THE PHOENIX RESURRECTION: GENESIS #1 – December 1995

Credits:  Ian Edginton & Dan Abnett (writers), Darick Robertson, Mark Pacella, Greg Luzniak, & Rob Haynes (pencilers), Tom Wegrzyn, Art Thibert, Larry Stucker, Bob Wiacek, Phillip Moy, & Bob Almond (inkers), Vickie Williams (letterer), Rob Alvord & Malibu (colors)

Summary:  An alien mothership marooned on Earth sends a probe into space, looking for a power source.  The weakened barrier between universes allows the probe to make contact with the Phoenix Force.  Inside the Marvel Universe, the X-Men meet with Banshee, who’s concerned about Gateway’s recent behavior.  He shows the team a painting made by Gateway, depicting the X-Men and Ultras surrounding the Phoenix.  While the team studies the painting, Gateway abruptly teleports them to the Ultraverse.  The X-Men witness the mothership shoot energy out into the cosmos, which soon seizes the Phoenix.  Prime suspects the X-Men are responsible for the strange event and picks a fight with them.  A wounded Phoenix falls to Earth and selects Prime as its new host.  Ultraforce arrives to defend their teammate Prime, unaware of the danger posed by the Phoenix.  Eventually, the Phoenix leaves Prime and searches for a new host.  While watching the battle on television, teenager Rose Autumn collapses.  Later, in New York, Amber Hunt of the Exiles is selected by Phoenix as its next host.

Continuity Notes:  

• The X-Men appearing this issue are Storm, Wolverine, Bishop, Beast, and Rogue.  Banshee and Jubilee are also teleported away by Gateway.
• As established in previous Marvel/Malibu crossovers, Marvel heroes “operate at reduced power in this reality” for reasons that aren’t explained here.
• The Phoenix is searching for a host in order “to survive, to mend, to heal.”  Phoenix is acting erratically due to “the great ship's stabbing probes.”
• The alien mothership is responsible for the creation of Ultras (the term for superheroes in the Ultraverse), as revealed in the Break-Thru miniseries.
• Rogue shouldn’t be a member of the team this point, unless the story is set before the “Age of Apocalypse.”  Given the looks of Storm, Wolverine, and Bishop (with the long hair), this story would have to take place a year before it was published.  Another continuity problem, however -- Wolverine didn’t rejoin the X-Men until right after the “Age of Apocalypse” event ended.  Wolverine and Rogue weren’t teammates simultaneously during this era until she reappeared during “Onslaught.”  By the time Rogue had rejoined, Storm, Wolverine, and Bishop all had new looks.

Production Note:  Inker Bob Almond’s name was accidentally left off the credits this issue.  He’s given credit in a later issue.

How Did This Get Published?:  That is not the Phoenix emblem on the top of the cover!

Review:  Let’s be frank…no one expects this miniseries to be any good, right?  It has everything going against it.  It’s a forced cross-continuity crossover, generated by higher-ups in order to sell hardcore Marvel fans on an unrelated superhero universe.  Someone’s decided to release the double-sized issues on a biweekly basis, ensuring that each chapter has enough pencilers and inkers to start their own softball league.  No one inside Marvel editorial seems to have the slightest interest in its events, and Marvel’s actual comics only acknowledge its existence by running ads for mail-order firms like American Comics, who are promoting variant cover exclusives.  

All that said, the first official is downright readable.  Not the highest compliment, I realize, but I have to confess that the story is not only coherent, but interesting enough to carry the reader on to the next issue.  There’s no creative experimentation with the form, which is to be expected, but it is a competently executed superhero comic that does what it set out to do -- have heroes from different universes meet and fight each other.  

