Information News Gallery Fanfiction Links Misc Poll
Generation X #60

Writer: Jay Faerber

Penciller: Terry Dodson

Inker: Rachel Dodson

Colours: Kevin Tinsley

Rating: **

Title: Christmas Fear

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.