Operation Zero Tolerance - 26 Years Later Part 1
The Pro-Pro-Prologue
Onslaught, as is common knowledge at this point, was an event reverse engineered around a character that didn't really exist in order to fulfill an editorial need to shunt the Fantastic Four and Avengers to the Heroes Reborn universe. This is evident during the lead-up where there are inconsistencies describing what Onslaught is as well as in several issues during the event where the story feels forced and disjointed. So given those obvious deficiencies the X event the following year was certain to be tighter and cleaner. Maybe.
Revised Plans
1997's Operation: Zero Tolerance is perhaps the least subtle X-Men equality metaphor story ever. The United States government, during a period of heightened animosity toward mutants following the apparent deaths of the Fantastic Four and Avengers in the final battle against Onslaught, allows an outside entity to openly hunt mutants with advanced sentinels. The titular operation is run by the new character Bastion.
The first hints for the event were planted before Onslaught when Scott Lobdell and Pascual Ferry created Bastion. Lobdell's original plan for the character was to have him attack the X-Men immediately in the wake of Onslaught, destroy the mansion, and send the team on the run for an unspecified amount of time. He was supposed to become a powerful foe for the X-Men, a character as significant as Magneto. Unfortunately editorial liked Bastion and his underlying motivation a little too much and decided to turn it into the next year's line wide X event.
Operation: Zero Tolerance had several months of build-up. The writers took the few building blocks introduced before Onslaught and started adding to them the moment that event ended. Unfortunately this revised plan created problems. One of those is a lackluster build-up. With the exception of a story thread in Generation X (which Lobdell was writing), Bastion's appearances between Onslaught and Operation: Zero Tolerance are largely superfluous (the less said about connecting Bastion to Silver Surfer 123 the better). In fact, if the reader wasn't following Generation X, Operation: Zero Tolerance comes out of nowhere when it begins on the last page of X-Men 64 (not ideal when the X-Men books are generally at the center of X events). The bulk of the thematic build-up actually comes via Graydon Creed's presidential campaign storyline.
The extended build-up also pushed the storylines in the X-Men books somewhat out of sync. Even during the Graydon Creed arc that spins out of Onslaught X-Men feels like it's treading water. Uncanny X-Men fares a little better, but that series will follow half of the X-Men to outer space three months before Operation: Zero Tolerance begins and those characters won't return until after the event ends. In fact, only one issue of Uncanny X-Men will be branded as part of the event, and only then because it stars J. Jonah Jameson, Spider-Man, and Marrow.
For the amount of (attempted) build up given to it, Operation: Zero Tolerance is surprisingly limited and a little messy. Not only is Uncanny X-Men mostly absent, Excalibur and X-Factor are not included at all (the former missing from an X event for the first time since X-Cutioner's Song and the latter for the first time since Marvel started these events with Mutant Massacre). X-Men serves as the primary title and focuses on a hodgepodge of characters led by Iceman. Wolverine becomes a de facto third X-Men book for the duration and stars the Earthbound team. Generation X's main contribution is a Jubilee storyline that begins before the event proper kicks off. Cable follows what seems to be a major story thread based on how it's introduced at the start of the event but which is ultimately resolved with a whimper. The X-Force issues just happen to take place during the event without being related. X-Man's single tie-in takes place on the distant periphery and feels as tacked on as it is. And the X-Men Unlimited issue is irreconcilable with the continuity established by X-Men and Generation X.
Operation: Zero Tolerance is a bit of a mixed bag (as so much of Marvel was in the late 90s). For instance, a few characters get A+ treatment, especially Iceman and Jubilee. But the overall plot of the event is a rather blunt instrument without much depth. The tangentially related Graydon Creed storyline proves surprisingly effective but ends abruptly and without explanation.
This retrospective starts with Graydon Creed's first appearance in Uncanny X-Men #299 before jumping past Age of Apocalypse to the beginning of Creed's presidential campaign and Bastion's first appearance. Needless to say, Operation: Zero Tolerance and all related issues will be completely spoiled. Posts will be grouped around prominent plots and themes, and these checklists provide a suggested reading order. You can also follow along with an issue-by-issue commentary at @theronscomics #XMenOZT.