I was dreading the use of the Phoenix, assuming that the creators would present a dumbed-down interpretation of the concept and just dump it into the story as a universe-melding plot device.  Edginton/Abnett actually stay pretty loyal to the original premise and develop internally logical justifications for its place in the story.  Apparently, this is a payoff to a storyline that’s been building in the Malibu books for a few months, with the barriers between universes weakening just as the Ultras learn the full origin behind their powers.  Now, the cosmic force responsible for creating the Ultras has encountered the Phoenix, driving the Phoenix to search for a new host, which naturally leads to a hero vs. hero fight scene.  That’s the most boring aspect of the issue; thankfully Edginton/Abnett keep the fight relatively short, then move on to some character interaction scenes and a moral debate over whether or not the heroes can justify killing the Phoenix’s host if it means sparing the Ultraverse.  Honestly, so far, this seems more coherent than any Phoenix story Marvel’s published in the past fifteen years or so.  The art is as inconsistent as I was expecting, but there are only a few drawings so freakishly “x-treme” that they distract from the story.  I’m skeptical if the rest of the event rises to the great heights of “readable,” but I have to admit that it’s off to a surprisingly decent start.

SPIDER-MAN: DEAD MAN’S HAND #1 - April 1997

Aces & Eights

Credits:  Roger Stern (plot), Joe Edkin (script), Darick Robertson & Dan Lawlis (pencilers), Keith Aiken (inks), Christie Scheele & Ian Laughlin (colors), Comicraft (letters)

The Plot:  SHIELD scientist William Allen is exposed to Miles Warren’s virus, transforming him into the third Carrion.  He uses his newly developed powers to turn portions of New York into zombies.  Spider-Man quarantines a group of zombies, then jumps onboard a SHIELD helicopter.  At SHIELD’s headquarters, Spider-Man learns that the Tinkerer’s son has been infected by the zombie virus.  With the Tinkerer’s help, Spider-Man teleports to Wundagore Mountain and asks the High Evolutionary for help.  He refuses, sending Spider-Man back to New York.  Spider-Man turns to Miles Warren’s journal for inspiration, and soon abducts Carrion.  SHIELD scientists are able to cure the zombie plague, and are confident that William Allen can be cured of the Carrion virus.  One of the scientists consulting SHIELD reveals himself to Spider-Man as the High Evolutionary, telling him that he changed his mind after thinking about their conversation.

Web of Continuity:  

• This story establishes the first Carrion as a true clone of Miles Warren.  The second, Malcolm McBride, was created by a virus left by the High Evolutionary in order to sell his story that Miles Warren never created clones.  
• At one point in continuity, Miles Warren was established as an apprentice of the High Evolutionary.  The original retcon was intended to reveal that Miles Warren could never create clones, only genetic duplicates, but the Clone Saga re-established Warren’s cloning ability.
• The High Evolutionary tells Spider-Man that the memories William Allen inherited from Miles Warren are incomplete, meaning that he doesn’t know Spider-Man’s secret ID.  

*See _________ For Details:  The Scarlet Spider learned that the High Evolutionary altered the contents of Miles Warren’s journal in order to cover up his ability to create clones in Scarlet Spider Unlimited #1.  The Maximum Clonage one-shot established Miles Warren created a virus intended to wipe out mankind.  

Production Note:  This is a forty-eight page one-shot, with ads, and a wraparound cover.  The cover price is $2.99.

Review:  When Gerry Conway established back in the 1980s that Miles Warren never actually created clones, this lead to a series of letters asking the question “What about Carrion?”  We know this because Spectacular Spider-Man ran an entire letters page dedicated to these letters.  The answer was revealed in Spectacular Spider-Man #149, making Carrion another product of the genetic replicator virus Warren created.  You could argue that downgrading Warren’s creations from clones to genetic duplicates was playing semantics, but I do think the creation of the second Carrion was a worthy effort.  Under Gerry Conway, and later J. M. DeMatteis, Malcolm McBride was sympathetic, tragic character in the classic Marvel tradition.  Plus, I think Carrion has a strong design, so I’m glad the character was revived in some way.

