Issue(s): X-Force #38
Cover Date: Sep 94
Title: Phalanx Covenant: Life Signs: "The faith dancers"
Credits:
Fabian Nicieza - Writer
Antonio Daniel - Penciler
Kevin Conrad - Inker
Ben Raab - Assistant Editor
Bob Harras - Editor

Review/plot:
Douglock has taken Wolfsbane, Cannonball, and Forge to deal with the Phalanx threat that he's referred to as Babel. The group dynamic (Cannonball doesn't trust Douglock, Wolfsbane does, and Forge is in some kind of ecstatic semi-trance) continues. Douglock has brought the group to a village in the Italian Alps which turns out to be a Phalanx front.

Breaking this small group of characters away from the larger cast of X-Factor, X-Force, and Excalibur, with the group being composed of members of each team (if you can count Douglock as a representative of Excalibur already) is a by-the-numbers move for a crossover, but a good one considering the size of the cast. Unfortunately, many pages are spent showing the rest of the teams standing around in the former Acolyte base without doing much, and the issue feels more cluttered than it should be. Things are further complicated when Professor X makes telepathic contact with the group after all, despite what was said at the end of the last chapter.

Anyway, the big news is that the Phalanx are trying to "reproduce".

There's a bit of a debate about whether or not it's right to kill the Phalanx, since they are lifeforms, with the fact that they are able to procreate apparently being evidence that they are "alive". But their form of procreation requires an organic host.

As the Phalanx tries to bond with Forge, Xavier mentally probes it and learns that they intend to assimilate all life on Earth.

That seems to settle the question of whether or not they should be killed. But Forge, partially assimilated, is seemingly not convinced.

Douglock then takes the group to the Phalanx's Babel Spire, which will signal to their "parent race" that the Earth has been assimilated.

In trying to locate the Phalanx, Moira rigs up a contraption that somehow searches something in Shadowcat's DNA because she's "had previous contact" with Warlock and the Magus. In doing so, the Moira finds three hotspots of Phalanx activity which correspond with the three subsections of the Phalanx Covenant: southern California (Generation Next), the Alps (Life Signs), and Tibet (Final Sanction). Since this is the Life Signs portion of the story, strike teams are sent to the Alps only, with some of the X-characters left to guard the Acolyte base.

Again, the Phalanx's relationship to the Technarcy is interesting enough to me to keep me going, but this story feels to be going nowhere slowly, with only some extremely annoying in-fighting (Cannonball is especially grating) to keep us company in the meantime.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part two of Phalanx Covenant: Life Signs. Part three is in Excalibur #82.

References:

• Continues directly from X-Factor #106.
  
• Doug Ramsey died in New Mutants #60.

Crossover: Phalanx Covenant

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A