It Started Early…
Onslaught: Marvel Universe isn't even over before the X writers are telling us how much worse things are about to get for mutants; the pivot from Onslaught to Operation: Zero Tolerance may seem abrupt, but in truth the X books start weaving in threads leading to Operation: Zero Tolerance from practically the end of Age of Apocalypse. In hindsight, the building blocks for Operation: Zero Tolerance actually make more sense than the ones being laid at the same time for Onslaught. Like with Onslaught, these preliminary story threads run through the event's villains, Graydon Creed and Bastion. Unlike Onslaught the character, Creed and Bastion aren’t two-dimensional mustache twirlers with an undefined agenda. That’s not to say that they have a lot of complexity (this isn't really a surprise since Operation: Zero Tolerance could have been called Let's Genocide the Mutants for all its subtlety). But it’s still an improvement. Additionally, what the writers skimped on in character development they more than made up for in intrigue.
The following includes spoilers for multiple X books set before Onslaught: X-Men, most significantly Uncanny X-Men #299, Uncanny X-Men #333, and X-Men Unlimited #11.
Creed for America
Graydon Creed first appears in a debate on mutant rights in Uncanny X-Men #299. His first appearance, though, is as an entry in the X-Cutioner’s Song handbook, Stryfe's Strike Files. That entry also alludes to his parentage, though it doesn’t establish anything definitively. He's the founder of the human rights organization Friends of Humanity and is more openly hostile to mutants than Senator Kelly. Ironically, he is the son of two mutants: Mystique and Sabretooth. While his parentage is eventually revealed to readers in Sabretooth #1-4, (where, hiding behind the identity Tribune, he captures his father and sends him on a mission to kill his mother) it is not common knowledge in universe. Creed makes several additional appearances before Age of Apocalypse. The most significant of which are connected to his anti-mutant interests with the Friends of Humanity (he's also involved in a storyline connected to the Gamesmaster where he's on a team called the Upstarts).
Creed's storyline jumps in significance in Uncanny X-Men #323 when he starts making fiery speeches in the wake of gruesome murders committed by the Morlock terrorist group Gene Nation. It's not long before an advisor suggests he consider a presidential run (X-Men #45) and he makes his announcement in X-Men #51. Creed's campaign eventually acquires a powerful patron willing to provide him funding. In X-Factor #123 Creed meets with a man named Harper, a representative of that patron, who not only provides some of that financing but discusses efforts to kill Mystique to prevent her from revealing information about Creed that would doom his campaign.
I'm Not So Bad Ackshually
The introduction of Graydon Creed corresponds with an effort by the X writers to humanize Senator Robert Kelly and ultimately use him as a contrast with Bastion in order to establish just how bad Zero Tolerance is compared to previous anti-mutant government efforts. Kelly's last appearance before Graydon Creed's first appearance, Uncanny X-Men #281, sees him ranting and raving at the X-Men, promising they'll pay for endangering innocent lives. The senator was long the personification of the government's mutant intolerance, being the primary backer of the Mutant Registration Act and Project Wideawake, the government program responsible for creating updated Sentinels to hunt and detain mutants. He was the politician whose assassination at the hands of Mystique would have set off the dystopian future in "Days of Future Past". Years later Kelly's anti-mutant bias grew even stronger when his wife Sharon was killed by Master Mold during a battle with Rogue.
Kelly's mutant stance softens considerably beginning in Uncanny X-Men #299 when he appears in the same mutant rights debate as Graydon Creed (and Charles Xavier). When baited by Creed, Kelly denies that the X-Men were responsible for his wife's death and rejects the idea that he harbors any hostility toward mutants out of a sense of revenge. He denounces the goals of Creed and the Friends of Humanity, accusing them of pursuing a political agenda of genocide. And while he reaffirms his commitment to controlling "the more scurrilous genetically challenged", he insists that it must be done in a way that upholds the rights of all American citizens.
