Chapter 29: Onslaught! (1995-96)

Before we begin, I have some big news! Since I was last here writing about Bobby Drake, I published a book!

SMASHING YOUNG MAN is an anthology of my plays which have been produced to rave reviews and sold-out houses across Canada, in the United States, and Europe! This brand new collection features searing wit and indelible characters in a series of plays investigating what it means to be a young man today. SMASHING YOUNG MAN is available in paperback and Kindle format from Amazon and Amazon.ca. Get your copy today!

Now that that’s out of the way…

When we last left Bobby, he was starting to reevaluate his life, particularly his relationship with his father and his lack of commitment to exploring and mastering his mutant powers. He’d also struck up a friendship with Rogue.

Then the universe ended.

And now we’re back! Brace yourselves. This is a loooooooong post. Even though it only covers 15 months worth of comics, Marvel was shipping an overwhelming amount of comics in 1995 as the industry charged through its commercial peak. Surely, it was going to be clear skies ahead for years for Marvel, right? Right?

X-Men: Prime (July 1995)
Writers: Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza
Artists: Too many to list

This was the big starting point for the line after the Age of Apocalypse, essentially trailing the ne status quos on all the X-Books. Just going to be upfront, from this point forward, the entire line is more or less in a state of constant crossover, especially with Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Men Unlimited, Wolverine, X-Force, and Cable now all set at the Mansion.

Not at the mansion: Rogue and Iceman, who’ve taken off on a road trip across the US to help Rogue clear her head after the kiss she gave Gambit when she thought the world was ending in X-Men #41. We check in with them for a couple pages where they’re partying in what is clearly a Miami gay bar (the narration says “There is one woman for every six guys”).

Over in the main plot, Trish Tilby breaks the story that Legacy Virus exists and it’s now spread to the human population. This ratchets up anti—mutant hysteria, with deadly consequences for one Dennis Hogan, a mutant who happens to be passing through Westchester looking for help from the X-Men. Unfortunately, they fail to arrive in time to prevent a group of college kids from beating him to death. Both stories were clear allegories for the struggles of queer people in a time of HIV hysteria and gay bashing (this story predates the Matthew Sheppard murder by three years).

Meanwhile, Wolverine is becoming feral and living on the mansion grounds, Bishop is having flashbacks to the Age of Apocalypse, X-Force’s base is blown up, X-Factor capture Mystique but Havok’s powers flare out of control, Sugar Man stops Excalibur from discovering that he’s the secret power behind Genosha, Marrow summons the Dark Beast, the Acolytes find Holocaust floating in space and bring him into Avalon, and Nate Grey falls to earth.

Bobby skips Uncanny X-Men #322, where the Juggernaut is punched all the way from Canada to New Jersey by something called “Onslaught,” and he ends up in a coma in the Mansion.

X-Men #42 (July 1995)
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Paul Smith

In a two-page subplot, Rogue finds herself under Gambit’s lingering influence and attempts to steal a gold helmet from a home in Key West, Florida, but Iceman stops her. She can’t or doesn’t explain her actions.

Meanwhile, Exodus is convinced that the mysterious stranger they found floating in space is a gift from Magneto, but the other Acolytes increasingly think he’s nuts. The stranger turns out to be Holocaust from the Age of Apocalypse, who doesn’t understand he’s in a new universe and assumes the followers of Magneto are the X-Men. He kills Milan, Javitz, and, more importantly, Rusty Collins, who joined the Acolytes with Skids in X-Force #25 (isn’t it time he got a resurrection, by the way?). Voght teleports away for help and ends up accidentally bringing a confused Cyclops and Phoenix there.

Bobby skips X-Men #43-44, where Jean rescues Skids and they crash to earth together. Colossus gets the comatose Magneto to an escape pod, but when he lands in Antarctica, he’s alone and found by Callisto, who’s returned from the extra-dimensional exile in Mikhail’s dimension (from Uncanny X-Men #293) a decade older. And Cyclops leads the surviving Acolytes to safety after they crash in the Australian outback. They agree to turn themselves in, apparently, but eventually escape. A minor plot point is established that someone has been using the X-Men’s former Outback base recently – but presumably it was just Donald Pierce and the Reavers, who were living there in Uncanny X-Men #281, when they were killed.