Years later, the original clone storyline was revisited, and it’s decided that Miles Warren really could create clones after all.  I’ve stated before that this re-retconning didn’t add anything to the overall storyline, and only served to create more hurdles for the creators at the time.  And, unlike Gerry Conway, no one seemed to care enough to answer the question “What about Carrion (II)?”  Two years later, this one-shot appeared, coming out of the office of the more continuity-conscious Tom Brevoort and Glenn Greenberg.  Roger Stern is once again tasked with cleaning up other writers’ sloppy work and trying to get a coherent story out of what could easily be a mess.  His solutions (along with the ones already established by Glenn Herdling in Scarlet Spider Unlimited #1) are fairly simple and not hard to grasp.  Warren studied under the High Evolutionary.  Warren could create clones.  Carrion was his clone.  High Evolutionary wanted to keep his work a secret, so he concocted the “genetic virus” cover story.  High Evolutionary arranged for Carrion II’s creation in order to sell the story.  Carrion III is the work of Miles Warren, yet again.  If you care about keeping this stuff straight, and Marvel still pretended that it did in 1997, it seems to work out.  

Judged as a story and not a continuity patch, the one-shot is still fun.  The plot moves along without getting bogged down in all of the backstory, and Joe Edkin’s script is sharper than most of the work being done on the main titles at the time.  You could argue that the Tinkerer is only there to provide Spider-Man a quick trip to Wundagore and back, but he never comes across as an overly obvious plot device.  (The Tinkerer has a grand tradition of popping up in Roger Stern’s Spider-Man stories anyway.)  The transition from Darick Robertson to Dan Lawlis is smooth, thanks largely to Keith Aiken’s dark, moody inks.  I don’t know why Aiken didn’t do more Spider-Man work during this era, since he seems able to capture the best elements of McFarlane’s inking without going overboard.

My only real complaint about the issue would be Robertson and Lawlis’ eye design.  Spider-Man’s eyes are way too large for the entire story.  They’re stuck on the exaggerated “shocked!” expression Mark Bagley always used, which doesn’t work at all if they’re that big in every single panel.  I’m all for giving artists some leeway when drawing Spider-Man’s costume, but I wish there was more of an effort to keep things from going outrageously off-model.

GENERATION X #58 - December 1999

Something Wicked

Credits: Jay Faerber (writer), Darick Robertson (penciler), Rod Ramos & John Czop (inkers), Kevin Tinsley (colors), Comicraft’s Jason Levine (letters)

Summary: The team searches the woods for Penance, who they believe has harmed a human student, while M stays behind with her visiting father. Gen X soon discovers that an escaped sasquatch was behind the attack. With Penance’s help, the sasquatch is subdued. Emma uses her telepathic powers to force the military to forget about the sasquatch, and Banshee calls Alpha Flight in to take care of the beast. Penance carves a note into a tree indicating her desire to stay with the team. Meanwhile, after visiting his son Emplate, M’s father announces he’s withdrawing her from the school.

Continuity Notes: Emplate tells the story of the day his powers surfaced, revealing that he killed his mother by feeding upon her. (She held on to Emplate to comfort him as his powers surged; whether or not he killed her on purpose remains unclear.)

Review: Oh, yeah…M, Penance, Emplate, and the St. Croix twins do have a father, don’t they? In retrospect, not using him during the M/Penance origin storyline was an oversight, even if it’s a fairly minor gaffe in comparison to the rest of that arc. Faerber doesn’t get a lot of material out of Mr. St. Croix in this issue, I suspect he’s mainly here to set up a story about M being forced to leave the school, but it’s nice to see some kind of response from M’s family to all of this insanity.

