Operation: Zero Tolerance - 26 Years Later Part 5
Opening Salvo
Half the X-Men are lost in space. The other half are busy with a Legacy Virus conspiracy. Meanwhile a major event that no one planned and led by a villain who wasn’t supposed to be in one is barreling down on them.
Scott Lobdell created Bastion. Over a year earlier Scott Lobdell created Generation X. So with everyone else, why not get the ball rolling in Generation X——a series starring the perfect bridge character?
The following includes spoilers for Generation X #26-31, Uncanny X-Men #343 Wolverine #115-116, and X-Men #65-66.
Open Fire
Generation X #26 catches up with Jubilee who was captured in the previous issue. She blasts her way out of her cell and through members of First Strike. In the course of Jubilee’s escape, one of the soldiers is killed. Jubilee pauses long enough to give him CPR, an action that surprises Bastion since it puts her at risk. After that, Jubilee succeeds in escaping only to emerge into a frigid, snow covered waste. She loses consciousness almost immediately and is rescued by Bastion moments later.
Jubilee is relocated to Bastion’s appropriated Hulkbuster base between issues 26 and 27 and suffers through an intense interrogation at Bastion’s hands. Using a series of projections he tries to convince Jubilee that she is the last surviving X-Man. Jubilee eventually realizes that she's being lied to, and Bastion’s failure to gather any further intelligence prompts him to finally order an attack against the X-Men.
The choice to use Jubilee as Bastion's first move against the X teams in this story makes sense; among the students she has the greatest connection to the flagship team. Lobdell also has a knack when it comes to finding the right voice for the younger characters. But he does waffle somewhat in his characterization here. He depicts her singlehandedly escaping the base in Generation X #26 only to question her abilities as an X-Man immediately after. A month later, Generation X #27 never plays with the idea that Jubilee is a weaker character by virtue of youth or inexperience; instead she spends the issue persevering in the face of interrogation and mental manipulation.
Jubilee is hundreds of miles ahead of the rest of the team in real world and combat experience. Among the things she did during her time with the X-Men were helping Wolverine escape from the Reavers, battling the Mandarin and the Hand, joining the rescue of several New Mutants from Genosha, and participating in the liberation of the Shi'ar Empire from War Skrulls. While Lobdell provides a good story reason for Jubilee’s transition to Generation X in Uncanny X-Men #318 (he writes the character very well), her relative experience sometimes feels forgotten. This is especially the case when James Robinson writes the character in his brief tenure.
Generation X #27 leads directly into the final pages of X-Men #64 followed by X-Men #65 where Bastion’s Prime Sentinels wipe the floor with Cyclops, Jean, Wolverine, Storm, and Cannonball.
Pardon the Interruption
X-Men #65 came out in June of 1997 and ended on a moment of maximum jeopardy. But despite featuring the first large scale attack by Zero Tolerance, X-Men #65 is not branded as part of the crossover. One might therefore expect that the crossover would begin the very next issue. But even that’s not the case. Instead, all of that momentum was interrupted by Marvel’s -1 Flashback month.
In 1994, following its Zero Hour event, DC spent one month publishing “Number Zero” issues that featured character origins. Jump ahead three years to July 1997 and Marvel does something similar. But instead of a #0 with a character’s origin, every series (except those in the Heroes Reborn universe) gets a “Minus One” issue that went back before a character’s origin. X-Men #-1 takes a look at Xavier and Magneto after Magneto just rescued Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.
It was a clever initiative, and there are a number of fun stories (including the standout Incredible Hulk #-1 that reveals Bruce Banner accidentally killed his abusive father, a story that plays an important role in Immortal Hulk). But it’s not the best way to maintain tension going into the year’s major X event.
Escape to Los Angeles
The other Generation X students, lost at sea after Generation X #25, are rescued by Glorian, shaper of dreams. Finding the team worthy, he makes each of their fondest dreams real which ultimately gets the team transported to L.A.
Once in L.A., Skin takes the team to stay with his cousin. While there, they’re betrayed by an old enemy and subsequently attacked by Zero Tolerance's Prime Sentinels. The team evades the sentinels for a time but ultimately face a full assault.
Generation X’s Banshee and Emma plot never intersects with Operation: Zero Tolerance. They spend their time after Generation X #25 searching for their students. At one point Banshee believes the students are trapped on Krakoa. On route they pick up a distress call from the X-Men (this corresponds to the sentinel attack on the X-Men in X-Men #64-65). Neither Banshee’s Krakoa supposition nor the X-Men’s distress call are followed up on. Instead, Emma and Banshee get tied into a story involving Emplate and eventually reconnect with their students between issues 31 and 32.
The Generation X issues prove an underwhelming addition to the event. After issue 27, the series’ contribution to the larger story is minimal at best beyond providing a reminder that the event affects mutants everywhere. And after being written strong in that issue, Jubilee’s fortitude regresses in her final scenes in the series before she’s transitioned into Wolverine.