Uncanny X-Men #323-324 (July-September 1995)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Tom Grummet, Bryan Hitch, Roger Cruz

Rogue and Iceman’s car breaks down in Arizona, and Rogue holds Iceman to their agreement not to use powers during their road trip. They walk through the desert to find help, and along the way Bobby either hallucinates or is telepathically contacted by Emma Frost, who teases him about the argument they had in Uncanny X-Men #318. When they eventually arrive at a restaurant in Millstone, Arizona, Rogue recalls someone named Grey Crow, who we learn was friends with Gambit and their waitress (years later in the 1999 Gambit series, we’ll learn he’s Scalphunter of the Marauders). Bobby tries to call Emma to figure out what’s up, but she refuses to answer the phone for some reason.

“As Iceman, I’ve made a career out of **denial**…” Now c’mon, Rogue. Tell me what kissing Gambit was like….

Meanwhile, in the main plot, a new mutant terrorist organization called Gene Nation attacks a night club, murdering dozens of patrons. Storm, Wolverine, and new member Cannonball (who graduated to the X-Men in X-Force #44), fight off Vessel and Sack. Two other members of Gene Nation, Marrow and Hemingway, attempted to kidnap the former Morlock Leech in Generation X #5-6.

And Graydon Creed is starting to lead large public rallies against mutants. This will become important soon.

Iceman makes a brief and unimportant appearance in DC vs Marvel #2.

Uncanny X-Men #325 (October 1995)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Joe Madureira

In the road trip subplot, a recently awakened Gambit is startled to learn Rogue is heading to Seattle and tries to convince her to stop. When she hangs up on him, he heads there to intercept her, with Mr. Sinister following on his heels.

Meanwhile, Callisto interrupts the X-Men/Generation X intra-varsity baseball game to warn the X-Men that Gene Nation are planning a massive attack to commemorate the Morlock Massacre. In the battle, Storm kills the Gene Nation member Reverb and appears to kill Marrow by ripping out her heart. Callisto takes the surviving Gene Nation members back to their pocket dimension, instead of, for example, putting them on trial for mass murder.

X-Men #45 (October 1995)
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Andy Kubert

Bobby tries to convince Rogue not to dig up whatever painful memories she stole from Gambit that brought them to Seattle, because Bobby is very much still about repressing any and all uncomfortable thoughts. Rogue is not having it.

Bobby: “Let’s both try to straighten ourselves out.” Patient ally Rogue: “…It’s not that simple, Bobby…”

Gambit tracks down Rogue and Iceman to an abandoned theatre. He refuses to tell her outright what the dark secret in his past is but does offer to let her touch him and absorb his mind again, presumably because that would show her proof that he’s changed. She refuses, breaks up with him, and leaves the X-Men for a while. But before she goes, she tries to give Bobby some words of encouragement that sure sound like a nudge out of the closet to me.

Bobby tries to console Gambit, but he’s not taking it. In the end, Mr. Sinister shows up to remind Gambit that he’s still his pawn. The significance of the theatre is eventually explained in Nicieza’s 1998 Gambit solo title.

This is Fabian Nicieza’s final issue on the title, closing out nearly four years.

Rogue next turns up in X-Man #11, continuing her tour across the US. Gambit and Bobby are both back in the Mansion by Uncanny X-Men #326, although Bobby doesn’t appear on panel. That issue is devoted mostly to Gambit torturing Sabretooth because he resents Sabretooth being given an opportunity to rehabilitate himself. And if you’re wondering, “Oh, Sabretooth is still in the Mansion?” Yes, his plotline was mostly moved over to X-Force, where Boom-Boom was tending to him in his animal state. Also, Beast, Professor X, and Val Cooper all lie to an epidemiology conference to try to downplay the severity of the Legacy Virus.

Bobby also skips Uncanny X-Men #327, where an amnesiac who appears to be Magneto (but isn’t) turns up in Latin America and finally decides to go look for the X-men. This is the start of the story of Magneto’s clone, Joseph. And he misses Uncanny X-Men Annual ’95 (they stopped getting numbers from here forward), where Storm, Bishop, Cannonball, and Husk check in on the Guthrie family when Joelle Guthrie falls in with the survivalist faction of the Friends of Humanity, Humanity’s Last Stand. He also misses X-Men Annual ’95, in which Jean Grey learns a bit more about Mr. Sinister’s backstory of torturing and (it’s implied) raping victims in the name of scientific research. She learns even more in The Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, in which the title couple time travel to Victorian England and fail to stop Apocalypse from turning Nathaniel Essex into Sinister, and accidentally inspire Sinister’s fascination with their DNA.