The main story exists to tease the reader into thinking this new Penance, whatever she is, is a villain, which apparently isn’t so. For an extended red herring, it isn’t so bad, and I don’t think anyone saw a sasquatch coming. Bringing in Alpha Flight as guest stars, based solely on the idea that “the” Sasquatch would know how to properly treat a “normal” sasquatch, is kind of clever. I question if Darick Robertson is an appropriate fill-in artist for the book, though. He’s apparently obsessed with detail lines at this stage (to the point that every character’s teeth are meticulously rendered), which doesn’t work for characters who are normally drawn as caricatures. I think the last thing Chris Bachalo was thinking of when designing this cast was “realism.”

NEW WARRIORS #46 – April 1994

Child’s Play Part Four

Credits: Fabian Nicieza (writer), Darick Robertson (penciler), Mahlstedt, Bulanadi, Akin (inkers), Steve Dutro (letterer), Joe Rosas (colorist)

Summary

X-Force and the New Warriors unite to stop Gamemaster in Switzerland. Gamesmaster uses his mental powers to turn the two teams against one another. When Cable faces Cannonball, Cable uses his telepathic powers for apparently the first time to stop him. Cable soon collapses, along with the rest of his teammates. Paige Guthrie, hiding from the battle, calls out to Gamesmaster. In exchange for sparing her brother’s life, she offers him the next generation of mutants. Intrigued at the idea of guiding a new generation of mutants, Gamesmaster agrees to the deal. Cable thinks that it’s a hollow victory if Gamesmaster gains control over the next generation of mutants, but the New Warriors see it as a challenge to find new mutants before the wrong side does.

Continuity Notes

Cable uses telepathy for the first time to stop Cannonball during their fight. Both Cable and Domino imply that they didn’t know he could do that. In the concurrent storyline going on in Cable’s solo book, he also uses telepathy against Colossus.

The Gamesmaster claims it’s easy for him to read Cable’s mind, but he can’t read Speedball’s due to his kinetic energy field.

At the end of the story, the “real” identity of the Gamesmaster is hinted at. He’s living in a house on an island, has a photo of his family near him, and doesn’t resemble the Gamesmaster at all (different hairline, different body type, wears glasses).

Review

This is better than the previous New Warriors installment, at least. Having Gamesmaster take over the minds of the people facing him is a very obvious move, but the way Nicieza describes his point of view in the narration makes it work. The ending is a little strange, with Paige offering herself to Gamesmaster in rather vague terms. At first, it seems as if she’s promising to serve him if he spares her brother. A few pages later, it’s implied that she’s only dared him to mold the next generation before Xavier does. So, he spared her brother’s life because she just gave him a good idea for killing time?

As the conclusion of a four-part story, this isn’t so bad, but as the ending to a long-running subplot and the introduction of a new one, it’s a flop. I’m assuming that this story was done to end the Upstarts storyline, with Fitzroy apparently dead, the other Upstarts turning on Gamesmaster, and Gamesmaster moving on to a new goal. As a conclusion, this doesn’t work at all because there are just too many unanswered questions. What was the ultimate prize Gamesmaster hinted at? What exactly was Selene getting out of this? Gamesmaster’s replacement for the Upstarts game, finding the next generation of mutants, never amounted to anything, either (was it ever even brought up again?). So, one story that was never properly developed gives way to another one that never really starts.

The ending of this issue leads me to believe that this crossover was originally intended to be a more direct lead-in to Generation X. The New Mutants and Hellions characters were the last “new generation” of mutants, so reintroducing them is one way to revive the idea of discovering new mutants. Gamesmaster is set up as the dark force looking to corrupt young mutants, so Xavier must find them first. I like this idea, because Gamesmaster could serve as a dark alternate to Xavier, which would give the character more of an identity and make him more of a legitimate challenge. He already has a connection to the Upstarts, who claimed to be the next generation of mutants, so it’s not as if this idea comes out of nowhere. Instead, the upcoming Phalanx crossover is used to set up Generation X. The Phalanx are bland villains who disappear once they’re defeated, and don’t offer the dramatic possibilities that Gamesmaster, tempting the young students to the dark side, could provide. He could’ve been an ongoing antagonist for the team, serving as more than just a physical threat to the X-teams. This idea was already introduced, so I’m not sure why they didn’t follow up on it.

