast (last in issue #74; next in X-Man #44)

The Dark Beast's appearance in issues #74 and #79 are presently missing from the MCP; I have them between X-Factor #144 and X-Man #44.

OTHER CHARACTERS
Officer Aguinal and Officer Cleveland (both last in issue #68; no further appearances for either; both also in flashback preceding this story)

Written: 31 May 2006

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