Off the Rack: X-Men Forever “OVERDUE” Edition #6

Off the Rack: X-Men Forever “OVERDUE” Edition #6

Issue #6 opens with a classic scene, a Chris Claremont original, its non-other than an “X-Men playing baseball scene”. Yep you heard me right, Uncle Chris went back to that well once again. Most of the X-Men play baseball in the Danger Room, while they should be cleaning it up. They are interrupted by team leader Cyclops who is not too happy with them for disobeying orders. During this time Lil’ Ororo powers start to go haywire and starts creating storms and tornadoes so the X-Men must save themselves from her powers. She finally manages to get control and reel them in.

Next the Danger Room goes all crazy and starts to attack the X-Men that are still recovering from the power surge by Lil’ Ororo. Nightcrawler, Lil’ Ororo, Kitty Pryde and Lockheed all manage to escape via teleporting/phasing out. This leaves Cyclops and Gambit left inside to fight the Danger Room while the others shut it down from the outside.

 Meanwhile Professor X confronts Sabretooth in the kitchen and they have a discussion about trusting and respecting each other. Sabretooth talks about how Kitty Pryde is blood now and it’s because she has more than just Wolverine’s claw in her. Sabretooth continues by saying he will be watching her, and sticking with the X-Men until he gets revenge on “Evil” Storm and the people that sent her to kill his son, Wolverine.

During this Beast and Jean Grey are seen snooping around Xavier’s computer files searching for more evidence about mutants burning out and dying young. They find more proof that what he said is indeed true.

This sucktacular issue wraps up as Lil’ Ororo wonders if the X-men are really for her and if she should stay or go her own way. Nick Fury and Professor X get some information about a Foreign Dispatch Unit that has gone missing in South America and when shown a screen shot of what is there they are surprised. They see a huge crater-like foot print with smashed tanks and jungle life in it, the end.

Not a great ending but that is Uncle Chris’s X-Men Forever tales for you. 

A simple breakdown of the issue would be as follows:

Page 1-8: Some of X-Men are supposed to be cleaning up the wrecked Danger Room (see issues 1-5), but instead start a pick up Baseball game instead. Cyclops interrupts the game. Lil’ Ororo powers go crazy as she creates a tornado in the Danger Room. Cyclops saves Lil’ Ororo and calms her down, danger’s averted.     

Page 9-10: Professor X and Sabretooth talk in the kitchen. Professor X tells Sabretooths he needs to earn respect and Sabretooth claims he only cares about blood. He claims that Kitty Pryde has more than just one of Wolverine’s claws in her.

Pages 11: Beast and Jean Grey are in Beast’s Lab. They discuss the raw power that is know in Kitty Pryde and Sabretooth is watching her. Beast shows Jean the data that he has uncovered from Xavier’s old files on mutants.

Pages 12-17: Back in the Danger Room a combat program begins locking the X-Men inside. Nightcrawler grabs Lil’ Ororo and teleports out, Kitty Pryde grabs Lockheed, phasing to the outside. They shut down the power and leave Cyclops and Gambit inside to fight the room, until the back-up power finally powers down. 

Pages 18-19: Later Gambit, Cyclops and Lil’ Ororo talk about what she wants in life: to stay with the X-Men or go her own way. While this goes on, Nightcrawler and Kitty talks about her gifts (Wolverine’s claw and rage) and how she should use them for good. 

Pages 20-22: Professor X and Nick Fury are notified of a missing Unit in South America. When they get visuals on the area we see a big footprint like crater with crushed tanks and trees inside. What does this mean? 

This issue was simply a filler issue. It had a filler artist (old X-Men Penciller Paul Smith) and filler story, (See X-Men playing baseball) nothing really happened, the story barely moved forward, if at all. The only good thing about this issue is the cover by Tom Grummett and its looks like most of the real artwork was done by the colorist. The inside art was terrible, and this is coming from a Paul Smith fan of his early X-Men work. The story was even worse.  The whole issue could have not happened or happened in 3-4 pages and got the same points across. I can see tons of people dropping this book after this issue. It was bad, so very bad. What is even worse, we the reader paid 3.99 to read this.

It is times like this I ask myself how much longer can I actually continue to read and write articles about this crap.  See you next week.

Related posts:

1. Off the Rack: X-Men Forever “LONG OVERDUE” Edition #5
2. Off the Rack: X-Men Forever Edition #4
3. Off the Rack: X-Men Forever Edition #3
4. Off the Rack: X-Men Forever Edition #2
5. Off the Rack: X-Men Forever Edition #1