Issue(s): Uncanny X-Men #325
Cover Date: Oct 95
Title: "Generation of evil"
Credits:
Scott Lobdell - Writer
Joe Madureira - Penciler
Tim Townsend & Matt Ryan - Inker
Ben Raab - Assistant Editor
Bob Harras - Editor

Review/plot:
Digital review warning.

This is a double-sized "anniversary" issue. It's also the conclusion to the Gene Nation storyline, which was apparently a soft crossover with Generation X. I'm missing those chapters, but we open with the two teams playing a sport they apparently invented called Fashion Victim Baseball.

The game is interrupted when Colossus shows up with (a fully armored?) Callisto.

When Callisto wakes up, she tells the X-Men about Gene Nation.

The guy with the yellow costume and see-through gut windows in Callisto's hologram will turn out to not be a member of Gene Nation; he's called Ever and he'll later been seen with Havok's Brotherhood.

Today is the anniversary of the Mutant Massacre, and Gene Nation intend to kill a human for every Morlock killed during that event. Callisto leads the X-Men to Gene Nation while passive-aggressively blaming Storm for the Massacre (until Colossus puts a stop to it while also quasi-apologizing for blaming Professor X for his sister's death).

Hemmingway (aka Pain) looks exactly like he did in Callisto's hologram, but Callisto is amazed at how he's further mutated.

Storm winds up in a duel with Marrow (Gotta love Storm's "Pa! She's cheatin'").

Callisto then takes custody of the rest of Gene Nation.

Callisto does not, in fact, look older.

Meanwhile, Rogue and Iceman are still on their roadtrip. Rogue calls Gambit and says they're headed to Seattle, which sends Gambit into a panic. Gambit heads to Seattle too, and we see that Mr. Sinister is keeping tabs on him via Threnody.

It seems that Storm killing Marrow was an editorial decree and one that Lobdell struggled to execute in a way that made sense. I won't say that he succeeded but at least there's a "reason" for the dumb idea.

I've been reading Paul O'Brien's old X-Axis reviews (via Wayback Machine) to make sure i'm not missing the implications of anything as i go through these (since i'm not reading a lot of the surrounding books) and it's funny how often what happens here gets reversed or doesn't make sense:

[Callisto] also claims that Gene Nation were "testing" the X-Men in their previous encounters, which seems implausible given that the X-Men just stumbled across them. And she claims that Gene Nation are "renegade Morlocks", which is shown to be untrue in the Storm miniseries, where they are shown as close allies of Mikhail Rasputin.

...

Hemingway's appearance takes Callisto by surprise. It seems he's mutated since he last saw her, and she didn't think that was possible. This is never picked up on.

...

Marrow's death is reversed in Storm #4, which reveals that she survived the loss of one heart because she's actually got two. You'd have thought blood loss would be an issue here, and you'd also have thought the X-Men would have given her a proper burial instead of just dumping her corpse in the tunnels, but apparently not.

Basically we're all just getting strung along as Lobdell makes up stuff as he goes.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place after X-Men #44 and Generation X #6.

References:

• In X-Men #43, Colossus fled Avalon with Magneto and wound up in Antarctica. In X-Men #44 he was found by Callisto, who subsequently passed out (and Magneto was gone).
  
• X-Men previously encountered Gene Nation in the last arc and in Generation X #6.
  
• Colossus left the X-Men for Magneto's Acolytes in Uncanny X-Men #304.
  
• Defending why the X-Men were goofing around and playing baseball on the anniversary of the Mutant Massacre, Wolverine points out that the X-Men took some hits that day too. Callisto is unimpressed. One example of a loss from that day that is given is that Angel lost his wings, which was in X-Factor #10.
  
• Storm knows Marrow as Sarah, from a story that Cable told her about from Cable #17 (this is probably nonsense and/or i should save it for if i ever read the Cable story, but from the little bits of flashback we get about that story here, i have a weird idea that Marrow was originally meant to be one of Sara Grey's missing children. It's probably just that Marrow's civilian name is Sara(h) and that she spent her childhood wandering the Morlock tunnels.).

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A