Super generic title, but I suppose "Deathbird and Bishop's Space Alternate Future Dance Party Variety Show" wouldn't fit on the cover.

I know they only had one more year of 2000 sounding all futurey, but then why is this set in 2018? Ah, that's probably the least of our worries. From 1999, Team X 2000 #1 "Paradox Lost!" Written by Sean Ruffner and D. G. Chichester (as A. Smithee), pencils by Kevin Lau, inks by Sean Parsons, Marlo Alquiza, and Caleb Salstrom (as Cabin Boy).

We had seen Chichester take his name off an issue of Daredevil some time back, and he does the same here. I thought it started alright, catching up with Bishop and Deathbird, who had been lost in space since getting left behind around Uncanny X-Men #344. Deathbird has some rather evocative dream imagery, which Bishop writes off as space madness, since they've been trapped in a small shuttle for some time. This has led to them becoming somewhat more familiar than Bishop would care for, as he tries to resist her in more ways than one.

After they go through an unexpected Shi'ar jumpgate, then things go off the rails; as they're taken to the futuristic year...2018. An arguably crappier 2018 than the one we actually got, as the Shi'ar have incorporated earth into their new empire, with new empress Alanna Nermani, daughter of Lilandra and Charles Xavier. Your ragtag band of freedom fighters is all that stands between...hmm. Xavier, a lot of heroes, and possibly some people are dead already, so maybe their fight is mostly for revenge? Deathbird defeats her niece in the end, but lets her live, which means peace, somehow. Cable helps Bishop and Deathbird back to their own time, and asks Doctor Doom if they will be on the same side going forward. Doom is too classy to laugh right in his stupid face.

The art here is way more manga-style than usual; probably more so than any since Joe Madureira had left Marvel. And he drew that last one with Bishop and Deathbird, so there's almost some continuity to that. Did Marvel ever really embrace the manga-style? I feel like no, but I could be misremembering...or forgetting books like this.