Description: We see a
girl running through the woods. It's Cordelia
Frost, Emma's younger sister, she trips and falls
and someone comes up behind her. At the Academy the
GenXer's are enjoying themselves with a snow
fight. With the human students away for the
Christmas holidays, the mutant kids are allowed
to openly use their powers on campus. They notice
that Penance has carved a life sized ice
sculpture of a person. None of the GenXer's
recognise the person, but guess that it's someone
from Penance's past.
In the school gym,
Sean and Tom are having a friendly boxing match.
However Sean gets a little carried away, and Tom
is forced to deck him. It seems that he asked his
daughter Theresa (aka Siryn, former member of X-Force)
to spend Christmas with him and she turned him
down. She was recently in a battle with a group
called the New Hellions and nearly had her throat
ripped out, resulting in the loss of her sonic
powers. Tom reassures Sean that it's probably
just stress brought on by her injuries that is
making Theresa act oddly. Tom then departs for
the airport to spend Christmas with his own
family.
In Emma's office, she
finds a folder on her desk. She opens it and
inside are pictures of the New Hellions. She is
furious that somebody is using the names of her
deceased students.
The living room -
Angelo, Jono and Jubilee are wrapping their
Christmas gifts while Penance looks on. (Ev and
Paige have gone home for Christmas, while M is in
a Swiss boarding school.) They talk about the
presents they've bought when Penance suddenly
runs out of there. Jubilee admits that the only
person who might understand what Penny is going
through is Monet.
In Switzerland, Monet
is looking reminiscently at her old GenX uniform.
She realises that she misses her former teammates.
Her roommate Charlene then comes in and they go
to visit another student. However when they reach
the girl's room they find it locked. M's
telepathy senses panic at the other side of the
door, and we see a vampire feeding on a girl, M
forces open the door and they find the girl dead.
Back at the Academy,
everyone's relaxing when suddenly Cordelia comes
crashing through the window. She tries to speak,
says a few words about someone being after her
before passing out. Artie and Leech head for
safety while the rest suit up and try and find
Cordelia's would be assailant. They are attacked
several times by some being that seems to take on
the appearance of anything it comes in contact
with. Sean finally knocks it out and it takes the
form of a young man, Mondo. Cordelia runs from
the house telling them to kill him. They refuse,
but turn at the sound of another voice. Black Tom's
arrived with his friend Juggernaut.
Comments: Reading over
this issue reminds me just how much Jay Faerber
started and was unable to finish. We never find
who the ice scuplture was of, who Penance really
was etc. It's a pity. He had some good ideas but
spent several issues of his run on the book tying
up the loose ends left over by his predecessors (i.e.
Lobdell and Hama). Anyway, back to this issue.
Overall it was fairly solid, I guess. Nice enough
art from Dodson which would have been greatly
improved by a better colourist. With the right
colourist his work can look really gorgeous, see
the Dodson groupshot in the gallery for proof. Back to
the story and I really would have preferred a
proper Christmas story for the GenXer's. Just
character development, without any fights or
explosions. But I guess it's a fairly enjoyable
issue.
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