Chapter 27: X-Men – The Dirty Thirty (1993)

Can you believe we’ve covered 30 years of X-Men history?! 1993 was a busy year for the X-Men, as Lobdell and Nicieza worked to put their stamp on the line in the wake of the Image departure, while prepping for multiple mega-events to celebrate the anniversary. The year is dominated by two main themes: The legacy of Magneto and his impending return (and a bit of a meta narrative around the legacy of the all the outgoing creators from 1991-92), and the dawning of the Legacy Virus, a poorly thought out AIDS parallel that made some good stories in 1993 but petered out by the time it was just swept aside in 2000.

We’re also really in the peak of the comics sales boom here, so the volume of comics to cover is huge – and so many of them have those gimmicky chrome and hologram covers. Let’s dive in!

Wolverine #67-68 (March-April 1993)
Writer: Larry Hama
Artist: Mark Texiera

After Wolverine asks Professor X to remove some of the mental blocks on his memories, Wolverine has a bit of a psychotic break and runs off to Russia to chase after a mission he’s beginning to remember from his CIA days. There, he meets aging Soviet super-cosmonaut Epsilon Red, whose psychic daughter helps remove the rest of Wolverine’s false memories. Iceman joins the X-Men team that chases after Wolverine and catches up with him just in time to give him a lift out.

Bobby doesn’t really do much here other than demonstrate his ignorance of Russian geography while continuing to try to make friends with Colossus.

Artists love drawing naked Wolverine with his legs spread and no visible genitals.

By this point, the Blue and Gold distinction between the teams has all but evaporated and the X-Men are just grabbing whoever’s handy for each mission. In this case though, it seems like the Blue Team has just grabbed Bobby and Colossus because Rogue and Gambit are still recovering from their injuries during the “X-Cutioner’s Song” story (Beast also skips out for some reason). Maybe they thought Colossus’ fluency in Russian would be helpful.

Anyway, since they’re in Russia anyway, the X-Men decide to stop off at Colossus’ parents’ house in Siberia (a mere 3,000 kilometers away, as the story points out) so he can break the news about Mikhail.

X-Men #17-19 (February-April 1993)
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Andy Kubert

While visiting Colossus’ parents in Siberia, the X-Men get roped into helping the Russian government stop the Soul Skinner, a psychic mutant who’s taken over a neighboring town. While they’re doing that, the Russians kill Colossus’ parents and kidnap his sister Illyana, hoping to use technology to rapidly age her and cause her powers to develop, so she can be the last line of defense against the Skinner.

When it’s mentioned that Darkstar has already failed to stop the Soul Skinner, Bobby shows concern for his former Champions teammate, but thankfully his unreciprocated crush is not brought up.

Later, when the Soul Skinner uses his powers to cripple people with feelings of guilt and shame on the X-Men, Bobby is confronted his shame at not being able to make a relationship with Opal work. Opal is shown as literally melting Bobby into nothing, a reflection of his own feelings of failure at heterosexuality.

The Skinner is later executed on panel by Col Vazhin. It’s possible he could be brought back and rehabilitated in the Krakoan era, possibly even with his daughter, whose death sparked his psychotic break.

Heap this on the pile of early 90s misery stories for the X-Men. At one point, Soul Skinner himself is overwhelmed by the misery the X-Men have gone through. But just wait for what’s in store for Colossus.

While Bobby’s in Russia, Beast flirts with Gambit.

Because he’s in Russia, Bobby misses Uncanny X-Men #298, where the returned Acolytes attack a school and kill Sharon Friedlander, and Xavier collects autopsy notes of a mutant who dies of a mysterious illness. Oddly, Xavier had predicted the Acolytes returning a year earlier in Avengers #350, which feels like precisely the wrong book for that.

Spectacular Spider-Man #197-199 (February-April 1993)
Writer: JM DeMattias
Artist: Sal Buscema

A sequel of sorts to Marvel Team-Up #117-118, Spider-Man gets caught in the crossfire when Professor Power attempts to kill the original X-Men, as revenge for the time when Professor X failed to save his son’s life. The X-Men and Spider-Man defeat Professor Power and stop his floating castle fortress from crashing into a small town.

