BISHOP: XSE #3 - March 1998

Final Ploy

Credits: John Ostrander (writer), Steve Epting (penciler), Andrew Pepoy & Mark Prudeaux (inks), Comicraft (letters), Brad Vancata (colors)

Summary: Bishop convinces Malcolm to disobey orders and help him stop the Rook. At Rook’s HQ, the Fanatix plan to impersonate the XSE and assassinate the anti-mutant crusader, Trask. Malcolm springs Shard, as the Fanatix bring a captive Randall to a gathering of disaffected mutants. Soon, the reunited XSE rescue Randall and chase Rook back to his headquarters. There, they discover his true identity. Rook is Jimmy Knox, the adolescent son of philanthropist Jerome Knox. Using his possession powers, which also work on LMDs, he hoped to spark a human/mutant war. Knox is arrested and Bishop is cleared.

Continuity Notes: The Rook kills Fanatix members Pulsar and Shadowbox during the story. Pulsar is killed for siding with Randall and refusing to murder him, but Shadowbox is killed for no obvious reason.

“Huh?” Moment: Bishop punches Malcolm in the face to make his escape look convincing. Later, Malcolm tells Shard to look at his chin as proof. His chin is actually covered with that metal face gear he wears, so it’s fine. His cheek, on the other hand, is swollen.

Review: First, an apology. So far, I’ve neglected to mention that every male protagonist in this series has a beautifully coiffed mullet. Overlooking a mullet reference is clearly a violation of Blogger’s Terms of Service, so I regret waiting until the final issue to use such references as “Tennessee Top Hat,” “Neck Warmer,” “Canadian Passport,” “Camaro Cut,” and “Mississippi Mudflap.” (I can’t speak for Wordpress, but I imagine they have a similar statute.) If you’ll accept my apology, we can move on.

Bishop: XSE concludes with all of the pieces put back into place, which isn’t surprising since it’s a prequel story. The finale introduces two new characters, a generic member of the Trask family and the junior Knox, that end up playing major roles in the conclusion. Actually, the unnamed Trask doesn’t even make a real appearance, but he’s mentioned on the final page to illustrate the irony of the XSE’s mission enabling him to continue preaching mutant hatred. I don’t mind the sudden reveal of evil little Jimmy Knox, since it’s obvious Ostrander was setting up Annabella Knox as a red herring in the previous issues. It is a bit of cheat that the Rook’s identity belongs to a character we’re only seeing now, but this is only a three-issue miniseries, and not a “Who Is the Hobgoblin?” prolonged mystery. Revealing that Rook’s power is possession, and that the shapeshifting only belonged to the LMDs he controlled, is rather clever. Like the previous Bishop and XSE minis, some of the dialogue is clunky and there’s of course a sense that this was a slot on the schedule waiting for a story, but overall, this is the strongest of the Bishop solo minis.

BISHOP: XSE #2 - February 1998

Rook vs. Bishop

Credits: John Ostrander (writer), Steve Epting & Nick Napalitano (pencilers), Mark Prudeaux, Robert Jones, Andrew Pepoy, & Steve Moncuse (inkers), Comicraft (letters), Brad Vancata (colors)

Summary: Posing as Bishop, Rook leads the Fanatix in a strike against the new Statue of Liberty. The real Bishop is notified of Rook’s machinations by Anthony Shaw, while the XSE targets their apparently renegade teammate. Bishop sneaks into their headquarters and convinces Shard to send him information on Annabella Knox. From Shard, Bishop learns that Knox is going to the courthouse to finalize her inheritance. Bishop’s partner Malcolm arrests Shard for insubordination, then confronts Bishop outside of the courthouse.

Continuity Notes: The original Statue of Liberty was destroyed during the Summers Rebellion, when humans and mutants united against the Sentinels. “Morlocks” is revealed as the name of a bar populated by deformed mutants in this future. According to Shard’s research, Rook’s shapechanging abilities come from organic Life Model Decoy technology from the final days of SHIELD.