Enter Bastion: Uncanny X-Men #333
The head of the extra governmental program Operation: Zero Tolerance makes a couple shadowy appearances before the X-Men first encounter him. The first of these is in X-Men #52 alongside a pair of men recording the aftermath of a train full of humans being turned into mutants; he takes the video tape as one of his two companions ominously drops his name. The second is in X-Force #54 when he chastises Detective Charlotte Jones for releasing X-Force from her custody. He doesn't drop his name here but he does throw out the very on the nose comment that his people have "little tolerance for this kind of injustice. Zero tolerance in fact."
Bastion's grand entrance comes in Uncanny X-Men #333. Charles Xavier has heard about a critical meeting in the Pentagon that the X-Men need to monitor, so Jean Grey and Gambit are sent in undercover to investigate. They find themselves in a briefing about a new "multi-national human survival taskforce" called Operation: Zero Tolerance. Bastion is the operation's leader and he claims that he's going to set humans free from a mutant siege. As he discusses the mutant threat he reveals that intelligence has to come to him--intelligence about something malevolent called Onslaught. He details an earlier mysterious incident at a sentinel plant that he believes is connected to Onslaught (the mystery was revealed to be Onslaught taking control of the sentinels that he later used to quarantine New York).
Jean's attempts to scan Bastion are met with failure. Bastion's mind is closed to her and where Jean usually feels mental resistance from people who can keep her out of their mind she senses nothing from Bastion, calling him a psionic blank slate. Before she can make sense of that, though, Bastion identifies her and Gambit. As the pair fight their way to freedom, Jean questions how Bastion knew they were mutants and is further dismayed that her telekinesis has no effect on Bastion. These are the first of many hints going forward about Bastion having an ominous origin. Sharp eyed readers will likely take note of Bastion's appearance and spawn some theories.
Providing additional weight to Bastion's introduction is a subplot involving a meeting between Cyclops and Robert Kelly. The scenes between the two continue the writer's efforts to rehabilitate Kelly as he laments that his previous efforts to "stop the madness" of mutants and humans killing each other (the aforementioned Mutant Registration Act and Project Wideawake) have led to an international group with a new agenda that he believes is an effort to eliminate the entire mutant race. But before Kelly can get into too many details, the meeting is cut short by a bombing orchestrated by Graydon Creed.
Opening Salvo
Bastion's first move against the X-Men comes in X-Men Unlimited #11 when Rogue, who has been on a sabbatical since her falling out with Gambit in X-Men #45, is reported to the authorities by her landlady who suspects she is a mutant. Bastion and a group of soldiers with Humanity's Last Stand move on the small town Rogue is staying in and captures her with ease after threatening to kill her landlady's child. Bastion's intention is to destroy the town and murder its residents leaving Rogue behind to take the blame. The plan is disrupted when Joseph, having infiltrated Humanity's Last Stand, rescues Rogue and helps her drive the soldiers away. Bastion escapes, but despite his failure to inflame public opinion by framing Rogue, he sees the operation as a success because Magneto's apparent return will drum up more international support.
Scott Lobdell's original intention to use Bastion immediately following Onslaught works to great effect during this period between it and Age of Apocalypse. While the decision to spin Bastion into Operation: Zero Tolerance as the next big X event creates some schedule disruption after Onslaught, introducing Bastion at this time—alongside Graydon Creed launching his presidential campaign—creates an effective two track storyline that builds tension organically over the long term rather than having to pivot into Operation: Zero Tolerance immediately after Onslaught.
The major thread running through both X-Men books the month after Onslaught ends is Xavier's remorse, anger, and guilt. He's not ready for absolution. He knows what led him to this point. Charles Xavier has never been a saint, nor will he be one going forward. He has often cloaked mistakes and misjudgments in arrogance. Something entirely different happens here, though.
Follow along with an issue-by-issue commentary at @theronscomics #XMenOZT.
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