A very boring story with an undermotivated villain who has almost zero relationship with any of the heroes, incredibly stretched over two and a half issues. Buscema’s art is pretty ugly too. A real miss.

The only thing of note in this story is the opening bit where the X-Men boys are out on the town and reminisce about hitting the Village together in the Silver Age and seem to recall events exactly the opposite of the way they happened. Angel laments that he was too shy to talk to girls, Scott says the girls were always after Bobby, and Hank says the girls were actually always after Scott. This of course bears no resemblance to any stories that have seen print. Nevertheless, Scott gets in a dig about how everyone knew Bobby would never actually make it with a girl.

Uncanny X-Men #299 (March 1993)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Brandon Peterson

The Professor, now a mini-celebrity because of the assassination attempt in “X-Cutioner’s Song,” appears on ABC’s Nightline to debate Senator Kelly and Graydon Creed, who makes his debut as the leader of the “Friends of Humanity” (who no one knows were actually trying to assassinate Xavier before Stryfe got there). Beast is also in the debate, as the most high-profile mutant, and he thoroughly humiliates Creed in a way that really damaged his credibility as a political leader to readers in the 1990s, but honestly reads like exactly the sort of grievance politician that thrives in the post-Trump era of politics.

Bobby makes a cameo cheering on Beast from a bar where the X-Men are all watching along.

In other subplots, Senator Kelly seems to be softening his approach toward mutants and even invites Xavier to dinner. He also appears to have a telepathic aide in his retinue – we’ll eventually learn that’s a Landau, Luckman and Lake operative, but it’s never explained what he was doing there (and they’re both dead now, so it probably never will be). Bishop seems to recognize a waitress in the bar from somewhere – it turns out she’s Dark Beast’s henchman Fatale, which still doesn’t explain how he recognizes her. Forge finds the remains of Asteroid M in Kuwait, along with strong evidence that Magneto survived.

And most consequentially, Illyana has a cough…

Uncanny X-Men #300 (April 1993)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: John Romita Jr.

The X-Men Gold Team, joined by Cyclops, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler, track the Acolytes to France, where they’ve also kidnapped Moira MacTaggart. Cortez wants to use MacTaggart’s mind control process from X-Men #1-3 to recruit more Acolytes, but she resists their attempts to read her mind (a hint at her mutant abilities?). Meanwhile, Gamesmaster announces that Cortez has lost all the points he claimed for killing Magneto, a revelation that gets overheard by one of the new Acolytes, who turns on him and helps the X-Men. The X-Men defeat the Acolytes, but in the end, new member Amelia Voght, who has a relationship with Xavier, teleports them all away.

Iceman gets into a fight with new Acolyte Joanna Cargill, formerly Frenzy of the Alliance of Queer-Coded Villains Evil. She tells him that she’s gotten stronger since she’s found “acceptance,” to which Iceman retorts by showing off his own developing strength, in a continuation of the storyline about his powers being tied to his own self-acceptance.

In subplots, Xavier and Moira start to piece together that Illyana’s sickness is related to the Genoshan mutate plague she was investigating in X-Factor #88-90, and that it may have been engineered by Stryfe. We also get a flashback to Xavier and Moira discussing founding the X-Men, in which Xavier indicates he already had Storm, Nightcrawler and Colossus in mind prior to recruiting the original team. It makes a certain degree of sense that he’d have files on them, but bear in mind that Colossus is younger than the original team, so he’s at most twelve, maybe thirteen in this flashback.

Uncanny X-Men Annual #17 (1993)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Jason Pearson

Iceman, Jean Grey, and Bishop get trapped in illusions when they go to investigate Mastermind, who’s dying of the Legacy Virus on Muir Island. Meanwhile, the debuting X-Cutioner arrives to try to kill him.

The fantasy sequences in this one are subtler than they first appear. In Bobby’s fantasy, he’s Icemaster, leader of the world-famous X-Men. His name implies the control over his powers that he’s always failed to live up to (and also, possibly, BDSM fantasies he hasn’t gotten to play out). He’s actually revered for dropping out of college and he claims his mastery of accounting made him the perfect X-Men leader. He commands respect from Xavier, Wolverine, and, tellingly, Polaris, and the guy she dumped him for, Havok.

