Satan's Luau

X-Men: Fatal Attractions: A+

At the time I was working at the Karaoke Box ... and one of the tenants in our complex at Windward Center was a comic store JJs Comics ... I became fast friends with the owner, who was a Comichead of the same flavor as me and unMatx

So we were talking one day, and I was like so what's new ... this was the emergence of Image Comics ... or the breakaway great talents of Marvel ... like McFarlane, Lee, Portacio, Kieth, Keown, Liefeld, etc. had broken away from the mothership to form their own company.

So what you had was totally new people taking over the "Franchises" at Marvel ... you know em, I won't name em ... and actually doing a damn incredible job filling large voids

Which brings us to the X-Men Fatal Attractions arc ... Some of the books in this six part mini are some of the BEST I have ever read, bar none ... it just recaptured for me my love for the ART, the STORYTELLING, and the STYLE of the comic book

In true epic style ... we had the slow burn of the conflict, the rise of the cross forces, the SHOCKER of a climax, and then the aftermath

Ok, so some catching up to do for our non-readers, Ilyana or Colossus sister has passed away due to the Legacy Virus (Another megastoryline of its own) ... and Magneto has a new powerful awesome group of henchmen called the Acolytes --- in a true evil power show, they commit an atrocity on a terminally ill care ward

X-Factor ends up intervening and fighting them in surprise, surprise, a facility that contains Sentinels but no one seems to know that yet ... the Acolytes get beaten back, but end up taking the Sentinel technology

(who is X-Factor? you remember them, the group consisting of the original five X-Men, including the not dead found at the bottom of the lake Marvel Girl Jean Grey ... sound familiar ... well the group evolved since then and had new members)

Next, Magneto appears ... we thought him DEAD, yet again .. He makes up this plan that he can have a floating empire above the Earth called Avalon --- much like a shelter against human tyranny

Magneto tries to get X-Force to join up with him in Avalon ... and to tie up loose ends, these were the New Mutants that we under his supervision when Magneto led the XMen in the way way back ... basically because he believes that he can't convince the older X-men to leave behind Xavier or X's dream

Ok, so Cable returns from the DEAD ... what is this a zombie flick?!?!?!? ... (who is Cable? Scott and Jean's son who was stolen by Mr. Sinister and cloned... hahaha .. sheesh, we take leaps of faith reading this stuff, don't we) saves the old New Mutants ... finds out what Magnus is planning above the earth ... and gets totally worked by Magneto --- the new aggressive Magnus sets a foreboding tone for the rest of the mini

After a nice let's fill in the new kids about who Magnus is and what he's about narrative, Magneto and the Acolytes appear to the X-Men who are still grieving the death of Ilyana ... the key to this is that Peter's faith in Xaviers' dream is really shaken ... Magnus offers them all salvation to his Avalon ... Prof and Magnus have words ... Peter leaves with Magneto and joins the Acolytes

Ok, so how many of you remember the Magneto Protocols ... if you do, you're a hardcore X-Men fan ... basically the idea of it is a way to protect the earth from Magnus by constructing a barrier preventing him from entering Earth's atmosphere

Needless to say this upsets Magneto and seemingly puts a halt on his plans to get mutants to join him in Avalon .... so he E-Ms the planet which shuts off all electricity planet-wide except for that little Shi`ar tech house in Westchester

Professor commits to finally stopping Magnus seeing how his electrical pulse probably killed thousands on the Earth ... so an away team is assembled to invade Avalon, notable in the team were Quicksilver (Magneto's son) and of course Canucklehead himself Logan

In the battle that follows, Magneto threatens to kill his own son ... Wolverine jumps into action and attempts with bad intentions to filet Magnus ... Magneto makes a Shakespearean kind of speech, then magnetically rips all of the adamantium from Logan�s skeleton

Professor thinking that Logan is dead, and that he has lost an XMan ... feels that there is no other choice, so he BLANKS OUT Magneto�s mind ... in essence, turns it off

Lastly the X-Men have to return home in the Blackbird and bring back a dying Wolverine ... who now looks like a pincushion of twisted bones, blood, and flesh
... they come back but nothing comes easy in the X-Men, does it?

The XMen then deal with Peter's leaving the team ... there's a subplot about Professor and Kitty Pride (now of Excalibur) tricking Colossus to come back from Avalon ... they want him to come back to fix the dent in his head --- it gets fixed, he still wants out of the X-Men ... The Acolytes come back down to get Peter, he leaves with them again .... umm yeah, what the hell was that about? totally didn't fit .... the end

1993 --- everyone knows was the 30th anniversary of the X-Men ... and each of the books had a neato hologram on the cover

The theme of the story pretty much converges the massive storylines back to the original ... Professor X and the dream v. Magnus and mutant dominance

X-men #25 and Wolverine #75 are truly some of the best the X-titles have to offer ... now going on 40 years!

Why? These two issues along with Unc 304 revisit the original conflict in the mutant community, the competing visions --- and revisits them with making the reader think about what is good and bad about each vision of the future ... and not taking the easy way out, it is open-ended, draw your own conclusions as to which is better

I had never seen Professor's vision so exposed, so vulnerable ... so open to question that IT was the FLAWED view ... and finally we get rational arguments as to why Magnus might be right after all, despite his horrific disregard for ethics and moral conduct (or "taking the high road") ... shoot, Magneto ends up looking pragmatic, realistic in light of a humanity that treats mutants like dirt

Avalon --- heck, that actually might work ... and various mutants have crises of conscience thinking about the prospect of living separate from humanity

Wolverine #75 --- answers so many of those nagging questions you had about Logan ... Professor and Jean work together to read his mind and support him until he can be tended to ... how Logan is saved by his love for Jean Grey, brilliance, sheer brilliance ... and how the pain of the battle with Magnus comes crashing down so HARD at the end of the issue ... WOW!!!

I didn't believe anyone could pull a Claremont after he left the series at Unc 280 ... well 2 years later ... I was so pleasantly surprised

(ed.note: The series is available in a trade paperback graphic novel format, and is highly recommended reading ... particularly for plane trips or for lazy weekend afternoons)

(Image (c) 2003 Marvel Entertainment)