Magik was an original member of the team, thus, I own most of them until she left. Doug joins later during Necrosha.
The storylines and tie-ins this title had were :
Return of Legion
Necrosha
Siege
Second Coming
Fall of the New Mutants
Rise of the New Mutants
Age of X
Unfinished Business
Fear Itself
Exiled
Fear the Future
Fight the Future
The creative team for the series have been :
1, 2, 3, 4 – Zeb Wells and Diogenes Neves
5 – Zeb Wells and Zachary Baldus6, 7, 8 – Zeb Wells and Diogenes Neves
9, 10 – Zeb Wells and Paul Davidson
11 – Kieron Gillen and Niko Henrichon
12, 13, 14 – Zeb Wells and Ibraim Roberson
15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 – Zeb Wells and Leonard Kirk
22, 23, 24 – Mike Carey and Steve Kurth
25, 26, 27 – Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning and Leandro Fernandez
28 -Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning and Michael Ryan
29, 30, 31, 32 – Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning and David Lafuente
33, 34, 35, 36, 37 – Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning and David Lopez
38, 39, 40 – Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning and Leandro Fernandez
41 – Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning and David Lopez
42, 43 – Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning with Kieron Gillen and Carmine Di Giandomenico
44, 45, 46 – Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning and Leandro Fernandez
47, 48, 49, 50 – Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning and Felix Ruiz with Klebs
Pretty cool how they kept getting artists back to the title, it really does add synergy.
I have 13 issues on my wishlist, most of them are Variant covers –
1 – Ross, Benjamin, McLeod, 2nd Printing
4 – 70th Anniversary Frame Variant
6 – Zombie Variant
10 – Deadpool Variant
13 – Heroic Age Variant
15 – Art Adams Variant17 – Regular Cover (I own the Variant) Magik is on the regular cover, so that’s why I still want it
24 – Regular Cover
25 – Art Adams Variant
37 – Regular Cover
So I really just want 24 and 37 as I’ve already read issue 17. But it would be nice to knock off some of these variants one day.
By this point, I had stopped buying New Mutants as Magik had graduated to the big league and was a member of Cyclops’ Extinction Team. I had heard this was a great crossover, with it winning the Best Crossover Award over at the Comic Book Resources X-Books forum.
This was at the time when the Asgardians were living in Broxton, Oklahoma. I’m not sure why they are there, I vaguely remember it was due to that being where they were reborn after Ragnarok. My only interaction with it was during the Siege crossover as that is where the bulk of the story takes place.
The cast of characters are :
Journey into Mystery – Loki / Thor / Hela / Tyr / Leah / Fandral / Volstagg / Hogun
New Mutants – Warlock / Sunspot / Magma / Cypher / Dani / X-Man
The recap page is done by a young boy who is doing it as if it was a board game, which makes sense in the middle of the comic when we see him again. This is the only part of the crossover that I own (or will own) so any unanswered questions are just going to have to be that. Though it does a decent job of exposing the world.
This issue opens with the New Mutants, in San Francisco, and some people have disappeared, as Dani says. Doug corrects her, a running theme of the issue, that when gods disappear – they are banished. oh Doug, learn to read a room!
Dani wants to call the Broxton police as they will know who to contact in the Asgardian community to let them know that Aesir and Disir are either dead or banished.
Dani’s next step, and the reason why I bought this, is to go to Utopia and get Magik. Magik can trace the energy signature and be able to send the team after the trail. Sunspot pipes up stating that she is their resident magical guru.
Just then, they are home again and eating Doug’s muffins. They are acting as if that’s what they have been doing this entire time. Actually, the muffins are from next door but Doug is going to use his power as food is a language and he can get the receipe via eating it. I’m not sure if that is how his power can actually do, I know it is in a comic and he said it but from what I’ve read Abnett & Lanning, collectively known as DnA (their first names – though I do wonder if Lanning ever doesn’t care for it as it is essentially just Abnett’s initials), they really pushed Doug’s power to some high limits.
Dani also questions if that is how his powers works, which may be a meta message as Gillen might be questioning his partner writers in Doug’s powers.
X-Man walks into the room and slaps the muffin out of Dani’s hands (he’s a jerk!) and he explains how today is Saturday and the last thing everyone should remember is that it was only Friday night mere seconds ago. Doug pipes up that he can also see that time has been rewritten.