That’s supposed to be ice melting off his face, right? Right?

Actually the gay BDSM thing isn’t that subtle after all.

Bobby’s fantasy doesn’t include even a hint of women being attracted to him – it’s entirely about guys giving him respect and complimenting him on what a man he is. But he does take one weird, half-hearted swing at Jean, someone he has never once shown any romantic interest in, and she lets him down immediately. In fact, Bobby flirting with her is the thing that makes Jean finally realize that something’s off with the world.

The ending is a bit melodramatic, with Jean risking her life to forgive Mastermind for what he did to the Phoenix (when he, y’know, tried to rape her and drove her insane). Endless selfless forgiveness is a big trope for superheroes, but this feels a bit too far for me.

In minor developments, X-Cutioner kills Tower, who was previously one of the most queer-coded members of the Alliance of Evil, but is seen here trying to rape a woman in Central America. We learn the X-Cutioner is a former partner of the X-Men’s former FBI liaison Fred Duncan, who has died in unrevealed circumstances. Bishop’s sister Shard debuts in the fantasy sequence. And Colossus suffers a brain injury that is said to exacerbate his erratic behavior in the upcoming issues.

And in the backup feature, the final member of the Upstarts, Sienna Blaze, makes her debut in a trailer for X-Men Unlimited #1, where she attempts to kill Cyclops, Storm, and Xavier.

Uncanny X-Men #301-302 (May-June 1993)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: John Romita Jr.

Trevor Fitzroy tries to kill Forge, but the X-Men arrive in time to stop him. In the battle, Colossus nearly kills Fitzroy before the X-Men restrain him.

Opal Tanaka surprises Bobby at the mansion to talk, revealing that Bobby’s been sending her a dozen roses daily, so, I guess he didn’t give her the space he said she’d asked for back in #294. Honestly, I was surprised the relationship was even still going on. They don’t get to have their conversation because he gets sent on the mission.

When he arrives, he gets to show off his powers by stopping a mob of bigots who accuse Storm of attacking the city. It’s a good scene that’s unfortunately marred by a police officer rushing to defend the X-Men because he knows what it’s like to be feared and hated simply because he’s a cop. Sigh, “Blue lives matter…”

Otherwise, it’s a pretty bad story with some awful plot logic. The X-Men fly to Dallas to recruit Forge to help them with Illyana, instead of just calling the man, when it’s such an emergency? Forge somehow knows that Fitzroy is in the Upstarts even though Fitzroy didn’t introduce himself or say that and the X-Men don’t even know about the Upstarts yet? And Gamesmaster claims that Forge will do something important in the next 24 hours, but of course he doesn’t.

Also, Fitzroy has captured and imprisoned Selene, just to get Gamesmaster’s attention, which seems… counterproductive, since she’s the person running the Upstarts competition? This ultimately gets addressed years down the road in X-Man, when Selene enslaves him as one of her pawns in her new Hellfire Club.

Uncanny X-Men #303 (July 1993)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Richard Bennett

The Gold Team arrive home at the mansion just after Illyana succumbs to the Legacy Virus.

Bobby only appears in two panels of this issue (in which he makes a bad joke because he’s completely incapable of reading the room), but it’s one of the better issues of the era. It’s all about Jubilee coping with this kind of death that she’s never experienced before.

Jubilee states that the story takes place simultaneously with X-Men #20-23, where a white lady who claims to be the real Psylocke but is actually Kwannon leads the X-Men to Japan, where they learn that both women are now inseparable mixes of the two. The X-Men also finally learn about the Upstarts. Meanwhile, Cyclops visits his grandparents in Alaska, where Mr. Sinister ambushes him and tells him about the Legacy Virus and drops the first mention of his missing third brother. And, the Dark Riders kill Mesmero (well, actually, he fools them and gets away) and then kill their own member Psynapse, who was already sick with the Legacy Virus. Everyone (including Banshee, who explains that he abandoned his search for Moira upon realizing she was fine) returns to the mansion in X-Men #24, which is another issue of mourning Illyana.

