Issue(s): Wolverine #85
Cover Date: Sep 94
Title: Phalanx Covenant: Final Sanction: "Full shred thrash"
Credits:
Larry Hama - Writer
Adam Kubert - Penciler
Mark Farmer & Josef Rubinstein - Inker
Ben Raab - Assistant Editor
Bob Harras - Editor

Review/plot:
This portion of the Phalanx Covenant is technically called Final Sanction and shows the final fight with the Phalanx leadership, but it's really just Cable getting hints over and over again that Cyclops and Jean Grey went to the future to raise him.

Cyclops and Jean Grey go to Muir Island to tell Professor X and Moira about information they learned about the Legacy Virus, but instead they're attacked by the Phalanx. Wolverine and Cable show up to help.

Adam Kubert seems to be doing his best to imagine what Cable would look like if drawn by Jack Kirby.

I really find it weird how little the similarities between the Phalanx and the Technarchy are mentioned. You can't avoid it, since the origin of the Phalanx clearly comes from Warlock. But when individual characters see the Phalanx, they're stunned like it's something they've never seen before.

Granted Warlock never looked exactly like that, but to script the scene with "like nothing he has ever seen before" seems to act like Cyclops has never seen techno-organic creatures before. (I've criticized/joked about how uninterested the X-Men seemed to be about the origins and danger of Warlock, but maybe this shows that they've all been suffering from some kind of mental block that prevented them from really seeing Warlock.)

The X-heroes defeat the Phalanx and then head to Tibet to fight the leaders.

Also in this issue, we see the Phalanx having trouble suppressing Psylocke's telepathy. There's also quite a bit about a woman named Larissa who was assimilated, but i can't be bothered about it.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part one of Phalanx Covenant: Final Sanction. Part two is in Cable #16.

References:

• Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix! ADVENTURES OF CYCLOPS AND PHOENIX!
  
• Wolverine apologizes for not being at Jean and Scott's wedding in X-Men #30.

Crossover: Phalanx Covenant

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Nice to see that, even upside-down and unconscious, Psylocke's crotch is still aiming directly at the reader while her breasts remain full, pendulous and not smacking her in the chin. Few women could pull that off.

This issue started a subplot that made no sense. Scott and Jean are afraid to tell Cable they raised him in the future because it might wreck the timeline. It might wreck the timeline if they traveled back in time before their wedding and told Cable, since Cable didn't know at the wedding. But how could it destroy the timeline if they told him AFTER getting back from the future? Because of that, this subplot was hastily ended in Cable 20, to the readers' approval.

Fnord, one thing you should know- Jean Grey started using the Phoenix code name again at the end of the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. (Because you refer to her as Jean Grey during your reviews.)

Not gonna lie, Adam Kubert's Cable by way of Jack Kirby should be something I hate but is actually kind of awesome.

Larissa is one of the Phalanx battling Cable and Jean, not merely a woman that's been assimilated.