WRITERS: CHRIS CLAREMONT, LOUISE SIMONSON
ARTISTS: JIM LEE, ROB LIEFIELD, JON BOGDANOVE
This is it, the progenitor, the prototype, the big daddy - the first real mutant crossover, the harbinger of "X-Cutioner's Song", "Fatal Attractions", "Age of Apocalypse" and "Onslaught". Marvel's mutant titles had done events before, starting with "Fall of the Mutants" in 1988 and "Inferno" the following year but for those each title had remained relatively self-contained. But 1990's "X-Tinction Agenda" featured a full flow of three issues of the three books with a constantly shifting cast; if you didn't buy all nine issues involved you would not have a clue what was happening and while each title would subtly focus ever so slightly on the home team it was only as part of an ongoing plot.
A big part of the thrust behind the story was exactly that; editor Bob Harras already had an eye on the upcoming relaunch of the huge-selling mutant titles including adding a second X-Men book and reformatting New Mutants into X-Force. Thus the story features the first phase of getting all the various characters into position for the revised roster when actual meetings between them had been scarce in recent years.
Chris Claremont was still in his pomp on Uncanny X-Men - helped by the shot in the arm of Jim Lee, who had rapidly become the jewel in the company's crown - and took on the brave decision in the aftermath of Inferno to basically disband the team via the device of Psylocke leading them through the Siege Perilous to avoid the Reapers and had since been picking up regulars here and there wherever it took his whim. Storm was regressed to a child and gradually regained her memories as well as picking up partner in crime Gambit before eventually linking up with on-off squeeze Forge and the veteran Banshee; Wolverine didn't follow the team and was nearly killed by the Reavers, picking up first young sidekick Jubilee and then Psylocke, now in an Asian body, while working his way back from Madripoor and into physical recovery while Havok, Longshot, Rogue and Dazzler had yet to actually be reintroduced.
Over at New Mutants the book had been saved by the arrival of Rob Liefield (like Lee, hitting stardom; unlike Lee not actually all that great at drawing comics) and Cable, however absurd that sounds - to be fair before Liefield's arrival the title had been poor for some time. The resulting shift from tales of trainee X-Men to the time-travelling cyborg turning them into a hard-hitting militia was well underway; come the summer it would be relaunched as X-Force but for now there were still some of the cuddlier characters around and they were still sharing facilities with the rump of the X-Men.
X-Factor meanwhile was still chugging along quite happily as it had done since being set up, still consisting of Scott, Jean, Hank, Bobby and Warren, even if the latter had turned blue and got big scary metal wings after a succession of unfortunate events. Louise Simonson was writing both X-Factor and New Mutants at the time, and yes, I think I was thinking of her when I referred to other half Walter as a half-decent writer, while art was coming from Jon Bogdanove at the time after a guest try-out; he never went on to found a poorly-ran label which would destroy the indutry but he probably deserved to as his sharp, angular work here is pretty good.
The bubbling location of Genosha, a fictional island based on mutant slave labour, was picked as a locus point for pulling the three titles together. In theory this is fine, a fair cause celebre for all three teams. However, the actual enactment is sloppy. The chief villains of the piece are the revived X-Factor adversary Cameron Hodge, his decapitated head now mounted on a giant robotic insect body with a phonebook of powers, and Genoshan president Madame Reneau, with Genosha's Genegineer (the source of the mutate mutant slaves) having his own agenda and Havok revealed to be the brainwashed Chief Magistrate. The problem is the whole catalyst - Genoshan magistrates teleporting Storm, Boom-Boom, Rictor, Wolfsbane and Warlock from Westchester to the island - is never given much more reason than Hodge and Reneau being insane and after revenge. Various other points hinge on this simplicity while the government's blind eye that allows X-Factor to simply fly over with huge munitions also feels like a handwave to get on with the story.
Furthermore to the problem is that much of the narrative is so damn repetitive. The various players are all in Genosha within a couple of issues and in the last Havok finally regains his memories, the Genoshans realise they've been used by Hodge and Hodge himself is finished off. In between there are endless pages in the Citadel of our mutants being split up, captured, escaping, getting injured, coming up with schemes, getting surprised. Hodge himself is similarly dull, his overpowered body meaning he can do basically everything - there are only so many times someone can pounce on the guy and he either perfectly counters their powers or just phases out of the room before it once again gets boring. At nine issues there's just not enough plot.
The three art teams don't actually gel very well, not so much in terms of style, where everyone's on the same rough page of superhero posing but there are all sorts of annoying continuity flubs from issue to issue
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