Shadow and Flame with Magik

Written by Marjorie Liu

Artist is Gabriel Hernandez Walta

Color Artist is Cris Peter

This conclusion wrapped up fast!

Mystique doesn’t keep the Death Seed long at all.

Awesome that it is Kitty who takes it out of her.  I thought maybe Kitty was going to turn evil just by holding it as she disappears afterwards, but the story doesn’t go in that direction.  She hides it somewhere, which who knows if that is ever going to get picked up ever again.  Maybe during the next Apocalypse story, whenever that happens.

Bobby’s father was not killed last issue.

Apparently Iceman makes for a far better villain than a hero.  Which I sort of like that he knows that, and doesn’t like that but has to be a hero as if he ever turn bad again, it would just be the same fight all over again.

I really like that Liu made a reference to Uncanny X-Men 350, with how Gambit had to make his way home from Antarctica after being banished there.  Which is still one of the oddest choices the X-Men have made as a team.  Plus, that comic came out in 1997, 14 years ago.  She really didn’t have to make the connection but it is totally cool that she did as that was a big moment in Gambit’s life as he was kicked off the team and pretty much left for dead.  Odd that Karma knows that, but as she herself was left for dead once, maybe she’s keeping track of stuff like that.

Really wish I knew the story with Opal, I wonder if it is even interesting to read for myself, or is it better to just have it be summarized like we get here and last issue.  Does seem to be a messed up thing to do, tell a guy he is the father and then tell him he is not when he clearly can’t handle it.  Of course, I imagine that, since this is a comic, that Bobby was meant to be the father, but a new editor came into the title and realized you can’t have one of the Original Five be a deadbeat father, as you already have that with Cyclops.  Unless Bobby was first at it.  Wonder which issues this whole thing takes place during.

http://www.comicbookdb.com/character_chron.php?ID=3233

I bet it was during the Iceman mini.  She only has 26 appearances, and I bet you could own them all under 50 dollars.  She first showed up in X-Factor.  I thought she was from the 60s, that must have been a different girlfriend.

Liu does a great job writing Kitty, especially with the monologues.  Kitty sure likes to speak at length.

I also dig how no one is in a costume besides Warbird, Mystique and Thor.  Which is odd, as their suits are temperature-controlled.

I also like how Kitty can phase multiple people as long as she is holding one person, and that person is holding a different person.  She can phase an entire human chain, which comes in handy.

Not exactly sure why someone can’t place Bobby in jail, as people are dead, on such a huge scale.  Maybe as he would get the chair, but hopefully it isn’t due to no cell can hold him.  As he is a hero and should just stay in the cell under his own influence.  Plus, it is the Marvel Universe, there is a cell to hold him or at least, that can attempt to.  There should be a Hero Prison, like during Civil War, Prison 41 I want to say, that heroes voluntarily go to to serve a limited sentence for times like these.  Kept off the books and can leave whenever.

I could see Kitty and Bobby breaking up at the end, but he was under mind control, so she most likely gives him a pass, as she is friends with Wolverine and this type of thing happens to him all the time.

I have no interest in the next issue, which is a shame as I really enjoyed this arc but I need more than Karma, Warbird, Cecilia Reyes and Vampire Jubilee to be interested in a comic.

I wonder if we are going to get Crying Bobby as the legacy of this storyline.

Just read the description of X-Factor 63, and it states Opal is adopted but only learned of it recently and now she wants to find her birth parents.  What a messed up to thing to then do to a former boyfriend.  Plus, she names her son, Robert, as well.  Hopefully her son has not been told about how Iceman could be the father or could not be the father, as he grew up, as that is a horrible thing to do to a child.

Okay, Robert first appears in that Iceman mini in 2001, that probably deals with all of this as Opal doesn’t appear again between that mini and this arc here.  There probably is a website that has a review of it out there.

http://www.uncannyxmen.net/db/issues/showfaq.asp?fldAuto=56

Sounds like Opal was probably forced to lie to Bobby about being the father.  He knows by the end that he isn’t so it wasn’t a long standing plot point until now.  I just read the brief descriptions for each issue as it doesn’t sound very good.