X-Men Unlimited #8 (October 1995)
Writer: Howard Mackie
Artist: Tom Grummet

The X-Men help new mutant Chris Bradley cope with his electricity powers, only to find out that he has contracted the Legacy Virus. In the end, he decides to go back home to try to return to normal life (presumably because no one wanted him in Generation X).

Chris’ story has some obvious parallels with school homophobia and HIV-panic around this era. Unfortunately, Mackie spends the vast bulk of this 48-page story on Chris’ week with the X-Men rather than the more interesting parts of his exclusion and reintegration into his normal life.

On the plus side, Chris develops a very cute friendship with Bobby, full of double entendre. It’s a bit ironic that he delivers the big speech about how true friends accept you no matter who or what you are, but the moment lands despite the melodrama.

Chris, however, is obsessed with the nice hot girl at his old school, and races to tell Bobby that she still wants to go out with him even after he tells her about his status, in a bit of a “no homo” coda to the story.

“Never more than a phone call away,” he says to the kid who he’ll never share a panel with again.

A flashback to this story appears in X-Men Unlimited #15, which sets up Chris’ new status as Maverick’s sidekick in his 1997 ongoing series. After that, Chris appears in the 1999 New Warriors revival, before being killed in the mutant concentration camp in Weapon X. He’s probably due for a revival. He even appears as a supporting character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine!

All-New Exiles vs. X-Men #0
Writer: Terry Kavanaugh
Artist: Ken Lashley

Iceman is among the X-Men who journey to the Ultraverse to attempt to find the Juggernaut, who disappeared mid-battle in Wolverine #93. They find him there with Sienna Blaze and Reaper, who have joined a team called The Exiles. When Reaper tries to sneak back to earth through Gateway’s portal, he they discover a monster who eats members of the Exiles if they try to pass, so the X-Men leave content that they’ve found Juggernaut and that he can’t escape this pocket universe.

Marvel had bought Malibu comics in 1994 for reasons that remain mysterious, since they swiftly cancelled all the books. They attempted to revive them in 1995 by seeding them with minor Marvel characters. All-New Exiles became a pseudo X-book and if I remember correctly this was some mail-away promo trailing it. The quality of these books was pretty dismal and their continuity status is questionable, though Juggernaut’s disappearance and return to the 616 universe is on-panel. Mercifully, Iceman doesn’t appear in any other Ultraverse books so I can happily ignore the remainder.

X-Men & Clan Destine #1 (August-September 1995)
Writer/Artist: Alan Davis

The Clan Destine, a family of immortal British superheroes that Alan Davis introduced in swiftly cancelled series that no one cared about in 1994 get one more chance to make an impression on the audience in a contrived crossover with Marvel’s most popular characters. It doesn’t work.

Basically, an evil demon tries to trick Xavier and two members of the Clan Destine into helping it get back to Earth so it can do evil things I guess. What does this have to do with the X-Men? Nothing at all. What does it have to do with the Clan Destine? Fuck if I know, since this double-size two-parter barely manages to introduce the Clan Destine by name, let alone explain the concept. At the end, the Clan’s patriarch says they’re all gonna go away for a while, not that that’s set up anywhere in the story, either. Lord knows what Davis was trying to achieve with this.

The original X-Men have a brief scene hazing Cannonball at the beginning of issue #1, and this really does seem embarrassing for the former leader of X-Force. Iceman expresses sympathy, and implies that the fact he was the original target of bullying on the X-Men made it difficult for him to feel safe enough to come out.

Iceman doesn’t actually appear in the second half of the miniseries, due to an admittedly clever (if confusingly executed) fake-out in the story.

X-Men #46-47 (November-December 1995)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Andy Kubert

The X-Men protect the X-Babies, who have escaped Mojoworld and are on the run from Gog and Magog, who want to eliminate all vestiges of Mojo’s old order. Eventually, rebel leader Dazzler appears and offers them sanctuary in her palace.

