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Thursday, April 8, 2021

X-amining X-Force #58

"...Before the Dawn"
September 1996

In a Nutshell
X-Force is rescued from Onslaught by a representation of Professor Xavier's goodness.

Writer: Jeph Loeb
Penciler: Anthony Castrillo 
Inker: Bud LaRosa
Letterer: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Colorist: Marie Javins
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras

Plot
Sunspot finds himself back in Brazil, playing soccer, his father & Julianna looking on. But instead of the Hellfire Club attacking, he wins the game and the adulation of the crowd. Later, in the locker room, he is approached by a small boy, who tells him he needs the help of Sunspot, the heart of soul of X-Force, to gather the others. At the X-Mansion, Siryn emerges from the wreckage caused by Mister Sinister's attack to find her teammates unconscious; she telepathically calls out for Cable, but he is caught up fighting Onslaught and can't immediately help her. She proceeds to do what she can, and tries to revive Meltdown. Meanwhile, Meltdown confronts Sabretooth, but Sunspot & the young boy arrive, and convince her to join them. They then retrieve Caliban, followed by Warpath, who is once again forced to say goodbye to his brother, and then Shatterstar, and finally Domino. With the team gathered, the young boy urges them to step into the light to fulfill their dreams. But the boy, believing himself to have won, arrogantly reveals himself as Onslaught, and Sunspot leads them in standing up to him, refusing to go into the light. Just then, in the real world, X-Force wakes up, much to Siryn's delight. They then see the young boy again, but this time, he reveals himself to be a manifestation of Xavier's goodness; he reminds them they are the next generation of mutants, and X-Force finds renewed hope amidst the ongoing tragedies. 

Firsts and Other Notables
This issue involves Onslaught, posing as a manifestation of Xavier's "light side" in the form of a small boy, trying to mentally lure the unconscious members of X-Force (who were knocked out when Sinister redirected Nate's psychic attack at the end of last issue) "into the light" by presenting them with improvements on their lives (Sunspot's girlfriend & Warpath's brother are alive, Meltdown gets revenge on Sabretooth, etc.) which they'll be able to experience in full once they enter the light, only to be foiled by the *actual* light side of Xavier in the form of a small boy, who manages to keep Siryn conscious so she can physically keep the rest of the team alive while he helps them reject Onslaught's temptations. Is that all overly complicated & unnecessarily twisty? Yes. 

Each member of the team is said to represent a different emotion/manifestation of the team (Sunspot is its heart, Caliban represents hope, Domino is the caretaker, etc.), with Siryn kept conscious by Young Xavier because she is the team's inspiration, with an unshakeable belief in what they do being right. It's a decent enough narrative device/sentiment, but it's all rather arbitrary (I wouldn't consider Siryn to be a die hard believer in X-Force's mission, for example, nor would I characterize such belief as "inspiration"). 

Risque disappears between last issue and this one, much to Warpath's dismay; it is later revealed that she was taken by Blob & Mimic, ostensibly to keep Mister Sinister from taking her when he also made off with Nate Grey, while acting on orders from Vanisher. 


A Work in Progress
All of the unconscious members of X-Force are in the same place when Siryn finds them, despite the fact that Meltdown & Caliban were in a different part of the mansion than the rest of the team last issue. 

I remember that the flashback/dream sequence set at Roberto's football game, where the Hellfire Club attacked and killed his girlfriend in the New Mutants' first appearance was, when I read this issue for the first time back in the day, the first place I had encountered that particular bit of his backstory, prior to going back and reading those early New Mutants issues. 


The Reference Section
In Caliban's vision/dream, he is recast as a Superman figure, sent to Earth from a dying planet to be raised by representations of Cable & Domino. 


To the EXTREME! 

The unconscious members of X-Force rally against Onslaught by rejecting his visions of their altered, dreamlike realities, declaring that the only way to get a a better tomorrow is to fight for it today, which seems like an attempt to state the series' mission statement, since this is the ostensibly proactive, more-prone-to-fighting X-book (though of course, it's not like the X-Men, Excalibur, etc. don't also fight today for a better tomorrow in some regard). 


Austin's Analysis
This is an odd issue. Its plot can be described as "X-Force wakes up", taking place more or less concurrently with the final few pages of the previous issue and spanning all of a couple-three minutes of story time. Instead, the bulk of the issue is a kind of character retrospective, dropping each team member (save Siryn) into a moment from their past and forcing them to come to terms with their true self, before rejecting Onslaught's ruse and waking up in the real world, unwilling to pass on into death, underscored by dialogue talking about how awesome X-Force is. The result is a relatively quiet, character-focused port amidst the tumultuous Sturm und Drang of "Onslaught", made all the odder for the fact that it's happening in X-Force, the ostensibly punchiest of all series. Certainly, the character work being done here is fairly basic (and in many cases, the associations of team members with a specific trait feels extremely arbritary), and the weird mix of what actually happened and what is an Onslaught-induced illusion designed to push the characters towards giving up prevents it from serving as a sort of "this is all you need to know about the characters!" primer. But having an issue of the crossover, however tangentially-connected to the overall narrative, with such a different tone from the rest is nevertheless appreciated, even if the end result is somewhat slight & ephemeral. 

Next Issue
Tomorrow, Excalibur learns about Onslaught in Excalibur #101. Next week,  pair of nineteens, X-Man #19 and Generation X #19!

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3 comments:

  1. This feels like an exercise on selling X-Force to new readers who might be picking it up because of the crossover. That's actually a pretty good idea except that it, ironically, comes at the cost of showing what X-Force actually is.

    The art here is serviceable but I doubt it would win over any new fans. It looks like a cross of Ian Churchill and Todd McFarlane, lacking the charm of either.

    I agree with you on Siryn's role. I'm guessing that's probably Jeph Loeb trying to give her more substance but I don't recall that it ever goes anywhere.

    All that aside, it's not a terrible issue but could have also been done outside of the larger crossover wirhouw taking anything away from it.

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  2. The unconscious members of X-Force rally against Onslaught by rejecting his visions of their altered, dreamlike realities, declaring that the only way to get a a better tomorrow is to fight for it today, which seems like an attempt to state the series' mission statement, since this is the ostensibly proactive, more-prone-to-fighting X-book (though of course, it's not like the X-Men, Excalibur, etc. don't also fight today for a better tomorrow in some regard).

    It's been 14 issues since Sam's "graduation" issue, in which X-Force sits on the lawn and asks what the point of the group even is any more. Seems Jeph Loeb still hasn't found an answer to this question.

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  3. I was not expecting the Superman homage. Castrillo’s Byrne influence lends it some extra pop.

    Meanwhile, I’m not fond of this transition Bobby’s undergone from solid black with crackling golden aura when powered up to increasingly less shadowed, blue-for-black, features clearly discernible, without the corona — essentially, Nightcrawler minus the demonic appendages.

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