Issue(s): Uncanny X-Men annual #17 (Trevor Fitzroy/Siena Blaze story only)
Cover Date: 1993
Title: "Of kings and queens and promises"
Credits:
Scott Lobdell - Writer
Tom Grummett - Penciler
Al Milgrom - Inker
Lisa Patrick - Assistant Editor
Bob Harras - Editor

Review/plot:
This story introduces Siena Blaze. It was released a week before X-Men Unlimited #1, which is when she first fights the X-Men. This story is more of an origin story. It begins with Fitzroy bringing his toadie, Bantam, back from the dead by siphoning energy from a security guard (at the Ultron Museum?).

Fitzroy needs (although he doesn't like using that word) Bantam to "monitor" the time portals that Fitzroy creates.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico, a young woman named Siena Blaze is with her boyfriend, under siege by the police.

She's claimed to be a mutant, although she says she's only used her powers twice before. And she's not willing to use them again. But then Bantam and Fitzroy show up. Fitzroy drains the boyfriend's life energy, and then summons a train from the future to drive off the police. The train is from the Days of Future Past timeline, and Blaze sees an older version of herself on it.

Fitzroy then invites Blaze to join the Upstarts.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - first Siena Blaze

Chronological Placement Considerations: This should take place after Uncanny X-Men #299-300 (where Fitzroy expresses shock that anyone would know about Siena Blaze) and before X-Men Unlimited #1. Since Cyclops appears in X-Men Unlimited #1, this also takes place before X-Men #20-23, when Cyclops goes to Alaska. And that's also why this story had to be separated from the main story in this annual. Colossus appears in human form in X-Men #20, but he's injured in the main story and stuck in metallic form.

References:

• Fitzroy killed Bantam in their first appearance in Uncanny X-Men #281-282.
  
• The time that Fitzroy brought back a horde of escaped cons in Uncanny X-Men #287 is mentioned as an illustration of his powers.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Wait, I thought that Fitzroy can only open time portals to his own timeline?

Technically, Siena Blaze's first appearance was in X-Men 302, which came out a couple of weeks before this issue.

Fnord is this the first time you posted an annual backup before the main story?

To be fair, Piotr, I think it has been suggested that Bishop (and everything related to him) might actually come from the same timeline as Rachel Summers...albeit some years later (both timelines involve mutant concentration camps and unwitting facial tattoos after all.)

Jon, not sure what you're asking, but this isn't the first time i've placed a back-up before a main story and it's also not the first time i've covered a back-up before a main story.

Piotr - from the wiki entry on Fitzroy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Fitzroy
"Fitzroy possessed the mutant ability to drain others of their life forces, converting it into energy and absorbing it into himself. With these energies, Fitzroy could create portals that could teleport those passing through them across time and space. He often was dependent on the mutant Bantam to direct and catalog the time-portals he made, lacking the ability to do so himself."

It does not say anywhere that he can only open time portals to his own timeline. He probably did that more often since he was familiar with who he could get from his own timeline.

@Michael: You mean Uncanny X-Men 301, not 302. She's in the weird Upstarts psychic meeting. I imagine that was her first appearance in real-time.

@Jon Dubya: The only time I think that was clearly implied was in the Uncanny and X-Men installments of the Phalanx Covenant, in which there were center foldouts depicting the timelines (past, present, and future) of four X-characters (I believe it was Cyclops, Bishop, Cable, and Banshee). The implication there was strong enough (and came at a formative time for me) that I was convinced those two futures were the same for a long time. I still think they're very similar and could be made into the same without too much story contortion, but I don't think that development ever really happened. Maybe someone who's read the X-Factor (Investigations) story in which Layla and a Madrox dupe went into the future can shed further light on it. But to me, the fate of the X-Men in those two timelines makes them not really fit together.

J-rod it's kinda hard to determine since Bishop's past (future?) has been retconned and altered quite a bit since then (with the aforementioned X-Factor arc doing it's fair share.) So it's hard to say if the similarity with Bishop and Rachel's timeline is a result of status quo changes of the present (past?)

@Jon Dubya: Agreed. These future timelines seem to be periodically updated, I guess because they want popular stories like DOFP et al to still be relevant and plausible for the present. I frequently get the sense that they want DOFP, or at least something substantively similar, to always be a possible outcome at any given time. And by the same token, it would make sense for them to fold Bishop's time into the same timeline some decades later.

But you're right. It's really hard to say for sure. I do like to pretend they work together better than I really think they do, because the similarities are pretty striking (whatever the reason for that).