The X-Babies were a Mojoworld joke about crass franchise exploitation – and a riff on the “Babies” trend in 80s cartoons whose most prominent examples are Flintstones Kids and Muppet Babies. The lineup has changed since we last saw them in Excalibur: Mojo Mayhem.

The important part here is that Jean has taken Bobby shopping for presents for her niece and nephew. Bobby shows up in the gayest outfit he’s worn since Marvel Team-Up #4. To be honest, there’s something weirdly off-model about Bobby’s entire look in this sequence – the proportions are all wrong and his face looks about ten years too young. But beyond that, it seems like Bobby is desperately trying to come out to Jean before they’re interrupted by the X-Babies. It’s ironic that here Jean insists she won’t just read his mind to find out what he wants to talk about when that’s exactly how Teenage Jean confronts Teenage Bobby in 2015.

Jean suggests Dazzler has miscarried, because she’s no longer pregnant, no one considering she might’ve given birth since X-Men #11. Years later, X-Factor vol 2 will establish that she did indeed give birth, in a sense, to Shatterstar, but the baby was taken away and she doesn’t know it.

X-Men & Spider-Man #3 (January 2009)
Writer: Christos Gage
Artist: Mario Alberti

We last checked in on this time-spanning miniseries in the silver age. Issue two found Spider-Man approach the X-Men shortly after the “Mutant Massacre” after he discovered that Kraven was working with Sinister. This issue takes place in the 90s era after the X-Men discover Sinister’s taken an interest in Carnage. Not much happens here, but Bobby’s powers are key to stopping Carnage after Sinister frees him from Ravencroft. Since Iceman doesn’t appear in the final issue, which is set around 2005 continuity, I’ll just tell you Sinister sends his super-powered clone of Kraven, Xraven, to attack the X-Men and collect more DNA samples, but the X-Men convince him to turn on Sinister.

Sabretooth: In the Red Zone (January 1996)
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Gary Frank

After tricking Boom-Boom into letting him free and then mortally wounding Psylocke in Uncanny X-Men #328, it’s up to the original X-Men to track down and arrest Sabretooth. They track him through Manhattan, but what he really wants in suicide by cop. In the end, the apparently dead Sabretooth is carted away by Val Cooper to join the cast of X-Factor.

Archangel suffers an injury to his wing, and Iceman takes a moment to tend to him, caressing his chest and cheek. He’ll eventually have the wound taken care of the in mostly inconsequential Archangel one-shot, but this also explains why Angel and Psylocke are sidelined for the next year or so of stories.

X-Men #48 (January 1996)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Luke Ross

While the X-Men play poker with the visiting Thing from Fantastic Four, the Dark Beast and Sugar Man discuss their recent discovery that Bishop exists in this world and their consequent fear that he may tell Mr. Sinister about their existence.

The big turning point for Bobby is that he asks Storm for some “tutoring” in the use of his powers, because he’s a white gay man and she’s a strong Black woman they both have elemental powers.

Bobby skips X-Men #49, where Bishop gets into a fight with that waitress from Uncanny X-Men #299, who turns out to be the Dark Beast’s agent Fatale (who had debuted over in X-Factor a few months earlier). He also misses Uncanny X-Men #329-330, where Archangel and Wolverine team-up with Dr. Strange to use the Crimson Dawn to save Psylocke’s life. And he misses X-Men Unlimited #9, where Wolverine, Psylocke and Beast fight Bloodscream and Belasco.

X-Men vs. Brood #1-2 (September-October 1996)
Writer: John Ostrander
Artist: Bryan Hitch

The X-Men respond to a distress cry from Hannah Connover, who’s been carrying a Brood Queen inside her since way back in Uncanny X-Men #233. Her ability to fight off the infection is regarded as something of a heresy by the Brood Empress, who sends her children, the Firstborn, to kill her and everyone else she’s infected. Iceman reluctantly joins the strike team after Xavier wakes him up from a sex dream with three redheads.

Bobby was dreaming of Rusty Collins, Shatterstar, and whom?

Iceman doesn’t really contribute much to the story other than his useful powers in the climax, which allow the X-Men to cryogenically freeze Connover so they can study how she fought off the infection. The fact she’s never been seen again, despite several Brood stories since, suggests the X-Men didn’t learn anything useful.