Dani starts speaking aloud, about how Sigurd had unrolled a piece of paper. To which Doug corrects her that it is called, a scroll. Oh Doug, if you ever had a chance with Dani – you are losing it!
The doorbell rings and there is a blonde mechanic outside, apologizing for the delay in fixing their vehicle. He’s speaking with the Asgardian font – which get use to it as once we leave the team, everyone talks in that font.
The mechanic had to repair the church and so that caused the delay in their car repair so he knock a few hundred dollars off. The church is where a woman support group meets, which that group gets mention later in the issue as well.
Magma is given the keys to the car, as they are mesmerized by the mechanic. He is force to comment on how they are just staring at the poor guy. He leaves as he is given no response.
Once he is gone, Sunspot shouts that was Thor and they all run after the mechanic. The mechanic has made it to his garage, so the New Mutants must have been staring off at him for quite some time.
I’m being confused by the setting of the story, are they in San Francisco or are they in Braxton with the Asgardians? Or is there a weird divide and they can be in two locations at the same time? I’m sure those types of answers were established in the first story.
So the New Mutants confront the mechanic, he laughs at being called, Thor. He is a blonde mechanic with a giant hammer, he gets a lot. He also makes a reference to the awesome Elizabeth Shue film, Adventures in Babysitting.
Thanks to YouTuber geligniteandallies for hosting the video!
Yes, that is Vincent D’Onofrio! He’s going to be the Kingpin in the Netflix Daredevil series.
I still wonder what made the scriptwriter, David Simkins, write Thor into the script. So funny now, back in 1987, Marvel would have let anyone use their characters (hence the reason why FOX owns X-Men and Fantastic Four and Sony has Spider-Man) but Disney made Adventures in Babysitting (via Touchstone Pictures) and now they own Marvel, so they can have Thor be in all of their films. If only!
Speaking of Thor, I like the character, I just have some caveats. I like him on Earth, for the most part. I get he’s an Asgardian but I have no real interest in the day to day of that. I mostly like him in team environments or when he is surrounded by other known characters, like in a crossover event. The only time I ever bought his solo ongoing was after Heroes Return when Dan Jurgens (of Superman fame) and John Romita Jr. was on art. That was such a great series! Plenty of guest stars and they did do Asgard but they made it interesting.
Anyway, what I’m getting at is that I really like Adventures in Babysitting and I’m surprised it took this long to make a reference to it in Thor related comic. Unless it happens more than I know but I doubt it.
So the Asgardians (who I’m not sure know that they are Asgardians or if they fake it in case people are ease dropping) dress in everyday clothes and have regular jobs. Fandral enters the garage and speaks with Thor about the mistaken identity. Fandral’s name is Andy and Thor’s is Arthur (get it?)
In another house, young children named, Luke and Leia (yep) are in their house alone. Luke is playing a board game of strategy and Leia is tired of him playing with himself (the comic makes the joke!). I get the impression that Luke is the one who is behind all of the mysterious goings on.
Leia gets bored of him and goes into their mother’s recycling truck as she just showed up. Helen shouts, bring out your dead (so she must be Hela) and Leia comments on how that makes everyone around them uncomfortable.
Luke apparently was dragged along on this quest. He goes into a bakery as he wants some glazed doughnuts. We see that Volstagg is the baker and that he has eaten all the glazed doughnuts as his face, belly and hands are covered in glaze.
A blonde lady enters the bakery (this must be the same baker that Doug was talking about) looking for the gluten-free, unseeded, non-dairy, unsugared, unleavened buns. Volstagg, of course, hasn’t eaten those and thus, the buns are available. She is buying them for the support group.
There is a cute moment when the blonde lady says that Volstagg looks delicious and he asks her to repeat it and she says the buns look delicious.
Luke leaves disappointed and gets chased by a dog.
Tiffany offers Luke to join her self-defense class and he turns her down. Another man states that he is happy with that decision as Luke is already a handful.
Luke runs into the New Mutants. Apparently, he is a fan of them. He is glad that he ran into them as he was thinking of stalking them. He likes that they are hated and feared and wonders if that means they get better service now. Poor Luke is hated but he’s not feared.