X-Factor #93 (July 1993)
Writers: Scott Lobdell and JM DeMattias
Artist:

Havok and Wolfsbane visit the mansion, where Professor X wants to continue trying to reverse the mutate process done on Wolfsbane. Upon arrival, they have a chat with Archangel and Iceman about how Illyana’s death is affecting Colossus, and Bobby announces that he’s going to try to shake Colossus out of his stoic behavior to try and get him to open up about his feelings. Colossus shuts him down immediately. It’s nice that the budding yet testy Bobby-Peter friendship got picked up in this cameo.

In the rest of the book, Wolfsbane decides to undergo a risky medical procedure to cure her condition, Multiple Man is brooding and everyone thinks its because he killed the Acolyte Mellancamp in the previous issue and not because he contracted the Legacy Virus, and Polaris and Quicksilver get new costumes just in time for him to leave the book next issue, and Forge replaces Val Cooper as the team’s government liaison.

Uncanny X-Men #304 (August 1993)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: John Romita Jr.

This is the third part of the “Fatal Attractions” story that runs through 1993 as the celebration of the X-Men’s 30^th Anniversary. It isn’t really a cohesive story so much as it’s a set of single issues set around the theme of Magneto’s legacy and return. In X-Factor #92, the team fight the Acolytes after they attack a hospice and then a facility where the government is relaunching the Sentinel program. In X-Force #25, Cable returns just in time for Exodus to offer the former New Mutants the opportunity to reunite with Magneto on his orbiting haven Avalon, which turns out to be Cable’s former station Graymalkin, and when he goes to rescue them, Magneto savagely attacks and cripples him before he can escape.

In this chapter, the X-Men bury Illyana, and Magneto crashes the funeral with the Acolytes in tow, and dares the X-Men to join him. He’s in full-on raving looney mode this issue, and murders one of the Acolytes Senyaka in front of everyone for killing humans without his authorization, although he also says he would have given authorization if asked. Despite this, the Acolytes have no reservations about following him, and in fact Colossus abandons the X-Men and joins him too.

Iceman has a speaking part, but he’s mostly just a face in the gathered X-Men at the funeral.

“Fatal Attractions” is structured such that there’s room for a gap between chapters, which is convenient, because a whole other crossover fits here. Yup, it’s time for…

Infinity Crusade #1-6
Writer: Jim Starlin
Artist: Ron Lim

Adam Warlock’s stray “good side” The Goddess decides to “rapture” the universe in service of The One Above All (the Marvel Universe’s equivalent of God). She “recruits” the Marvel heroes who either believe in God or have some connection with the supernatural to be her stooges in order to carry out her plan, while she also causes everyone in the universe to stop being evil and stop fighting. In the grand tradition of the awful Infinity Trilogy, the remaining heroes of earth gather to stand around and not really contribute anything to the plot until Adam Warlock and Thanos do some hand-wavey stuff to make the villain go away. This is easily the worst chapter of the trilogy because Starlin clearly thinks he’s making some interesting points about faith and good and evil but he doesn’t actually have anything to say.

For what it’s worth, Iceman is among the heroes defined as an “infidel” with no real faith in God. I suppose that’s fair enough, even if you subscribe to Bobby as being a kid who was raised Catholic and Jewish. The story takes pains to point out that The Goddess rejected the Human Torch even though he thought himself to be reasonably religious.

Bobby is mostly there to fill out crowd scenes, but he does participate in the invasion of The Goddess’ world in Infinity Crusade #5, where he’s paired with fellow infidel Beast (that sounds right) and gets beaten by Storm. He also appears in Darkhawk #30, where he asks the title character his opinion on the Goddess, and makes a cameo in Web of Spider-Man #105.

Uncanny X-Men #305 (September 1993)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Jan Duursema

The X-Men find strange genetic anomalies stalking Opal Tanaka, so they wait around using her as bait to draw them out. When she finds out this was Bobby’s idea, she finally dumps him (I mean, there’s no real definitive “It’s over” moment, but she isn’t seen again for years after this). And if you’re thinking, “wait, didn’t they break up over a year ago?” Well, honestly, yeah, it sure seemed more definitive back in Uncanny X-Men #290. Presumably Lobdell just needed another associate of the X-Men and realized there just aren’t that many girlfriends available to use like this. To be honest, this scene doesn’t even read like a conclusive “it’s over” moment so much as it does a big argument, but Opal won’t appear again for another seven years, by which point she’s long moved on.