Incidentally, this story is a year out of sequence because Xavier’s presence means it needs to take place before Onslaught and while Wolverine is still living on the grounds of the mansion. Also Bobby skips the crossover special Star Trek/X-Men #1, in which the X-Men team up with the crew of the SS Enterprise to fight Proteus and a Star Trek villain. That issue is also not on Marvel Unlimited.

X-Men Unlimited #10 (March 1996)
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Frank Toscano

The Dark Beast enacts his plan to capture and replace our Beast, so he can hide from Sinister with the X-Men. Iceman has a couple scenes with the real Beast before the switch, where he tries and fails to get Beast to take a break from his Legacy Virus research.

Just Bobby and “Curious” Hank, talking about their relationship.

X-Men #50 (March 1996)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Adam Kubert

Gateway appears in the Mansion and teleports Storm, Cyclops, Iceman, and Wolverine to an apparent jungle where Post, the herald of Onslaught, tests them. The rest of the X-Men and the Professor try to figure out who or what Onslaught is, to no avail – largely because the writers hadn’t yet entirely figured out the plot. It has to be said though, there are more than a few clues to Onslaught’s identity in this issue, not least is Xavier’s narration throughout.

But the important part for Bobby is that before the story begins, Post smashes a huge crater into the chest of his ice-form. This has never happened to Bobby before (though it did when Emma Frost controlled his body in Uncanny X-Men #314), so he’s thoroughly disturbed by what it means for him.

This issue reads like it features the normal Beast, but the timeline doesn’t work unless X-Men Unlimited #10 comes first, because of Bobby’s injury.

Uncanny X-Men #331 (April 1996)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Bryan Hitch

Ah, the issue that launched thousand fan theories. Bobby confronts Emma Frost to demand she help him fix the gaping hole in his chest, and she spends the issue taunting him with what she knows of his secrets. She doesn’t come outright and say the F-word, but Bobby knows what she means throughout.

Emma opens by ribbing Bobby about his dreams of being an interior designer (slight homophobia that we can forgive because she’s iconic).

Frost confronts bobby with images of the people she believes he’s lying to himself about. It’s worth including the whole sequence here:

Bobby’s father is the most direct: “But you’re not a REAL man, are you Bobby? You’re a MUTANT. You’re –“ Bobby cuts him off before he can say what is presumably the F-word. Ironically, Bobby uses this moment to tell Frost to “Come out now!”

Next up is Opal, who tells Bobby that “you never loved me. You just needed me there to make you look good.” Opal may never have figured out she was a beard, but Emma’s got Bobby’s number here.

Finally, Emma has Beast invite Bobby to “just party!” saying it’s time for the two of them to be “together again.”

Bobby responds that he won’t be “BULLIED or SEDUCED or DISTRACTED.” The obvious reading is that Mr. Drake is the bully, Opal the seductress, and Beast the distraction, but is that correct? Opal’s not exactly acting seductively. She seems resigned to Bobby’s indifference. I think she’s the distraction, and Beast is the seduction who wants to get together with him to party.

Emma finally relents and coaches Bobby to return to his human form, allowing him to finish his emotional growth on his own terms.

Meanwhile, Dark Best is having a hard time maintaining the illusion that he’s the real Beast, because obviously, so he blows up the lab to try to explain away his odd behavior as a consequence of overwork. Later, we’ll learn that Onslaught was blocking the telepaths from spotting him immediately upon entering the mansion.

Uncanny X-Men #332, Wolverine #101 (May-June 1996)
Writer: Scott Lobdell, Larry Hama
Artist: Joe Madureira, Val Semekis

Following the events of Wolverine #100, in which Logan fought off Cable’s son Genesis’ attempt to make him his new Horseman and then killed him, Wolverine has devolved into a feral monster incapable of rational thought (and seeming to be missing a nose). He’s come under the sway of Apocalypse’s long-hidden servant Ozymandias (whose backstory, with Apocalypse’s own origin, will be revealed in the Rise of Apocalypse miniseries next year) and a scratch team of X-Men go off to rescue him.

Iceman’s role is small in this story, but he does get a couple scenes of his stilted attempts to bond with Cannonball. Their friendship is underexplored in X-Men continuity, but they make a nice pair when they’re teamed together.

