Issue(s): New Mutants #95
Cover Date: Nov 90
Title: "Shell game"
Credits:
Louise Simonson - Writer
Rob Liefeld - Penciler
Joe Rubinstein & Co. - Inker
Bob Harras - Editor

Review/plot:
I suspect that we have "Joe Rubinstein & Co." to thank for a lot of it, but this issue, part two of the X-Tinction Agenda, has the most competent story telling i've seen in a Rob Liefeld comic. In a weird way i feel like this confirms that this story was editorially driven. When Louise Simonson's plots were being butchered by Liefeld, Bob Harras didn't seem to care. But if this is really Bob Harras' story, or at least if Harras realized that the Liefeld-drawn parts of the story needed to be coherent to readers of the overall crossover, then it makes sense that scenes would have to be redrawn (hence the extra inking help), overtly gratuitous splash panels would have to be kept to a minimum, etc.. Next issue "only" has two inkers but the lettering credit goes to "Task Force Z", suggesting that things were running late, and then the third New Mutants part of the crossover is handled by a different artist entirely. And then after the crossover is over, Rob Liefeld returns as the plotter as well as artist, and Louise Simonson is gone.

The art is still weird, mind you, and in the beginning there is a two-page sideways splash showing the New Mutants and child-body Storm held naked in front of Cameron Hodge. The splash is impossible to replicate, but here are some follow-up panels.

And we also have a completely off model Stevie Hunter back at the X-grounds.

Anyway, the story is that some of the New Mutants and Storm have been transported to Genosha, where Cameron Hodge, formerly of the anti-mutant organization The Right until he was decapitated by Archangel, has take up a role in the government (actually, Hodge was working with The Right even after that, as seen in recent issues of X-Factor). N'astirh established that Cameron Hodge wouldn't die, so now he's just a head attached to a robot body. His goal at the moment is to absorb the transmode virus from Warlock so that he can create a new body for himself.

Hodge's current body looks suspiciously like Mojo's (although it will vary depending on the artist in this crossover).

The prisoners are rendered powerless by Wipeout and put in Genoshan mutate costumes. Warlock is running out of energy, and a plan to let him drain the lifeforce of the captured New Mutants and Storm is interrupted by Hodge. Warlock uses the last of his strength to free everyone from their cells, and the plan is for the others to flee and get help, while leaving Warlock behind. But Rahne is unable to leave Warlock behind, especially since he was a close friend of Doug's. So she returns and stops Hodge from infecting himself with the transmode.

The top scan above is what i'm talking about with the art. That's Rahne in Standard Liefeld Pose #1, and that flying leap kick is one of his as well (Cable really did do an extraordinary job training the New Mutants; i don't know how a normal human kicks like that). But the faces look nothing like Liefeld. Which isn't to say they look good. They look hastily redrawn. The good news is that the art is actually telling a story. We can see where Rahne is, what she's doing, where she is in relation to Warlock. The more mundane aspects of comic book art, that i mostly took for granted until i got to the 90s but which disappeared when i got here, are more or less back for this issue, and that's true beyond these panels. It's not great. But it's coherent.

And that's true for the writing as well. Sometimes with these handoffs, we'd go from a Claremont issue to a Louise Simonson issue, or vice versa, and after reading a few panels, i'd be like, "Wait, we're talking about what now?". There's often a weird jump, either where a plot point is being ignored or where the writer just brings in their own things that they want to talk about that don't seem like they had anything to do with what we saw in the previous part. That's not the case here. Allowing for some difference in writing styles, this legitimately feels like the second part of the story that began in X-Men. I know that this is all damning with incredibly faint praise, like walking into a house and going "Oh my god! Isn't this great? It's got walls!". But that's where i am right now.

While Wolfsbane does prevent Hodge from getting the transmode, Warlock is still killed and turned to dust.

Meanwhile, the rest of the X-Teams get together, with plans to rescue their captured members.

But as they are leaving, Genosha announces the death of Warlock and the capture of the other mutants, who will be tried as enemies of the state. And then the X-Teams are summoned to Washington by Val Cooper (actually Mystique, but we don't learn that yet).