Review: Remember when people actually wanted to see more of Malcolm and Randall? I think those days were over by 1998, but Ostrander is still trying to make use of Bishop’s established supporting cast. Ostrander dutifully goes through with the assignment, staying true to what we know about Bishop’s timeline, rather than going off on a tangent and just writing his own futuristic, sci-fi setting and cramming Bishop into it. The story covers some well-worn territory, but Ostrander to his credit does establish that none of Bishop’s friends believe he’s guilty, they just have an obligation to enforce the law. Malcolm doesn’t have any major internal conflicts about what’s he doing, he just doesn’t like doing it, which seems to fit the way XSE officers have been portrayed in the past. Seeing Bishop on the run also works as an inversion of his usual role. His solo stories usually involve him tracking down a fugitive he’s either going to arrest or kill, so there’s a bit of twist this time. Steve Epting drops out of the art chores halfway through the issue, leaving Nick Napalitano to finish the rest. Napalitano seems to be mimicking the worst elements of Andy Kubert’s early X-work, and I’m sure having four inkers rush to finish the pages doesn’t do him any favors, either.

BISHOP: XSE #1 - January 1998

Rook Takes Pawn

Credits: John Ostrander (writer), Steve Epting (penciler), Mark Prudeaux (inker), Comicraft (letters), Brad Vancata (colors)

Summary: The XSE confront Fantix, a mutant terrorist group that’s targeted Jerome Knox, a businessman who wishes to unite humans and mutants. After Fantix is defeated, XSE member Randall suddenly kills Knox without explanation. He’s placed in prison, but is soon broken out by Fantix’s Shadowbox and Pulsar. At Fantix’s hideout, Randall begins to regain his true personality. He encounters the leader of Fantix, a shapechanger named the Rook.

Continuity Notes: A brief scene establishes the future Hellfire Club is led by a man named Anthony Shaw. As “Annabella Knox” (which might actually be his/her true identity), Rook is auditioning to join.

Review: There was a third Bishop miniseries? And Steve Epting drew it? Huh, who knew. Ostrander’s first Bishop mini had nice art and a thin story, while the second had more ideas but wretched artwork, so it’s not as if these limited series have a great track record behind them. Bringing in Steve Epting (who the ‘90s X-office didn’t seem to know what to do with, for some reason) gives me some confidence that the quality will be improving. There is more to the plot than “Bishop chases bad guy,” so the story’s already ahead of the first miniseries. I’m not sure if we need another story set in his future, especially when the character had been left on a cliffhanger in the current continuity at this point, but Ostrander is making an admirable attempt at world-building. The relationship between humans and mutants in Bishop’s time, following their united opposition against the Sentinels, hasn’t been explored in any of the flashback stories yet, so there’s room for Ostrander to explore. I wish Marvel itself showed some interest in the comic, though. Aside from its nonexistent promotion, the first issue also suffers from some flagrant typos any proofreader should’ve caught (the opening scene’s society dinner is apparently for a “good causel.”)

BISHOP #1-#4, December 1994 – March 1995

Okay, simply because I was asked to, I’ll do capsule reviews of the Bishop miniseries from this era. Even though I was a hardcore completist, I didn’t purchase this mini when it was released because the $3 cover price was too high, and I was already having a hard time justifying buying all of the titles after most of the prices had increased fifty cents. Plus, there was also an over-priced Rogue miniseries being released around the same time, so I made the decision to save money for that one. This was the first time I was simply unable to afford every X-book being released in one month, which shows that Marvel was probably already losing touch with its younger readers.

#1 (Ostrander/Pacheco/Smith/Comicraft/Rosas) – This isn’t that bad of a start. Bishop hasn’t been given much of a personality or an internal conflict at this point, outside of his occasional struggle to adapt to the X-Men’s stricter code of ethics (i.e., they don’t want him to kill people). Ostrander revives the idea that Bishop might not be able to fit in by having Xavier question if Bishop is more X-Man or XSE. The fact that Forge and Jubilee are still hanging around the mansion makes me wonder when exactly Ostrander wrote this, or if he was only given Bishop’s first few appearances as reference. Bantam, the forgotten sidekick of Fitzroy, is brought back as a way to introduce another fugitive from Bishop’s timeline. Mountjoy, who can take over people’s bodies, secretly possessed

Bantam and traveled back to this time months ago. Bantam asks Bishop for help now that Mountjoy is trying to kill him, because he’s the only one who knows where Mountjoy is. Pacheco draws a pretty energetic fight scene between Bishop, Storm, and Mountjoy, which ends with Mountjoy poisoning Bishop. This is one of the few times a villain has actually tried to get around Bishop’s energy-absorption powers, so at least Ostrander has put some thought into the action elements.