Chris Bachalo’s style changes somewhat over his run’s final issues. From issue 27 on, the students appear smaller and in some cases (especially Jubilee’s) almost childlike. Banshee is the sole character in the series that looks reliably like an adult.
Welcome to the X-Men Cecilia Reyes, etc. etc.
The encounter between the X-Men and the new Prime Sentinels in X-Men #65 is barely a fight. They make short work of the X-Men and take them back to Bastion’s Hulkbuster base in Wolverine #115. Thinking Wolverine dead, overconfident Zero Tolerance soldiers let their guard down long enough for him to fight his way free and break out his fellow X-Men. Jubilee adds to the chaos by helping the team escape into the New Mexico desert.
The five X-Men stumble on a small encampment in the middle of nowhere. The encampment is made up of people receiving extensive medical treatments from a nearby doctor; the man who first greets the X-Men received leg braces and various metal plates after a plane crash. Not entirely sold on the story, Wolverine investigates the doctor’s nearby facility and discovers all materials needed to transform people into sentinels.
Zero Tolerance isn't just interested in the X-Men; they're after every mutant. Shortly after the announcement that Zero Tolerance's forces have engaged the X-Men, Doctor Cecilia Reyes--after listening to several colleagues talk about how bad the mutants are and how much they approve of these moves against them--is attacked by a sentinel who she thought was an ordinary dead man. Her colleagues are horrified (both because they were working alongside a mutant and because the sentinel is threatening them to force Cecilia's surrender).
Iceman, back in action after taking time away to be with his father who was attacked in Uncanny X-Men #340, arrives just in time to save Cecilia. Iceman reveals that Xavier, after approaching Cecilia to train her and being told she wants nothing to do with the X-Men, charged him with protecting her if anything happened.
Cecilia will be one of the best things (perhaps the best thing) to come out of Operation: Zero Tolerance. As a character who wants nothing to do with the X-Men (or, really, all things mutant) she adds an interesting flavor to the series as well as built-in character conflict. Additionally, adding a doctor simply makes sense. Indeed, it’s surprising that no one wrote a medical professional into the series as a permanent character much earlier as a means of justifying how the X-Men constantly get patched up.
Carlos Pacheco’s work in X-Men #65-66 is first rate. The action sequences in issue 65 are high energy. Much of the combat takes place in the air, and Pacheco draws the characters at a variety of angles to simulate the maneuvers and moments of freefall.
X-Men #65 is an exceptionally wordy issue. Richard Starkings does a very good job keeping dialogue and narration flowing easily without getting in the way of Pacheco’s art.
The visual highlight of issues 65 and 66 are the layouts. Whether specified in detail by Lobdell’s script or designed by Pacheco, the irregular panels during action sequences play into the chaos of the moments and the desperation the X-Men face. In issue 65, they also do a good job presenting Gyrich’s television interview.
Least. Nuance. Ever.
Scott Lobdell dropped one of the most loaded phrases ever into Uncanny X-Men #343 when, in narration, he wrote:
An international task force with resources pooled from governments across the globe focused on the final solution to the “problem” of mutants among them. (emphasis added)
The “Final Solution to the Jewish question” was the Nazi codename for the murder of all Jews within reach. Any readers familiar with the history will recognize that phrase immediately as a disturbingly antiseptic reference to genocide. While using the phrase is an effective shortcut to convey the stakes involved, it’s terribly gratuitous.
Slightly less blunt is a scene in X-Men #65 where Henry Gyrich is on TV defending Zero Tolerance’s actions. Lobdell includes narration of an elderly couple likening what’s happening to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Operation: Zero Tolerance’s opening issues are exciting. They pull no punches, and they set the X-Men back on their heels in a way that even Onslaught’s opening didn’t. The Flashback month is an unfortunate hiccup in the momentum generated by Generation X #27 and X-Men #65, and it reinforces that Operation: Zero Tolerance didn’t have the best planning.
For better or worse, Lobdell also makes clear that this event is ABOUT SOMETHING. How that plays out going forward and into the event’s ending will be worth paying attention to.
But after the way Onslaught fell off, it’s worth wondering if the promise of these opening issues can be lived up to.
<— Part 4: The Not So Calm Before
Bastion’s first appearances in Generation X aren’t unlike his pop-ins in Wolverine, X-Factor, Cable, and X-Man (discussion of Silver Surfer will not be entertained). They consist of a page, maybe two. And he’s always gathering information in some shadowy location. In these cases, though, Bastion is actually running an investigation. One piece of information leads to another and then another. Rather than being ominous for the sake of being ominous, Bastion accomplishes what he sets out to do: he finds the child mutants at Xavier’s school.
Part 6: A Vanguard For Truth —>
The history that informs this scene is significant. Political prisoners in oppressive regimes, religious minorities in theocratic countries, women and minorities working in behind the scenes jobs during times of less equality, homosexuals throughout history——there have always been people whose lives and livelihoods depended on secrecy. What is now referred to as McCarthyism came about from a time in this country when people were hauled before congress and “encouraged” to name names of communists or risk having their lives destroyed as a result. And those who were named fared no better.
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