Sunday 20 November 2011

UXM #142: "Mind Out Of Time!"


(Point of inflection.)

Comments

2013

What's left of America's heroes have reached the Sentinel headquarters in the Baxter Building.  Leaving Rachel behind to look after Kate, Ororo, Peter and Logan take out the Sentinel er, sentinel, and gain access through the Fantastic Four's secret elevator.

But its a trap!  Wolverine is incinerated as soon as he leaves the elevator.  Storm and Colossus die moments later, and Rachel is left alone, cradling her friend, waiting for something to change.

1980

The Battle of the Senate kicks off!  The X-Men get some help when the impressively unfazed Senator Kelly sics the capitol police on the Brotherhood, but there's not much they can do against the marauding mutants.  Storm's got problems as well; not only is this the first fight the full team has been landed in since she became leader, but she's got to worry about Wolverine managing to gut somebody in a room filled with TV cameras.  Future Kitty isn't any help, either - she's too focused on keeping Kelly alive to do anything else.  In the confusion, Mystique manages to gas Xavier and Moira and drag them away.

By the time the fight has spilled out into the Great Mall, a tank division has arrived, and starts firing indiscriminately.  Charming.  It does distract the Brotherhood at least, though not for long, and once the flamethrowers arrive, they're literally just adding fuel to the fire (Pyro hopes that the soldiers he burns have good pensions, though, which means he cares more about what happens to US vets than the Republicans do.  Politics!)

Wolverine is horribly burned (this I think is the fist time his "fast-healing ability" is mentioned as being more than just somewhat preternatural), sending him into a killing mood, which means Storm has to waste even more time ordering him to keep his claws sheathed.  Fair play to her, though, she manages it; Wolverine's next move - gloriously - is to act as a fulcrum for an I-beam used by Colossus to throw Blob into the air.  He even quotes Archimedes!

With her mooks beaten and in custody, Mystique beats a hasty retreat, stopping just long enough to be pointlessly cryptic about her similarity to Nightcrawler.  Fifteen years of pointless runaround begins here.  Destiny, though, has managed to corner Kelly, and being blind doesn't seem to be giving her any problems aiming her crossbow (crossbow?).  Kate saves the Senator, diving through Destiny and shoulder-barging her on the way out, and the resulting time-shift throws Kate back to whatever she's made of her future.

Four weeks later, Senator Kelly and Sebastian Shaw are summoned to the Whitehouse by the new president, who introduces them to the man now in charge of the mutant "problem": Henry Peter Gyrich.

Clues

This story takes place in real time.  Except the future bits, obviously.  And the epilogue, which takes place a month later, but doesn't include any of our heroes, so we can ignore it for now.

Date

Sunday 31st of October, 1982.

X-Date 

X+4Y+215.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 3.80 standard years.

(Shadowcat is 21 years old.)

"Hello, retard!  Goodbye, retard!"
Contemporary Events


Standout Line

"It's too bad you revealed your identity, wings, The Feds are gonna try an' crucify you for this caper."
"That, short-stuff, is why I employ the best lawyers in the country."

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