Decision Time: X-Men #7

X-Men (Vol. 6) #7
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Pepe Larraz
Color Artist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller
Head of X: Jonathan Hickman
Production: VC's Clayton Cowles
Assistant Editor: Lauren Amaro
Editor: Jordan D. White
Editor-in-Chief: C.B. Cebulski
Released: Jan. 26, 2022

With my continued purchasing of the latest volume of “X-Men” – not to mention $3.99 a month that might otherwise, let's be honest, probably just go to another Marvel title – hanging in the balance, I present my recap of and thoughts on “X-Men” Vol. 92 #7.

What brought us here? “X-Men” #6, which, to me anyway, was high on confusion and low on resolution. Still, it's hard to fault the workings of a comic that made me buy the next issue when I had pretty much resolved not to do so.

There we met Captain Krakoa, a mutant Superman/Captain America type who Cyclops did not want on the new X-Men team. Spoiler alert: turns out that's because Captain Krakoa is Cyclops in disguise because the Quiet Council (the mutant nation of Krakoa's governing body, for those of you who haven't been following the new status quo) doesn't want Cyclops running around in public after he died in a rather public manner.

See, mutants on Krakoa have perfected the science of returning from the dead, even more than your average comic book characters. Sometimes this makes for interesting stories, occasionally an excuse for over-the-top gruesomeness. But in the 616, it's not public knowledge, and the powers that be want to keep it that way.

Ace reporter Ben Urich was close to breaking the story, but Cyclops discovered at the end of #6 that's no longer the case. For a series whose issues have been largely self-contained while pointing to ongoing plot threads, this presented an unexpected cliffhanger.

Issue 7 opens “not long ago, under a particularly evil part of New Jersey,” where we find Dr. Stasis, brutal geneticist in the service of anti-mutant shadow organization Orchis (and Urich's anonymous source), releasing some souped-up hybrid animals on an unsuspecting populace. A shorthanded X-Men team – Cyclops, Sunfire, Synch and Wolverine (aka X-23) – show up to deal with the problem, with Cyke displaying his spatial geometry talents in a stunning two-page spread that makes me question what traffic lights are made of in Marvel Manhattan.

When he's not getting the particular results he'd hoped for, Dr. Stasis dispatches tiger/ape/photographer Bornan to kick things up a notch. Bornan does this by snatching and throwing a baby, and Cyclops demonstrates his hero cred (and pushes that whole mutant-revolutionary-who-went-Dark-Phoenix-and-killed-Professor-X thing a little further down in our memories) by saving the tot, though the animal man slits his throat in the process.

A paramedic arrives on the scene and turns out to be Dr. Stasis, which is even more surprising if, like me, you missed the fact that Bornan got out of an ambulance to enter the fray. Stasis finishes Cyke off with a scalpel, but not before telling him where he can find him, an apparent test of whether a resurrected mutant retains his or her memories. It's a pretty good plan, although he could have just read “Way of X.”

Later, but before last issue, Forge and Jumbo Carnation show off the Captain Krakoa gear in the Quiet Council chambers while Cyclops and Marvel Girl try to figure out who made Ben Urich forget about mutant resurrection.

It's a good issue, probably my favorite of the series so far. It explains what the heck was going on in #6, builds on and moves forward the overall story, advances the subplot of Synch's souped-up powers and introduces a new mystery and friction between the X-Men and the Quiet Council.

So, yes, I will be picking up #8 – even though the ominously truncated “Coming Soon” page suggests this would be a pretty good stopping point. The series is still on issue-by-issue status with me, though that has more to do with my high hopes for some upcoming releases than the shortcomings of this series. It has them, but not in this issue. It gave me what I wanted (well, minus the implication that Jean minds Scott spending time with Emma Frost as much as he seems to mind her sharing a hot tub with Logan), so I'll give it some more time.