I'll say this here, but it's really true throughout the crossover: Genosha seems pretty clearly to be a South African Apartheid analogue. And in-universe it's an example of the X-Men's mission (Professor X's dream) having just completely failed. It's a place where mutants are brainwashed and turned into slaves. It's extremely bleak. But throughout these issues, that's given only secondary attention. This is an action-adventure story where the characters are on the run from a dystopian government, and yes, they do get to experience first hand the mutate process and they will encounter a few enslaved mutates along the way. But it's not the emphasis at all. There's really just a lot of running around and then the big fight with Hodge (and conveniently and almost incidentally, half the Genoshans have a change of heart, but more on that later). The crossover is a competent adventure story but there's little to elevate it beyond that, which is really odd given how ripe the scenario is for the "mutants as minorities" metaphor.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - death of Warlock

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part two of the X-Tinction Agenda. X-Factor #60 is next.

References:

• The New Mutants thought that Cameron Hodge died. I'm not sure if that's from the first time he seemingly died in New Mutants #60 or if they were aware that he resurfaced and was decapitated by Archangel in X-Factor #34.
  
• Rictor was a prisoner of Cameron Hodge in his first appearance, X-Factor #17 (incorrectly footnoted as #16), and is still terrified of his voice.

Crossover: X-Tinction Agenda

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

So, when Pipeline teleports the mutants into Genosha, they lose their clothes, as he only teleports the bodies. I get that; makes sense. But Rictor is all kinds of awesome for somehow still keeping his headband. That, my friends, is talent!

That's the 90s!

The script CLAIMS that Hodge's tentacle resembles a hand but you can't tell that from the art.

I found a couple of odd things about that whole "Pipeline transportation" sequence.

1) Did Pipeline always rendered people nude when he transported them? I don't know if that were the case for the other Genosha stories.

2) Does anyone else find it a bit disturbing that this little tidbit happened to the mostly ADOLESCENT cast? (and yet another example of Liefeld forgetting that he's working with teenagers here.)

3)This issue shows that Rahne's "transformation" happened a bit sooner then you suspected, Fnord. Rictor notices that Rahne doesn't seem at all shy or awkward about being nude in front a a bunch of people. This is a girl who was flustered at Boom-Boom's minidress just six issues ago. I think he rather lackadaisical attitude about being naked in that situation was suppose to be a sign of her growth into a bold and daring ball of assertiveness (verging on aggressiveness.)

1) Yes, his power has always worked that way- check out fnord's review of Uncanny 235-238.
2) This isn't the only time adolescents have been sexualized in an x-book. Take Kitty, for example- Claremont gets a lot of praise for making her flat-chested but she's sexualized all over the place.
3)It's stated explicitly that Rahne is drugged.

It's not something I normally notice, but the coloring in the Genosha scenes is just atrocious.

Warlock's death may only incidentally have been a way to add cheap pathos to the crossover. The main reason for getting rid of him may have been Marvel's apparent policy against having two identically named characters active at the same time. Adam Warlock was making his return in Silver Surfer at this point (and may have already been tipped to get a title of his own before long). Nova the herald of Galactus also conveniently dies in time for "Kid Nova" to drop the "kid" part (and he too will get his own series not long after his competitor for the name is gone).

Either Rictor got the super secret mutant power of keeping his headband despite weird teleportation, or the Genosha guys just gave him a new one.

I was a bit annoyed at the sight of naked teens when reading this, but not as disturbed as I should have been because it's the latest of a long list of such occurrences by this point. Mutant comics, throwing contrived nudity at you since 1963.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the crossover so far.

I like that you keep calling her "child-body Storm". Without your indications I would have tought I missed the issue where she reverted back. I mean does that in any way look like a child? How could they be so inconsistent with her look?

The art in this issue is astoundingly terrible!

Not only it's Liefeld, with all his flaws, it's Liefeld and Co., which turn this book in a mishmash of poorly drawn faces, bodies, backgrounds...wait, not the backgrounds, because there aren't any to begin with =)

and what about the sequence where Rahne is supposedly saving Warlock? I have to disagree with fnord, the art doesn't reflect one bit what the hell is happening.

Like I said in the Inferno sequence where we would hop from Silvestri's UXM to Simonson's X-Factor, these crossovers completely destroy poor artists like Liefeld. Reading something drawn by Jim Lee and then moving on the Liefeld is traumatic.