NEW WARRIORS #45 – March 1994

Child’s Play Second Move – Sleeping With the Enemy

Credits: Fabian Nicieza (writer), Darick Robertson & Brandon McKinney (pencilers), Mahlstedt/McKenna/Stegbauer (inkers), Avon (letterer), Hondru (colorist)

Summary

Graydon Creed’s men, the Tribunal, try to kidnap Firestar from the New Warriors’ headquarters but are stopped by the team. Justice arrives, explaining to Firestar that she needs to be given to Shinobi Shaw in order to work undercover to stop Gamesmaster. She reluctantly agrees, and Justice takes her to Shaw’s apartment in Tokyo. Shaw explains to Justice his plan to overthrow Gamesmaster and the Upstarts, confident that his apartment has been properly shielded from the Gamesmaster. The Gamesmaster watches their conversation as Siena Blaze arrives with the kidnapped Moonstar, Empath, and Karma.

Continuity Note

The Tribunal are a variation of Tribune, the identity Graydon Creed assumed in the Sabretooth miniseries. Creed is listed as a member of the Upstarts in this issue, but the story never explicitly states that the Tribunal work for him.

Review

The crossover moves over to New Warriors, spending almost half of the issue reiterating the plot, with the story only slightly going forward by the end. This is one of the problems with a crossover; if you don’t take the time to explain what happened in the other title, some readers will be confused while everyone else will be bored with the recap. The rest of the issue isn’t really different from the first part of the story, either. We see different Upstarts attacking different New Mutants and Hellions, but the story’s the same. The only advancement of the plot comes in the last four pages, when Shaw announces his predictable plan to betray the Gamesmaster. It seems as if Firestar would have received more attention, considering her past with the Hellions is at the center of the crossover, but she’s mostly ignored until the end of the issue. I’m sure New Warriors fans just viewed this story as an intrusion on the book’s ongoing plotlines, and I can’t blame them after reading this issue.

CABLE #5 – November 1993

Sinsearly Yours, Sincerely Mine…

Credits: Fabian Nicieza (writer), Darick Robertson (penciler), Jon Holdredge (inker), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer), Marie Javins (colorist)

Summary

In Cable’s future, he encounters a dying Canaanite solider. Refusing to mercy kill him, Cable sends a message to the Canaanites to collect their wounded and leaves. This wounded soldier is turned into the cyborg killer Sinsear. He’s sent to the past to kill a rogue Canaanite agent, Tolliver. He also plans to kill Cable for not putting him out of his misery years earlier. He kidnaps Cable, but is unable to defeat him. Sinsear teleports away, leaving Cable a computer chip detailing his orders. Cable learns that Tolliver, a man he only knew as an arms dealer, is actually a time traveler.

Creative Differences

There are a few poorly re-lettered balloons on the bottom of page 27, giving Cable some tough guy dialogue after Sinsear escapes.

Production Note

The last issue of this series was cover dated August 1993, making this at least the second issue of this series to ship late. This was fairly rare for Marvel at the time, and it makes me wonder why this series specifically was so hard to keep on schedule.

Review

After four issues of build-up, Sinsear finally faces Cable. He’s defeated by Cable’s admittedly weak telekinetic powers and a couple of punches. A pretty weak showing for the first member of Cable's rogues gallery to be introduced in his solo series. The script makes the connection between Cable and Sinsear explicit; both of them are cyborgs but Cable embraces humanity while Sinsear chooses to be a machine. That’s a fine starting point for a Cable villain, but Sinsear’s non-existent personality and mediocre design make it hard to take the character seriously. Cable is now five issues old, and it’s still lacking a purpose, direction, supporting cast, and credible villains. It’s hard to argue that this series is nothing more than a pointless spinoff at this point. The next story arc is dedicated to giving Cable a conclusive origin, which would have at least been a stronger starting point for the series.