The strange anomalies turn out to be an early iteration of the Phalanx, but they don’t look anything like we’d expect. They look more like they’re usual depiction next issue, but Bobby doesn’t appear in it.

Meanwhile, the Professor and Storm steal a suit of armor that Xavier hopes will be useful against Magneto. That suit debuted in X-Men Unlimited #2, which is a mostly excellent character study of Magneto told through the eyes of a human man who’s spent his life dedicated to killing him in revenge for murdering his brother. That issues main drawback was the retcon that Magneto wasn’t Jewish, but instead was targeted by the Nazis because he was a “Gypsy.” A few years later, that bad retcon was undone, and Magneto’s Jewish origins were finally confirmed in X-Men: Magneto – Testament. Oh, and in that issue it turns out “Fatal Attraction” is the title of a best selling book about the human-mutant conflict written by Jonathan Chambers, who we’ll see more of shortly.

“Fatal Attractions”
X-Men #25, Wolverine #75 (September-October 1993)
Writer: Fabian Nicieza, Larry Hama
Artist: Andy Kubert, Adam Kubert

The Professor leads a small group of X-Men and Quicksilver onto Avalon for the final confrontation with Magneto. Magneto nearly kills Wolverine by pulling the adamantium out of his body, and Xavier responds by disabling Magneto’s mind. Wolverine recovers from his injuries, discovers he has bone claws, and leaves the X-Men.

Iceman is among the gathered X-Men who see the battle group off and watch as they return from space.

Iceman doesn’t appear in the final part of “Fatal Attractions,” Excalibur #71, where the X-Men trick Colossus into coming to Muir Isle to finally receive treatment for his head injury. In the end, he decides to return to the Acolytes. Meanwhile, Jean makes peace with her sort-of daughter Rachel Summers, who also meets her sort-of brother Cable for the first time as an adult.

Gambit Vol 4 #10 (May 2005)
Writer: John Layman
Artist: Georges Jeanty

A random flashback scene to the X-Men fighting the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Presumably it’s been placed here on the basis of costumes and because it has to come after Avalanche rejoins that team in X-Men Annual #2. In that issue, the X-Men investigate Jonathan Chambers’ refuge for mutants who are dying of the Legacy Virus and we learn that Pyro and Revanche are both infected with the virus. Chambers is very clearly queer coded and the issue actually devotes a whole page to Pyro and Avalanche making up and rekindling their relationship – even Blob asks “are they kissing yet”?

Basically, the gist of this flashback is that Blob’s costume gets destroyed mid fight and everyone stops to stare and/or laugh at his junk. Gambit uses this mental image to scare off telepaths. In the moment though, the assembled starers are mostly queer-coded characters: Iceman, Beast, Pyro, Avalanche, and Toad.

“Bloodties” (October-November 1993)
Avengers #368-369, X-Men #26, Avengers West Coast #101, Uncanny X-Men #307
Writers: Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza, Bob Harras, Roy Thomas
Artists: Steven Epting, Andy Kubert, John Romita Jr, David Ross

Fearing retaliation from Magneto, Fabian Cortez kidnaps Crystal and Quicksilver’s daughter (in the epilogue to Avengers #367), Luna to use as a hostage, and then goes to Genosha, where Magneto’s electromagnetic pulse attack has inspired a civil war between the humans and mutates. There, he manages to install himself as president and inspires atrocities on both sides. The Avengers ignore a UN order to stay out of the conflict, while the US government sends Xavier in a doomed attempt to mediate, leading the X-Men to follow. Ultimately, Exodus shows up and revealing himself to be massively powerful, threatens to destroy the entire island himself. The X-Men and Avengers team up to stop him.