#2 (Ostrander/Pacheco/Smith/Comicraft/Rosas) – The story opens with Bishop dreaming about the X-Men’s deaths while recovering from Mountjoy’s poison. He’s awakened by a hologram of his sister, Shard, which Forge has altered to become totally interactive. This actually has some impact on continuity, since the holographic Shard later joins the cast of X-Factor (in case you’re wondering if that was a terrible idea or not, I can assure you it was). Forge’s dialogue explaining how exactly Shard exists has clearly been re-lettered, so I guess there was some second-guessing going on about how to define what Shard is exactly. Ostrander continues to play up the idea that Bishop doesn’t fit in with the X-Men as he vows to “finish” Mountjoy, even if he has to resign from the team. Exploring the differences between Bishop’s paramilitary training and the X-Men’s goals is a decent starting place for a story, but this doesn’t exactly work. For one thing, we haven’t really seen Mountjoy behave any worse than your typical X-Men villain, so Bishop’s insistence that he has to die seems forced. Also, Wolverine certainly has a willingness to kill if he thinks the situation justifies it, and he remains on the team. The rest of the issue consists of another fight scene with Mountjoy, which ends in a car chase that Pacheco doesn’t exactly pull off. I really have no idea what’s supposed to be happening in the final panels of the scene. The end result is that Bishop has a car crash and wakes up in his own timeline. He begins to wonder if his time with the X-Men was just a dream, which is rather silly. This issue opened with one “so over the top you can’t buy it” dream sequence, and now it’s ending with another one. I’m not sure what Ostrander was thinking with this, but I wonder if he assumed that the X-books had a younger audience that was just naïve enough to fall such a blatant stunt.

#3 (Ostrander/Pacheco/Smith/Comicraft/Rosas) – And, for the third issue in a row, Bishop fights Mountjoy. Ostrander does at least try to break up the tediousness by having Bishop continually flash back to his past during the fight, but none of the glimpses of Bishop’s future are that interesting. This issue does resolve one of the mysteries introduced in Bishop’s earlier appearances by revealing what the Summers Rebellion actually was. An old man tells Bishop that it was the time humans and mutants united against the Sentinels, which lead to the creation of the XSE. This reminds me of how much we don’t know about Bishop’s future, since I only seem to recall one issue (UXM #287) that took place in his timeline. That’s a gap that could’ve been covered by a Bishop limited series, but instead it’s mostly skipped over in order to make more room for the Mountjoy fight.

#4 (Ostrander/Pacheco/Smith/Comicraft/Rosas) – Now the action moves to the X-Men’s mansion, where Bishop continues to fight Mountjoy, who’s absorbed the X-Men’s bodies. Bishop proves that he really is an X-Man in the end by refusing to kill Mountjoy, even though Shard encourages him to. Ostrander tries to add some weight to the ending by forcing Bishop to effectively kill Shard’s holographic persona during the fight, but there’s really only so much drama you can get out of a hologram. I’m not sure how much rewriting went on with this series, but it’s worth noting that Mountjoy lists Bantam as dead in this issue, even though the character just disappeared in-between panels in the first issue and never showed up again. There’s also no shortage of re-lettered and added word balloons throughout the entire run, including the very last caption of the miniseries. It seems pretty obvious that Marvel decided that Bishop was going to get his own limited series and just found someone to come up with a story, rather than a writer coming in with a strong idea for Bishop and creating a series around it. John Ostrander’s basic idea for the mini is fine, but the final result is an endless fight scene with a predictable ending that fails to make you care anything about the main character. The entire series is admirably drawn by Carlos Pacheco, though, so most of the action scenes are fun.