Random Happenstance

I paid two bucks, cover price, for this in 1991; and fifty cents for it last week: what's that saying, "Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice I have no idea what this crossover was about." Pretty sure that's the saying. From 1991, (Uncanny) X-Men Annual #15, "Kings of Pain, part 3: Queens of Sacrifice" Written by Fabian Nicieza, pencils by Tom Raney, inks by Joe Rubinstein and Art Nichols. Cover by Mike Mignola! Not his best, but still!

You know what's a great plan for an X-Men annual? There's maybe 19 heroes in this one, and no X-Men except maybe Polaris, and that's barely at that point! The New Warriors and X-Force have got their fights out the previous two annuals in the "Kings of Pain" crossover, and now race to Muir Island to warn Moira Macaggert that A.I.M. is plotting to somehow resurrect her son, Proteus. In Claremont's main book, the Shadow King had control of Moira and the others there, but lets them react normally to New Force there. Which means a three-page fight, before Moira is like, oh yeah, hi Cable. (Had we seen them meet before? It's more likely she would've known Cannonball.)

The bad guy in this crossover was Harness, who actually had kind of a cool armor design. She had "harnessed" young mutant Piecemeal, and was forcing him to absorb loose, dead mutant energy. At least that's what they're doing with Proteus here; I don't think I've read the prior two issues in like 25 years. Piecemeal is getting progressively more Blob-like as he takes in more energy than he can comfortably hold. Excalibur's Brigadier Alysande Stuart makes a rare appearance here, to warn of super-human activity in Edinburgh, where Proteus fell; then a brief visit with the instigators of the crossover, Toad and Gideon, playing chess. (Which may or may not supposed to be a surprise at this point. I feel like you can tell?)

X-Factor and the Warriors split up to take down Harness, while some try to drain some of Piecemeal's energy and save him. Warpath manages to shatter Harness's helmet, revealing--gasp! A woman! Look, Metroid was five years prior, it's not that surprising. She is Piecemeal's mother, which is mildly surprising, since he called her Harness previously. (I could definitely see her being an abusive hardass and demanding to be called that, but also Piecemeal would accidently call her mommy if he so much as stubbed his toe.) Piecemeal explodes, into a new merged Piecemeal and Proteus, then explodes some more. To be continued...?

There are a lot of gratuitious butt shots in that one, and slightly less in the back-up features: a Freedom Force story, featuring Blob, Avalance, and Pyro versus Iraqi super-team Desert Sword! Oh, I bet this aged just as well as everything else Desert Storm-related. Long-time recurring C-lister Arabian Knight has somehow been forced to serve on the team, since his wives and kids were being held hostage, which I'm not sure would ever be followed up on again. Crimson Commando, a WWII hero still active into the 90's despite first appearing in 1987, gets cut up some more and loses another of his teammates; while Blob and Pyro complete their mission by killing the hostage they were there to rescue. In their defense, they didn't go to that first, for a change. ("The Killing Stroke, part 2: the Razor's Edge" Written by Fabian Nicieza, pencils by Jerry DeCaire, inks by Joe Rubinstein.)

Next, a brief recap of the X-Men's origin, for Mojo, who isn't having any of it; and five pages of Wolverine, because fans would've rioted if there hadn't been any Wolverine in this one. ("The Enemy Within" Written by Len Kaminski, pencils by Kirk Jarvinen, inks by Brad Vancata.) 

Of course, later that week I went out to the garage, looking for something else, and found this one and the next chapter, which we'll get to at some future date. Can you stand the suspense...