Saturday, February 11, 2023

Uncanny X-Men #41-42: Xavier Dies Due To Inability to Share His Feelings

This one has too many scenes and it has a conclusion that is too important to gloss over the story, so buckle up everybody, we're in for a long one... I'm even including a "read more" jump which I haven't done in a reading post yet.

Zelda, Vera, Bobby, and Hank are on the train when it is suddenly stopped by a giant white skinned yellow eyed dude who jumps in the way and just manhandles the train. In the dark, they sneak out from under their girlfriends' noses (again) and don their costumes to confront the villain. They fight, and the Beast calls him grotesque, which the enemy immediately takes as his name (though it is spelled Grotesk when he says it. I'm not sure how the spelling changes when he says it, but sure). The fight ends with all sides retreating, and the tunnels sealed off.

Back at the school, Xavier is running Angel and Cyclops through a Danger Room session and being more of an ass than usual. Which is saying something. He's quickly snapping at them, telling them how they have to be perfect, etc. Beast and Iceman run in to try to tell them about the encounter, but Xavier cuts them off and goes to do experiments asking Jean to help. With the others out of the room, Jean tells Xavier that he should clue the rest of the team in, and he declines. Again, acting like a jackass. Xavier needs to like, go to therapy and learn how to open up.

After Beast and Iceman tell Cyclops and Angel about Grotesk, Xavier comes in and tells them "no need to explain, I was monitoring you telepathically" (maybe he should also learn about privacy...), and sends everyone but Jean after him. They unseal the tunnels Grotesk had sealed and discover an ancient city. Apparently, Grotesk was originally the prince of a great underground nation, that was unfortunately destroyed by underground nuclear testing. He was the only survivor, and was altered by the radiation to be superhuman. But he's gone to try and acquire a machine that will shake the world apart that some random university professor had built.

Cyclops sends Iceman and Angel back while he and Beast wait for Grotesk's return. When they return, Jean says that Xavier had ran out and refused to let Jean help. He then appears and tells Jean to not let Iceman or Angel to leave. With no explanation. Of course.

Grotesk returns with a random person he had found in the location he thought the machine should be, and is interrogating him to try to find out where it was moved to. Beast and Cyclops fight him, it is another standstill, with Beast and Cyclops escaping back to the school. There, Jean then proceeds to prevent ANYONE from leaving, again on Xavier's orders. Then, two seconds later she receives a command and they all rush out to Xavier's location.

It turns out he was luring Grotesk out by himself. Why? I have no idea. There was no reason to do it on his own. It was dumb. He tries to stop him with his mind. Fails. The team shows up, the machine gets turned on, and then to stop Grotesk and the machine, Xavier sacrifices himself and dies* killing Grotesk* and also destroying the machine. Also apparently he was dying of an incurable illness (what Jean asked him to tell the others) at the time. Which apparently excuses him being a gigantic asshole for these two comics.

*to a certain degree, you know how comics are.

X-tra Notes: Man, this is dumb. I would have called it a throwaway storyline other than the death of Professor X. It is seriously though just two comics of Xavier being unnecessarily secretive, assholish, and inexplicably just idiotic in his planning. Why in the world did he go out there by himself. If the whole team had been there it probably could have been done without his death.

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