There’s some minor foreshadowing of Xavier’s role in the Onslaught story here, plus a seemingly abandoned thread about Cyclops possibly having accidentally cured the brain damage that ruined his control over his optic blasts. That bit never goes anywhere.

And then there’s this.

Bobby skips X-Men #51-52, where Bishop, Gambit, and Dark Beast fight Mr. Sinister when he releases a rapid mutating agent on a commuter train in New Jersey.

Uncanny X-Men #333 (June 1996)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Pascual Ferry

Jean and Gambit infiltrate the Pentagon to learn more about Operation: Zero Tolerance (because we’re already prepping for next year’s crossover), and when they’re caught, Onslaught appears and helps them escape. Iceman, playing backup, rightly complains that this ought to be something X-Factor does, since they actually have government clearances, but let’s be charitable and suggest this is more evidence of the Professor behaving suspiciously. He also takes note of Beast’s strange behavior.

Meanwhile, Cyclops goes to see Senator Kelly, and both are kidnapped by O:ZT – they get rescued in X-Force #55. And a giant shadow attacks Archangel and Psylocke.

Iceman skips X-Men #53, in which Onslaught tries to convince Jean to join him, and we find out the shadow is Juggernaut retuning from the Ultraverse, looking for help to stop Onslaught. He also skips X-Men Unlimited #11, where Rogue is captured by the Friends of Humanity and rescued by Joseph, who’d infiltrated them looking for information on the X-Men. Oddly, that issue is missing from Marvel Unlimited.

Storm #4 (March 1996)
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Terry Dodson

Iceman makes a cameo at the end of this not very good miniseries, in which Storm travels to the dimension where Mikhail Rasputin took the Morlocks in Uncanny X-Men #293, defeats him, and then takes their descendants Gene Nation back to earth, where the X-Men bring them to the village in Africa Storm found in Uncanny X-Men #198. The point of that story was that the village couldn’t sustain any additional lives so any new person required someone to die, so this is a bit of an odd choice. It seems like the point was that Storm was trying to force Gene Nation to use their powers to expand the productivity of the land, but it seems odd to trust a bunch of genocidal maniacs with protecting human life. Uncanny X-Men Annual ’97 slightly retcons this to a different village in Sudan.

Oh and at the end, Storm debuts a new Madureira-designed midriff-bearing outfit and anime-inspired haircut, ditching the Portacio-designed black leather bodysuit with the giant shoulder-pads that was her signature look through the 90s cartoon.

Also, Cable spends half a page sniffing Storm’s pits.

Uncanny X-Men #334 (July 1996)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Joe Madureira

Juggernaut reaches the X-Mansion, where he asks Jean for help digging the secret of who Onslaught is from his brain. Meanwhile, Xavier is acting increasingly bizarre.

Iceman has a short scene where he insists that Beast will be able to diagnose and cure Wolverine’s devolution. As it turns out, the Dark Beast is much less the comprehensive polymath that the real Beast is and can’t figure out the problem at all.

And in aborted plots, Bishop wonders why the Mansion’s technology is so similar to the tech of his own time, speculating that something must’ve help back technology for 100 years. This didn’t make a lot of sense, since the X-Men’s tech is alien technology far advanced beyond anything else on earth, and Bishop’s home timeline was on the other side of a near apocalyptic global war.

X-Men #54 (July 1996)
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Andy Kubert

While the X-Men search the mansion for Juggernaut and Xavier acts increasingly bizarre, Jean goes down to the psi-shielded chamber Xavier used way back in the 60s when he faked his death to try to dig out the secret of Onslaught from Juggernaut’s brain. She realizes that Onslaught is the Professor just as he hears a news report that one of the mutant bashers from X-Men: Prime has been arrested, which reminds him of his recent failures and causes him to snap. Jean tells Juggernaut to run, but Onslaught catches him and seemingly depowers him (he’ll be rescued by Dr. Strange in X-Men Unlimited #12, a chapter so marginal to the crossover it’s not even included in the Onslaught Omnibus).

Iceman’s appearance here is mostly to flag that Beast is still acting bizarrely – here, he gets details about the X-Men’s first encounter with Juggernaut (way back in X-Men Vol. 1 #12-13) wrong. Iceman still doesn’t find any of this suspicious, but it’s later established that Onslaught is helping suppress the X-Men’s suspicions.