An odd little crossover to celebrate the 30^th anniversary of both titles, “Bloodties” is better than I remember it being. There are a few botched storytelling errors, the Avengers lineup is kinda meh, and for some reason the X-Men take the dying Revanche on the mission instead of Psylocke. But overall, this is a nice little coda to “Fatal Attractions,” with Cortez staging one last desperate stand for his own safety and relevance and getting completely outclassed by the true believer. His on-panel death is a satisfying conclusion to his arc, although he ends up returning with no explanation a few years later. As for Genosha, the civil war from this story never really ends and crops up from time to time over the years until the UN hands it over to Magneto in 1998’s “The Magneto War.”

Iceman doesn’t have a whole lot to do in this story, but he does have a weird little scene where he gooses Rogue in the Danger Room in Avengers #368, and then frets over the safety of his former lover beast in Avengers #369.

X-Men #27 (December 1993)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Richard Bennett

Iceman, Rogue and Beast check in on Infectia who’s dying of the Legacy Virus, and find Mr. Sinister, who’s also investigating the virus.

The Legacy Virus was introduced to give the X-Men a parallel to the AIDS crisis that was tearing its way through the world – and in particular, through the queer community and other marginalized groups around this time. 1993 was something of a watershed year in the crisis, as the Clinton White House did a full reversal on previous administrations’ basic policy of ignoring the virus. People were talking much more openly about it, and consequently about sexuality in general, and this was across all media.

As we’ve already seen already, the X-books were getting much more open about making the direct comparison between mutants and gays in the comics, and this continues to be a prominent theme for a while. Nearly every issue of X-Factor around this time was making the point in dialogue, for example. It must have seemed natural for the X-office to want to do a story parallel to one of the most pressing issues in America, and in particular, to the queer community. These early issues that deal with characters’ fears and insecurities around the virus are the best part of the story. Unfortunately, as a long-term direction, the Legacy Virus was kind of a failure. It just didn’t make for a lot of dramatic storytelling, since the darn thing couldn’t just be cured. And an AIDS parallel that only affects mutants is fairly problematic too.

This time, it’s Rogue who points out that the virus attacks mutants by targeting exactly what makes them different, in a monologue that wouldn’t be out of place in much of the contemporary queer HIV melodrama of 1993.

Later, a disguised Mr. Sinister who delivers a lengthy monologue that directly compares the virus to AIDS and criticizes the medical establishment for its homophobia in dealing with it in its early days. It’s actually a wonderfully camp performance.

Remarkably, this issue also marks the first time Rogue and Iceman have had a real on-panel conversation outside of Danger Room quips. We’ll see their friendship become quite important to Bobby next year.

And look how intimate Bobby gets with Hank once Rogue leaves the room. “You got something good, Hank?”

(Ok, so a minor quibble with this issue is that the X-Men and the hospital staff are behaving like the Legacy Virus is common knowledge, but two years down the road it’s a plot point that the X-Men have kept this a secret, which is a story that doesn’t really make much sense anyway.)

This issue also features the debut of Threnody, a homeless mutant (who’s seemingly coded as a sex worker, given her clothes) with the plot-convenient power to detect people dying of the Legacy Virus. Beast lets Sinister take her, reasoning that the amoral Sinister will be willing to exploit her to cure the virus, while the X-Men won’t, putting all of mutantkind at risk. Kind of a false moral dilemma, if you ask me.

Uncanny X-Men #308 (January 1994)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: John Romita Jr.

On Thanksgiving, Jean asks Scott to marry her.

Meanwhile, the other X-Men play football, and Iceman struggles to explain the concept to Bishop. It’s tempting to think Bobby’s vest outfit is inspired by Chandler from Friends, but actually that show won’t debut for another year.

In an interesting touch, Bobby’s racist parents show up for Thanksgiving dinner. I can only imagine their conversation on the ride over.

Iceman doesn’t appear in Uncanny X-Men #309, in which Xavier has nightmares that expand on his relationship with Amelia Voght. He also skips X-Men Unlimited #3, in which Xavier invites Sabertooth to live in the mansion to be rehabilitated; Uncanny X-Men Annual #18, in which Caliban kidnaps Jubilee hoping the X-Men will trade her for Sabertooth; and X-Men #28-29, in which Jean slaps down Sabertooth and Shinobi Shaw tries to recruit Archangel into his new Hellfire Club. But Jubilee does take a moment to make homophobic comments about Bobby masturbating to National Geographic (“master of my domain” is a Seinfeld reference) and says Shinobi’s invitation looks like something out of Liberace. Nice.