EXCALIBUR #71 – November 1993

Crossing Swords

Credits: Scott Lobdell (writer), Ken Lashley, Darick Robertson, & Matthew Ryan (pencilers), Smith/Elliott/Emberlin/Nelson (inkers), Oakley/Brosseau/Sharpe (letters), Joe Rosas (colorist)

Summary

Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Professor Xavier arrive at Muir Island, with a plan to use Kitty Pryde as bait to lure Colossus back to Earth. Xavier feels that Colossus suffered a severe head trauma after his fight with the X-Cutioner and requires surgery. Kitty reluctantly agrees and contacts Colossus, claiming that she wants to join the Acolytes. Colossus arrives on Muir Island, where he’s taken captive and Xavier performs the surgery. Cable teleports to Muir Island for revenge against the Acolytes after Magneto’s attack, but is stopped by Phoenix. The Acolytes arrive to take Colossus back and are easily defeated. Colossus chooses to go back to Avalon in order to teach the Acolytes that Magneto’s message was about more than violence. Excalibur decides to stay on Muir Island to protect the research facility from any further attacks.

Continuity Notes

Phoenix (Rachel Summers) feels a connection to Cable but doesn’t know why. Cable doesn’t understand it, either. The readers know they’re siblings, but it’s hard to figure out what the characters themselves know at this time. By this point, Cyclops thinks that Stryfe is his son, but the connection between Stryfe and Cable was still unknown. Even if Cable isn’t sure if Stryfe is his clone, twin brother, or himself from another timeline, he should have still figured out who his parents are at this point, but the stories are still vague.

The Acolytes are back in Avalon with no explanation after being shipped away in escape pods in X-Men #25. Colossus is shown bowing before Exodus, which doesn’t seem consistent with his behavior in that issue, either.

Review

And now, Excalibur is dragged into the quagmire. The Fatal Attractions storyline is really over at this point, but I guess someone decided that Excalibur should start participating in the X-crossovers, so here we are. Everything about this issue seems like a rush job (how many comics have three artists, four inkers, and three letterers?), and at four dollars, it still feels like a rip-off. Lobdell tries to justify the crossover by using the existing connections between Excalibur’s members and the main X-characters, which is a good idea, but it’s not enough to keep the issue from feeling so unnecessary. I wonder if Marvel instantly rethought the decision to have Colossus join Magneto, because this issue is another backtrack. Immediately after joining Magneto, Colossus let the X-Men sneak into Avalon and stop him. Now, Xavier suddenly decides that Colossus was brain damaged when he defected in the first place. See, Colossus fans? He’s not a villain now; he was just a little crazy when he sided with Magneto. Colossus certainly didn’t appear to be brain damaged at all in the previous chapters of this storyline. He was undoubtedly pissed about the death of his family, but not crazy. It’s the type of retcon explanation you expect to see years after a controversial story is published, not a month later. At the end of the story, Colossus decides to stay with the Acolytes in order to teach them about what a nice guy Magneto could be. Is this the same Magneto who just crashed his kid sister’s funeral and sent an electromagnetic pulse that killed hundreds of people? This can’t possibly be reconciled with the story Marvel had published a month earlier. It’s as if Marvel wants Colossus to join Magneto, but doesn’t want to him be a villain. They want Magneto to be a powerful, bloodthirsty opponent, but they want to remind fans of his compassion and humanity. Which is it?

Bringing Excalibur even closer into the main X-titles, Cable makes a brief guest appearance. Having Cable meet his sister is an obvious way to tie all of the books together, but Excalibur was so far on the periphery at this point that it didn’t even occur to me at the time. Everyone made a big deal about the revelation that Cable was Nathan Summers, but his connection to Rachel Summers never seemed to come up. His place in this story doesn’t amount to anything, and it’s an obvious distraction to the main story. What’s worse, the pages he appears on are printed out of order in my copy, making this issue seem even more disjointed.

