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FIRST STORY: "Heart & Soul" (35
pages) Shinobi Shaw tries and fails to recruit Storm
into his new Hellfire Club.
What you need to know:
Shinobi Shaw unveils his new Hellfire Club, consisting of
Benedict Kine, Benazir Kaur and Reeva Payge. And if
you're thinking, "who?", then that's not surprising.
Kine turns up in one later appearance, but otherwise, none of
them ever show up again. For what it's worth, Kine
controls the human nervous system, Kaur can create temporary
tumours (hugely useful, I think you'll agree), and Payge uses
ultrasonics to create hallucinations.
Shaw has allied himself with Candra, a
nineties-era Gambit villain, who is apparently behind his new
version of the Hellfire Club. This never heads anywhere
either.
Comments:
A bit of a strange issue, in retrospect. It's
written by Ian Edginton, who had no real involvement with the
X-books at this point (though he later wrote X-Force
during Counter-X). Nonetheless, it introduces a
completely new incarnation of the Hellfire Club, which was
almost immediately dropped. It seems highly unlikely
that Edginton would have been allowed to completely reinvent
the Club while writing what's essentially a fill-in issue,
particularly given that he ties them into Candra.
Presumably this issue was meant to start off a new storyline
for the Hellfire Club, but it's rather hard to identify quite
whose idea this was - Fabian Nicieza tells me that he had
nothing to do with it.
It's actually not a bad issue, if
you can overlook the fact that it's a false start. It
plays off a very Claremont-like idea of Shinobi releasing a
darker side of Storm's personality through drugging her, and
there's a good strong central story. More to the point,
though, it's also got art by Gene Ha. Okay, he'd get a
lot better in later years, and it's filtered here through
seven inkers. But it still looks pretty good.
FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last in Secret Defenders #19; next in
Bishop #1-2, then in Bishop #4, then behind the
scenes in Generation X #1, then in Excalibur vol
1 #84-85, then behind the scenes in X-Factor vol 1
#108, then in X-Men vol 2 #38)
The Beast (last in Uncanny X-Men #318; next in
Bishop #4, then in X-Men vol 2 #38)
Bishop (last in Uncanny X-Men #318; next in
Bishop #1-4, then in Excalibur vol 1 #83, then in
X-Men vol 2 #38)
Gambit (last in Uncanny X-Men #318; next in
Wolverine vol 2 #87 and #89, then in X-Men Unlimited
vol 1 #7, then in Bishop #4, then in X-Men vol 2
#38)
Archangel (last in Secret Defenders #19; next in
Bishop #4, then behind the scenes in Excalibur vol
1 #83, then in Uncanny X-Men #319, then in X-Men
vol 2 #40)
Storm (last in Uncanny X-Men #318; next in X-Men
Unlimited vol 1 #7, then in Bishop #1, then behind
the scenes in Bishop #2, then in Rogue #1, then
in Marvel Holiday Special 1994, then in Uncanny
X-Men #320, then in X-Men vol 2 #40)
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Jubilee (between Uncanny X-Men #318 and Bishop
#1)
VILLAINS
The Hellfire Club: Shinobi Shaw (between X-Force
vol 1 #33 and Spider-Man #43), Benedict Kine
(first appearance; next in Spider-Man Team-Up #1),
Benazir Kaur and Reeva Payge (first and only
appearance for the latter two)
Candra (last in Gambit vol 1 #4; next in
X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #7)
SECOND STORY: "A Moment of Silence"
(10 pages) The Banshee tries to rescue weapons designer
Patrick Lipton from HYDRA. Years before, Lipton had
sacrificed his freedom in order to save the Banshee.
What you need to know:
As usual with back-up strips in annuals, not much.
It fills in some details from Banshee's early career in
Interpol, and that's about as important as it gets.
Comments:
An odd one, this. Jim Krueger and Steve Yeowell have
been around forever, but this seems to be their only brush
with the X-books. It's pretty missable, but to be fair,
it's a lot more ambitious than most of the short stories which
are used as back-ups in the Annuals.
FEATURE CHARACTER
The Banshee (last in Deadpool vol 1 #4; next in
Uncanny X-Men #316; also in flashback following the second
story in Classic X-Men #16 and preceding the flashback
at page 8 of X-Force vol 1 #31)
VILLAINS
HYDRA (continuity not yet analysed; also in flashback, not yet analysed)
OTHER CHARACTERS
Patrick Lipton (first appearance; dies; also in flashback)
Brigadier McBride and
Miss Price (first and only appearance for both)
Updated: 10 December 2004
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