Issue(s): Uncanny X-Men #315
Cover Date: Aug 94
Title: "Peers"
Credits:
Scott Lobdell - Writer
Roger Cruz - Penciler
Dan Green, Josef Rubinstein, Bud LaRosa, & Hilary Barta - Inker
Ben Raab - Assistant Editor
Bob Harras - Editor

Review/plot:
This issue focuses exclusively on the Acolytes on the Avalon space station. No X-Men appear, unless you count Colossus.

Neophyte is going to be put on trial for having helped the X-Men, and Colossus has appointed himself as his defender.

Magneto is still on Avalon. He's still comatose, but he's been growing a nice beard. Exodus is weirdly (but unsurprisingly) paranoid, and punishes... whoever this is for looking at Magneto's face.

After a nonsensical trial and a lot of infighting, Exodus rules that Neophyte should be banished to Earth. The pseudo-development of the issue is that while he's articulating a defense for Neophyte, Colossus decides that Xavier's dream didn't fail so much as he (Colossus) didn't work hard enough or sacrifice enough for it. I say "pseudo" because it's not like this realization results in him leaving the Acolytes this issue.

Normally, i'd be all over an All Villain issue, but Exodus and the Acolytes and their quasi-religious procedures are supremely uninteresting. There are no major developments and there's nothing to report regarding Rusty and Skids.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Neophyte helped the X-Men in Uncanny X-Men #300.
  
• Magneto has been comatose since X-Men #25.
  
• We learned about Amelia Voght's history with Professor X in Uncanny X-Men #309.
  
• The necessity to have a trial at all for Neophyte is questioned, considering that Magneto simply executed Senyaka on the spot for disobedience in Uncanny X-Men #304.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Note that Colossus's characterization this issue is pretty much impossible to reconcile with his characterization in Cable 11. In that issue he seemed to have totally embraced the Acolytes' ideology.

Nobody can look at daddy but meeeee!!!!!!

At least it won't be too long before Holocaust blows Space Jonestown from kingdom come.

Reading this as a 9 year old, I thought Neophyte was some kind of cool 90's power-derived name like Barrage or Tempo. Further appearances of the character only added to my misinterpretation of the word.

It really is a cool sounding word!