Luke goes on to comment about how he is half mutant and sent in an application to the Jean Grey School. Then he doesn’t know if that is insulting or not, and asks them which side (of the Schism) are they on.
Dani tries to put a stop to this one sided conversation but Luke keeps going on about how he was Wolverine for Halloween.
Dani finally breaks in and says that he is Loki. Which didn’t even dawn on me. Maybe because I’ve been saying it to myself as Luke in the traditional sense but sometimes the caption boxes call him “Luc” like “Look” which would make more sense.
Luke / Loki states that she has the wrong guy. So in the previous issue, is when Loki become Kid Loki – and started on his path of capturing the hearts and minds of comic fans. Dani is a Valkyrie and can see Kid Loki for who he really is. She tries to remind him about Sigurd and what happened the previous night.
Doug announces that he is the trickster of Asgard and no spell can hold him back. Poor Kid Loki goes into a spasm.
Magma gets bad at Doug, he was only trying to do what Magik would have done in this situation.
Kid Loki now remembers who he rightfully is. He wants a helmet to fell complete again.
Dani wants answers, Kid Loki tells them that they need to all go to Sigurd’s abode and search for clues – just like they do on television.
At Sigurd’s place. Doug has found some armor. Sunspot found a bunch of take-out food. Kid Loki arrives in a Grant Morrison styled X-Uniform. which is way to big for him.
Sigurd shows up, he’s hungry. Dani starts asking a slew of questions. She wants to know what happened to the Disir. Whenever Sigurd says the name, it is written D-i-s-i-r, I have no idea the significance of that.
Apparently the Disir eat Asgardians, so they are the woman who are starving themselves. So he cast a spell that made all Asgardians forget who they are. Magma states that there were good Asgardians who now don’t know who they are. Sigurd’s only response is that that is a shame. Dani’s comeback of, you took out one of the greatest heroes in history and all you can say for yourself is that it is a shame. That’s a funny line!
Sigurd isn’t a magician, he bought the spell so the dealer should have a counter-spell.
Kid Loki needs some time to come up with a counter-spell.
Sigurd starts hitting on Dani, she is the hot one of the group, even with Magma standing right there. Oh, the irony!
In an alley, a dog is barking at a cat. The blonde from the bakery picks up the cat and devours it. So the Disir are cats, I guess? Now the starving women have something to eat, they should all be happy!
That’s how the issue ends, seems like it should be a pretty good story but I’m out of it.
X-City. Genosha Attack Minus Five Minutes. Rachel and Beast talking about their new recruits. Apparently, Beast has gone back in time and taken – Thunderbird, Wolverine and Banshee – all before their deaths in Giant Size X-Men, which is a weird place to state when they could have died. Beast wanted to prove that it was possible, which really seems to lower the stakes, for this series. If people die, then Beast can just bring them back. I get that the ones with the extinction virus, that wouldn’t be an option for them, as they would just die again, from the virus. It is an odd inclusion. Why even bring it up, it must be important later but it is teased here.
The attack happens, like it did last issue. We get Kitty and Lockheed(!) in the fight! It was a pretty good week for Lockheed, appearing in this title and in Years of Future Past 2.
Rictor and Meltdown do end up confronting each other.
Rachel summons her X-Men to the baseball field.
Poor Kitty AND Lockheed take a direct hit of Havok’s cosmic blast – but no one mentions Lockheed again. I hope the little guy is okay! Rogue tells Nightcrawler to get Kitty to the Infirmary.
X-City. Scott Summers Memorial Hospital. Kurt asks Dr. Reyes to heal Kitty. Dr. Reyes does a scan and reveals that Kitty has a punctured lung, pneumothorax and a ton of internal bleeding. Reyes needs Kurt to bring her, Triage. Which makes sense.
Rogue fastballs Wolverine, which he isn’t familiar with the term. If he’s been dead for the past twenty years of publication history, would the X-Men even have come up with the, fastball special? Wolverine being gone from all of those storylines, is too big of a deal to just add to this title. So many implications that will never be addressed – most likely.
Havok and his team have lost their quinjet and scramble to come up with a new plan. Rachel tries to harass Havok and Rahne but they get Wicked to have ghosts from Rachel’s past haunt her. Rachel freaks out from seeing the ghosts of her parents and grandparents.
