We Now Return to Plot Contrivance Playhouse
While this issue is a little better than part one in the previous issue, that isn't saying very much. Yes, X-Men series today are far too serious for the most part, but this third effort from Roy Thomas does not take itself seriously enough. The X-Men agree to steal a 100 million dollars from the U.S. Government (which, fortunately it just so happened to have lying around? was it poker night on Capitol Hill?), and they don't seem too concerned about attacking the U.S. Army, endangering the lives of D.C. residents, or letting their adversaries escape (again). They never cleared their names from the bank robbing situation in issue 20, and now they have "stealing from Congress" against them - no wonder non-mutants hate mutants. Despite the Coast Guard being alerted to Nefaria and the Unicorn, no actual evidence exists they had anything to do with any of this, since only the X-Men have been seen taking the money. Are they really going to admit to their role in this? True, Nefaria did make some demands, but what could prevent him from saying "those muties made me do it?" The common man thinks the X-Men are responsible, just as we saw in this issue. Does that bother Professor Xavier? Not that we can tell. He's too busy showing off his new metal brace walking apparatus. Well done, Chuck. Everyone hates the X-Men, your government liaisons don't trust you very much anymore, the bad guys got away ... light up that pipe and smoke it. Even the editorial notes throughout the comic indicate the lack of taking this seriously. For a company supposedly set on creating meaningful, intelligent semi-literary experiences, no one seems to be taking their own output very seriously.
Perhaps the highlight of the issue is seeing Dave Cockrum's name as a recent MMMS member. It's got to be him, right?