With this issue, the team moves to Muir Island, where it would stay for the rest of the book’s run. Nightcrawler, Kitty, and Phoenix talk about the team’s new direction: “cutting deep into the problems that fall between the cracks of the X-Men, X-Factor, and X-Force…”, “we’re hoping we can stop a problem before it becomes a disaster…instead of the crisis management favored by everyone else wearing an ‘X’ on their costume.” Basically, the title is going to be less wacky and just fight the same bad guys the other X-teams fight. Nightcrawler spelling out all of the other X-teams just emphasizes how superfluous this direction really is for Excalibur. It sounds like he’s outright saying that Excalibur will fight the castoffs from the main books. And stopping problems before they become major threats was supposed to be X-Force’s role, even if Excalibur claims to be doing this in a pacifist way (which never works in superhero comics, anyway). At any rate, Excalibur is now officially an X-book.

I’ve heard some people comment that sales on Excalibur actually went up after Alan Davis left, revealing the outright stupidity of the general audience. I don’t know if these issues of Excalibur actually sold better than the Davis run, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I was one of those people who didn’t buy the Davis run but got into Excalibur around this time. In fairness, I couldn’t have afforded another book a few months before this and don’t even remember seeing the second Davis run on the stands. By the time the Davis run was over, I was a thirteen year old with an increased allowance. Seeing Excalibur taking part in the X-crossovers and fighting established X-villains, my completist urges wouldn’t let me pass the book up. I thought the book was garbage until the Warren Ellis issues, but I faithfully purchased each issue during this awkward yearlong phase. The upcoming issues are comics I remember almost nothing about, so I have no idea what to expect when I go back over them.

NEW WARRIORS #31 – January 1993

Ruins

Credits: Fabian Nicieza (writer), Darick Robertson (penciler), Larry Mahlstedt (inker), Joe Rosen (letterer), Joe Rosas (colorist)

Summary

Cannonball, Warpath, and Firestar travel to Nova Roma (an ancient Roman city hidden in the Amazon) to tell former Hellions Empath and Magma about the deaths of their teammates. While there, Firestar realizes that Empath is using his powers to control Magma. When she attempts to investigate, she’s attacked by the mind-controlled Cannonball and Warpath. She creates a microwave pulse to undo Empath’s influence, which frees the entire city. Empath reveals that Nova Roma was founded by the mutant Selene, not ancient Romans, and populated by her kidnapped victims. Her mind control was wearing off, so Empath took over. He releases his control, and the surviving Hellions move on.

Continuity Note

The White Queen is in a coma, which contradicts earlier issues that referred to her as a corpse. Someone probably realized that killing off so many established villains in just a few issues was a mistake, so she’s been resurrected very quietly. Empath is also alive and well in this issue, which means he couldn’t have been killed with the rest of the Hellions in Uncanny X-Men #281.

Nova Roma’s status as an actual Roman City has since been re-established, I believe. Nicieza’s only basis for this issue’s retcon seems to be his belief that Nova Roma is just a dumb idea.

Review

I wasn’t a regular reader of New Warriors, so this crossover issue was successful in bringing in at least one X-completist. This issue seems to be aimed at long-time New Mutants readers familiar with Firestar and Warpath’s past with the Hellions, characters that had been casually disposed of a few months earlier. Nicieza seems more interested in retconning an old New Mutants idea he didn’t like than in actually providing an actual sendoff to the Hellions, though. As a story, it’s not very interesting and parts of it don’t work. If Cannonball and Warpath can see that Empath is controlling Magma, why didn’t they call him out on it right then? Why would they leave, go to bed, and give him a chance to zap them? It’s nice that someone bothered to address the senseless death of the Hellions, but I doubt this was really what the old-school New Mutants fans wanted to see.