Karma is on Havok’s side and starts taking control of peeps – first up, is Rogue. Rogue absorbs Rachel’s powers.
Kurt arrives, and I can’t find Kitty anywhere on the page so I’m not including it. Dr. Reyes confirms that Triage is who he says he is, which surprises him. What really surprises both Triage and Nightcrawler, is that Dr. Reyes knocks both of them out. Dr. Reyes is really . . . Mystique! dun dun DUN!
Havok tells Mystique that she has to come to them. Rogue starts taking out fools, and Karma also takes over Beast. Mystique arrives on the baseball (battle) field and Tempus (who is also on Team Havok) teleports everyone back to Genosha. Wolverine jumps into the portal energy so he is gone, as well.
Everyone who is back, feels pretty bad about having to attack their friends, but if they were real friends, they would have not forced their hands.
The Genengineer hooks Triage to the machines, to see how the best way to use his powers. But what he really wants, is to use Triage’s power to cure a virus but not the extinction virus – but the virus called, mutants!!! dun dun DUN!!!
Back at the X-City. Rachel and Beast are regrouping. Beast is worried as, if anyone was infected, they could have infected some of the mutants in the city.
Issue ends with Beast revealing there were no serious injuries. Even Kitty only has a concussion, so I’m going to assume Lockheed is okay too.
Next issue should deal with the team of volunteers that Rachel is going to use to go to Genosha and get their friends back – Bombshell, Graymalkin and Wolveine (also those Karma was controlling). So now the story is going to repeat some of the original X-Tinction Agenda, with the X-Men having to go to Genosha and get their friends back.
Will Kitty be on this new away team? Will we see Lockheed with a bandage on his wing? Time will tell!
The issues covered are – Uncanny X-Men 272, New Mutants 97 and X-Factor 62.
The Retro Reviews are from – 1:30:00 – 1:55:35
So now you know what I know about the original crossover. Oh, and that final storyline of X-Men Forever 2 with Ro and Ultimate Storm that dealt with Storm’s portion of the crossover.
So let’s enjoy this for what it is.
So this is another one of those “years later” miniseries, along with Inferno. The Legacy Virus is just now effecting Genosha.
Genosha, then. Cyclops and Havok are knocking Cameron Hodge out of action. Wolfsbane tears off his head, finishing the threat. The various X-Teams leave the island but Havok and Wolfsbane (and a few others) stay behind as those two want to make sure what happened in Genosha, never happens again.
Genosha, Now. Havok and Wolfsbane have a team. Those two and Chief Magistrate Anderson. They are on day three of trying to break up a food riot. Helping them are – Simon Locke “Bulletproof” power is being bulletproof. Julio Esteban Richtor “Rector.” Xi’an Coy Manh “Karma.” And possible new mutant, Wicked, Ghost Summoner – who is freaking people out with ghosts of their past.
Xavier arrives and everyone is still in awe of him. The riot disperses and there is a calm. Xavier is really, Mystique, of course – as Xavier is dead. Dr. Alous Kluge is still the Genegineer. Wolfsbane wants to go to God Doom and get his permission to fix the Legacy Virus.
Doomstadt. Doom turns down the offer of aid. Strange casts the, Winds of Watoomb, and forces Wolfsbane back. Doom tells Strange that mutants are the blight upon the world. Which is odd that he even put them on Battleworld.
Wolfsbane is not happen and asks Rachel Grey for help as she is the Baron of this region of the planet. Wolfsbane wants Triage and Rogue to be sent to Genosha. With Rogue’s power, they can heal twice as many people. Rachel doesn’t want to infect any more mutants, than necessary. Which seems overly harsh but it falls under the whole, let a thousand die to let millions live.
X-Topia Province. X-City, Home of the X-Men. Beast is convincing Rachel that the number game is the correct way to view this. They walk by the graveyard that reminds me of the graveyard from Days of Future Past.
I don’t get how all of these X-Men died. Like, how does Spider-Crawler work? Was it more than three to five years? I don’t see how Nightcrawler and Spider-Man both had kids and then they had a kid.
