Fine Idea, Flawed Execution
Having gone as low as he can possibly go with the Mekano issue (one can only hope), Roy Thomas does a fair job bringing back our interest in the X-Men as a series (though the individual personalities of the characters are dulled too much in this action-heavy issue). Using his knowledge of X-Men history, Thomas revives some former villains to use against the X-Men in a slightly unusual way: jury members. The problem, though, is Thomas again does things just because he wants them done in a certain way, not because it makes sense. Case in point: Mastermind. Instead of giving a plausible reason why he is back after the near-omnipotent Stranger turned him to stone way back when, Thomas has Mastermind say "it wore off." A smidge weak, that. Likewise, we are given no explanation for the Vanisher's resurrected memory: Thomas wants him there so he's there. The plus side is that at least they aren't villains he resurrected from nowheresville like the Porcupine and Co. from a few issues ago. It's a fine idea to have former villains come back in a different way, but the execution is flawed: they want the X-Men dead, Factor Three wants them dead, so the so-called leader of Factor Three, Mutant-Master (indeed) puts them in ... the oblivio-ray! I guess we can just be grateful Thomas didn't call it the "Stupid-Nonsense-Death-Gun!" ... except he sort of did. This is all the more ironic considering Stan's Soapbox for the issue declaims the Marvel Bullpen gang actually care about their series and their characters (it's still hard to tell, at times, with plot occurrences such as Iceman using ice shards to destroy the machines of the mighty Factor Three, a group poised to conquer the world provided it doesn't rain). Everything is always the end of the world with these people. Every villain is the worst they've ever faced, and then suddenly the worst villains they've ever faced have to team up with other people. If Lee and Thomas turned down the Hyperbole knobs from 11 to say ... 4, they could possibly refocus on interesting stories, developing the characters, and doing something interesting with their clever ideas (like putting the X-Men on trial for betraying mutantkind, which was a great idea but flawed because the judge is someone we just met four seconds ago and who gives a name like "oblivio-ray" to things he makes).