Incidentally, the arrested mutant basher eventually gets a half-hearted redemption arc when he’s sent to work as a janitor at the school in Generation X, but that plot thread is quickly dropped.

Meanwhile, Beast escapes from the Dark Beast’s prison, trailing X-Factor #125-126, where he’s rescued by that team, while they fail to stop Onslaught from stealing the Sentinels he’ll use to attack New York.

“Onslaught” (August-September 1996)
Onslaught: X-Men, Uncanny X-Men #335-336, Avengers #401, Fantastic Four #415-416, X-Men #55, Incredible Hulk #445, Onslaught: Marvel Universe
Creators: Too many to list

And now we get to the crossover proper. As you might imagine with a crossover this immense, there isn’t a lot of room for Iceman – he actually only appears in 9 of the 32 chapters of the crossover.

The plot kicks off with Onslaught: X-Men, in which Onslaught reveals himself as the Professor and handily defeats the X-Men, but fails to kill them when Bishop gets in the way of his attack, thus resolving the ”X-Traitor” subplot that had been going since Uncanny X-Men #287. Dark Beast also joins him.

In Uncanny X-Men #335, the Avengers arrive at the destroyed mansion, having been told by Nate Grey that Xavier is dangerous in the coda to Avengers #400. The various teams split up for their missions: Storm goes to get Cable in Cable #34 and Incredible Hulk #444; Wolverine goes to investigate a hunch in Wolverine #104, and learns that Onslaught is an evil parasite that infected Xavier when he shut down Magneto’s brain in X-Men #25; some of the X-Men go to Muir Isle to find the Xavier Protocols, which are Xavier’s failsafe instructions to kill the X-Men, including himself, if they go bad, in Excalibur #100; and X-Force are assigned to stay back and protect Nate Grey in X-Force #57-58 and X-Man #18-19, but he gets captured by Mr. Sinister and then by Onslaught anyway.

Iceman sees the Avengers and Gambit off in Avengers #401, in which they try to find Magneto, and instead find Joseph and Rogue, whom they bring back to New York.

Iceman is assigned to another group of Avengers who go to warn the Fantastic Four that Onslaught is after their kid, Franklin Richards in Fantastic Four #415 – luckily for Onslaught, Franklin had just been returned to the right timeline in the previous issue (which also includes an Onslaught cameo). They fail to stop Onslaught from kidnapping Franklin.

Onslaught unleashes a devastating EMP attack and a Sentinel occupation of Manhattan in X-Men #55. It forms the background of many “Impact” chapters of the crossover, including issues of Amazing Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Sensational Spider-Man, Punisher, Green Goblin, Thor, and Wolverine #105. The assembled heroes meet at the Fantastic Four’s HQ, where they attempt to build weapons to use against Onslaught, but they’re all (momentarily) wiped out when Onslaught unleashes a massive electromagnetic pulse. But before that, Iceman and his old bud the Human Torch have a little dust-up that sounds more than a little sexual.

“Wanna get **hot**? Wanna get **steamy**?”

They make up in Uncanny X-Men #336, where the heroes try to rescue civilians, rebuild their weapons, and a handful of heroes lead a frontal assault on Onslaught. Those heroes end up freeing a now powerless Xavier from within Onslaught’s body, which somehow makes him even more powerful, and Onslaught responds with yet another EM pulse.

Iceman has a brief cameo in Incredible Hulk #445, where the Hulk makes a fruitless attempt to attack Onslaught. Cable leads another attack that fails when temporary ally Apocalypse betrays his team in Cable #36. The Avengers defeat Post and Holocaust in Avengers #402. Iron Man makes an armor that protects the Avengers from Onslaught’s telepathy in Iron Man #332. Everyone reconvenes back at the FF HQ in Fantastic Four #416, where Onslaught attacks the FF with psionic projections of their worst villains, and Iceman makes a brief cameo. In X-Men #56, Xavier foolishly decides to confront Onslaught, just as Onslaught learns from Nate Grey that the Age of Apocalypse wasn’t a paradise (shouldn’t he have learned that from Dark Beast?) and decides that he now wants to destroy all life, mutant and human.