Genosha. Havok and Wolfsbane are clearing having sex, so that’s a plus for Wolfsbane. They come up with a plan that they are going to go grab Triage and Rogue. Cyclops, who is dead, appears before Havok, as Wicked doesn’t quite have her power under control. Ghost Cyclops asks Havok to not to abduct X-Men, as that didn’t work out so well in the original crossover. Havok doesn’t listen and goes on with the mission, but with some regrets.
On the way there, we get a light scene with Havok checking in on Rictor (who isn’t gay yet) as there is a chance he can run into Boom Boom.
X-City. X-Pickup Baseball, Game No. 1,065. We get to the page that got me to buy this issue. Rogue is trying to strike out Kitty, who Wolverine claims is an easy out. Lockheed is floating behind Kitty, and that is awesome!
So the Genoshians show up and ruin the game. Big fights break out.
Rockslide points out how silly this is, as five against a hundred mutants, are not great odds for the invaders. The big fight is merely a distraction.
Anderson calls the Genegineer. who is a little preoccupied as he is trying to bring Cameron Hodge back to life.
I’m not sure if I’m getting the next issue but the first issue was pretty interesting.
Doug is having a nightmare where he is all powerful (from that last major storyline of the third volume of New Mutants). He has killed the New Mutants. Including Magik, who was run through with her own soulsword. Not cool, Doug! Not cool!
Doug wakes up with a fright. He can’t keep living like this, and contemplates ending his life.
He opens the door after deciding how he will do it, to find the All New X-Factor waiting for him. In previous issues, they have been investigating Magus, Warlock’s father as he has been causing problems for Serval – the company that sponsors the team.
Danger scans Doug and sees that a piece of Warlock was left behind. Doug tells her that isn’t possible. She goes ahead and plunges two fingers into his chest and pulls out the piece of Warlock she was talking about. Warlock has been monitoring his dear friend.
Doug is able to see the wavelengths, so now he knows where Warlock is – Houston, Texas. So the team, with Doug, goes there.
In a great show of Quicksilver’s powers, Polaris is in the middle of a sentence – this sequence is broken over three panels – and the middle panel is her mid sentence and the final one is him coming back as she finishes her comment. That’s how fast he is.
The building he investigated doesn’t have anything, then the ground moves and out comes the giant factory. Magus welcomes them inside.
The team as of right now is Gambit, Danger, Polaris and her brother, Quicksilver.
Meanwhile, over at Serval – Mrs. Snow, who is married to the president of the company – wants to have have lunch with her husband. He needs a minute to wrap up some business. Mrs. Snow speaks to his assistant, Linda, and Mrs. Snow accuses Linda of sleeping with her husband. Linda denies it. Mrs. Snow tells her that she already knows and things will be easier if Linda just confesses now as it will not end well for her down the road. Linda stands firm. The Snows leave and I am left with the impression that Linda is having sex with Mr. Snow. Which is so lame and predictable. Just don’t cheat on your wife. Come on, already!
Back with Magus, as he is giving a tour of his factory. The humans that work for him are not being mind controlled. They are paid a fair wage, things are good. X-Factor is there as Magus is cutting into Serval’s profits.
Magus updates the team (and me) that the planet he is from, where all of the Phalanx are from, has been destroyed. The few that remain on Earth, are the last of the species.
Magus also tells them that he is no longer trying to kill his son, Warlock – as their tradition states (one of them has to be killed by the other) – and that Warlock is helping him at the factory.
Warlock comes out, sees his self-friend Doug and they are united after a while of not seeing each other. Doug confronts him about the tracking unit. Warlock was worried for his friend, as he suspects Doug is having suicidal thoughts. Doug denies having any sort of thoughts of that regard.
Danger is tired of all of this jibber jabber. She didn’t bring Doug there so that he can have a nice chat with Warlock.
There is a fun scene where Warlock hits on Danger. She isn’t interested.
Warlock wants to join Doug in his new adventure with X-Factor. Warlock asks his father if that would be okay. Magus loses his mind and after yelling for a minute, agrees to let him go. Which I completely get that, that’s all I want to do sometimes, is to vent and then still do what I’ve been told to do.
Polaris is surprised that they are going to just let Magus continue his goals. Quicksilver points out that the only reason Magus attacked them in the past is due to them attacking him first.
So X-Factor has gone from three members to five.
I’m going to keep track of this series and see if Magik shows up again in more dream sequences or an actual appearance.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 