August 27, 2016
The Uncanny X-Men Annual No. 17: The Gift Goodbye written by Scott Lobdell

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This story has two plotlines. The first one we’re introduced to is the X-cutioner killing a rogue (evil) mutant. The second is Mastermind having Jean, Bobby, and Bishop trapped in an illusion world. That is the main storyline.

Mastermind’s illusion is kind of a clusterfuck, it lacks a lot of his normal finesse. The reason? He’s dying, and he’d sent a letter to Jean  asking to see her as a last request. When she enters the room with Bobby and Bishop the three of them get slammed into an illusion world. With Bobby leading the X Men, comprise of Charles, Havok, Polaris, and Wolverine (the X-Men are sounding a bit much like the Brotherhood, but then this is Mastermind, who was a founding member of the Brotherhood). Jean’s illusion is that she’s happily married to Scott and they actually get to raise Nathan and Rachel. Bishop’s is that his sister is alive again feat. some hilariously incompetent sentinels. 

Of course with Mastermind’s deteriorating state shit goes wonky fast and when they are finally able to confront Mastermind he reveals that he’s too weak to send them all back and how this wasn’t what he’d planned at all. He’d wanted to apologize to Jean for what he’d done to her in The Dark Phoenix Saga and give her an illusion that she could actually enjoy. Jean is able to use her powers to send Bishop’s and Bobby’s consciousnesses back into their body, but she remains with Mastermind up until almost the end until he summons the strength to shove her mind back into her body so she won’t die with him.   

The X-cutioner storyline doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. It seemed odd to me, to have the first appearance of a character be in an issue where he isn’t the primary focus. His goals are made clear, he hunts down and kills what he deems to be evil mutants. His current goal was to kill Mastermind, but that was proved unnecessary because Mastermind died anyways. It really seemed like he was being used as a way to engage the remaining three X-Men, Ororo, Warren, and Colossus, who were otherwise struggling to figure out how to help Jean, Bobby, and Bishop. It certainly worked out, but it felt weird to me. You could have taken out the entire X-cutioner subplot and the Mastermind storyline would not have been affected. It felt like a set up for the character to be important in another story arc, which on it’s own isn’t a bad thing, the way this particular set up happen just struck me as a bit disjointed. 

You can find the anthology with this issue here

Related Reviews: The Dark Phoenix Saga, Star TreX

Snaps:

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