X-Men: The Wedding Album (March 1994)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Ian Churchill

Mostly a clip show of Jubilee reading Jean’s diary of the Silver Age and deciding that marrying Scott is actually “way cool.” In the framing sequence, Bobby tries to get Jean to set him up with fashion designer Nicole Miller, who Jean knows from her Silver Age modelling stint and designed Jean’s wedding dress. Jean shrugs him off because she knows he’s gay but is too polite at this point to say anything.

Uncanny X-Men #310 (March 1994)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: John Romita Jr.

Before heading to his bachelor party, Scott is confronted by Cable over how he abandoned him as an infant, and together they fight off the X-Cutioner, who sneaks into the mansion to kill the comatose Emma Frost.

Cable and Cyclops got final confirmation that Cable was the real Nathan Summers over in Cable #6-8. Much of this issue reads like a well-deserved swipe at X-Factor #68 and subsequent issues for underplaying Scott’s horror and pain at giving up his son. By the end of the issue, Cable and Cyclops have basically made up. Cable also tells him that he had people who took care of him in the future, foreshadowing The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix.

Meanwhile, the bachelor party is at a bar in Greenwich Village populated entirely by the male X-characters. Look at Bobby reminiscing about Cyclops and a secret he’s not allowed to tell his teammates.

There’s also a strange beat where the bartender cards Bobby and he claims not to have his ID on him. Lobdell can’t possibly have intended this scene to imply that Bobby was below the legal drinking age (21), right? That had been definitively not the take for at least a decade of his appearances by this point. My take is he’s probably around 25-26 at this point.

X-Men #30 (March 1994)
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Andy Kubert

Scott and Jean get married.

Professor X takes the opportunity to reflect on the fact that his first students getting married (*ahem* again) means that all of his students are definitely adults and he should start reassessing his relationship to his mission. We get a little foreshadowing about Generation X at the end.

Xavier’s narration also confirms that he is mentally scanning his students at the wedding to judge their feelings and he specifically mentions scanning Bobby’s mind. Which makes this panel either some epic homophobic shade, or some very early support for same-sex marriage.

Bobby and Hank also take a moment to commiserate about their love lives. Maybe they should go back to bunking together.

Parts of this issue also take place concurrently with the second story in The Wedding Album and What If…? Vol 2 #60, but Iceman doesn’t do anything significant in either.

After the wedding, Excalibur return to Muir Island where Rachel attempts to rescue Captain Britain but gets sucked into the timestream and lost in Excalibur #75 (her storyline had mostly been resolved earlier that year in Excalibure #67, when the time-travelling team overthrew the Sentinel administration of America in her home timeline, so it was time for a new direction). She ends up 2000 years in the future where she founds the Clan Askani to overthrow Apocalypse, as told in X-Men: Phoenix. The Askani of course pick up baby Nathan way back in X-Factor #68, although that apparently wasn’t their original plan. Rachel then uses her power to pluck Cyclops and Jean away from their honeymoon into the Askani future so that they can raise baby Nathan to defeat Apocalypse, as told in The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. The story of Cable’s youth continues into Askani’son.

And that wraps up the X-Men’s momentous 30^th Anniversary year!

Where to find these issues: All of them, except, surprisingly, the Spectacular Spider-Man issues and Wolverine #67-68, are available on Marvel Unlimited. In print, most of the rest is collected across the X-Men: Shattershot, X-Men: Fatal Attractions, and X-Men: The Wedding of Cyclops and Phoenix omnibuses. X-Factor #93 is in X-Factor Epic Collection 9: Afterlives. Gambit #10 is in Gambit: Thieves’ World. Infinity Crusade has been collected on its own multiple times.

Next Time: The X-Men take off most of 1994 to get everyone excited about new spin-offs.

ROB SALERNO

Chapter 27: X-Men – The Dirty Thirty (1993)

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