That brings us to Onslaught: Marvel Universe, the final chapter, in which Iceman technically appears. I mean, he’s there in a couple panels, honest. He just doesn’t do anything notable and he’s absent from all the big splash pages. The book had a cast of dozens and there was evident back-end confusion over who even appears in the story (none of the FF’s allies who showed up in Fantastic Four #416 stayed for the fight, for example), so it’s understandable that Bobby got lost in the shuffle. Anyway, this is the big climax where Onslaught transforms into pure psionic energy, and Mr. Fantastic decides that the way they can beat him is for the heroes to jump in and absorb him into them, and then have the mutants kill them. Apparently, if mutants tried to absorb Onslaught, they’d only make him stronger, but that didn’t stop Falcon, Namor, and Scarlet Witch from jumping in. Anyway, the villain is defeated but all of New York sees the X-Men murder their heroes and the X-Men don’t stick around to give any kind of explanation, because that’s not what X-Men do. This all ramps up anti-mutant hysteria over the course of next year’s stories.

Of course, you probably know that the heroes didn’t actually die. Franklin Richards used his reality warping powers to send them to the “Heroes Reborn” pocket universe, where Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld wrote and drew them for a year, bringing these characters back to the top of the sales charts again for the first time in ages.

Avengers Annual 1999 (July 1999)
Writer: John Francis Moore
Artist: Leonardo Manco

In a flashback scene, we learn that days after the Avengers’ apparent deaths, Black Widow reached out her former Champions teammates Angel and Iceman and former Avenger Beast to join her in a new team of Avengers. They all politely decline, citing Angel’s obligations to the X-Men, Beast’s legacy virus research, and Iceman’s concern that the public won’t welcome mutants right now.

It’s interesting that Iceman is the one most concerned about public perception and is once again holding himself back from an opportunity because of it.

Uncanny X-Men #337 (October 1996)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Joe Madureira

The X-Men and Quicksilver reconnect in the wake of the Onslaught event.

This issue is notable for a bizarre bathroom sequence, where, first of all, we learn that Cyclops soaks his glasses in some liquid over night for some reason. Second, the bathroom has just absolutely insane dimensions. Third, Bobby sneaks by and pranks both of them like the old high school days. (I suppose they’re all sleeping in Scott and Jean’s boat house since the Mansion is a wreck?)

Meanwhile, Bastion and Graydon Creed are seriously playing into the growing anti-mutant hysteria in the wake of Onslaught, and Bastian is subtly displaying some strange abilities.

X-Men #57 (October 1996)
Writer Scott Lobdell
Artist: Andy Kubert

The X-Men debate allowing Val Cooper to take the Professor into custody, but he ends up going willingly. Bobby’s there but he doesn’t play an integral part in the proceedings.

We’ll see Xavier in his prison in Onslaught: Epilogue, where he’s basically tortured by Bastian but finds hope from one of his fellow prisoners, a little girl named Nina.

X-Men Annual 1996
Writer: Larry Hama
Artist: Roberto Flores, Anthony Castrillo

Included here because it rounds out the Onslaught Omnibus. The X-Men, X-Force, and Generation X get together to play baseball (or some approximation of it) and have a barbecue. A stray Sentinel from the Onslaught event that has somehow evolved its own conscience shows up to warn the X-Men about something, but they attack it on sight and it “dies.” Then the X-Men do a weird mind-meld/Care Bear Stare at each other to make themselves feel good. The telepaths go at lengths to stress that it’s only a surface level connection and no one’s secrets will come out, which is probably why Bobby goes along with it. That’s it. Honestly, this issue feels like a harbinger of a bunch of really bad filler issues that are going to start cropping up across the line over the next year. So you’re warned.

Iceman gets a little scene where he drops ice down Cannonball’s butt. I’ll just leave this here to wrap up.

Where to find these issues: All these issues are on Marvel Unlimited (except for the All New Exiles issue and X-Men Annual ’96). All of these issues except for All-New Exiles and Storm are collected in X-Men: The Road to Onslaught Vol 1-3 and the X-Men/Avengers: Onslaught Omnibus. Storm got its own TPB several years ago.

Next time: It’s Operation: Zero Tolerance!

ROB SALERNO

Chapter 29: Onslaught! (1995-96)

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