Ah, well. . .

Crap. I was saving that as a post for some day when I was running low on ideas, but now Scipio's gone and put it out there. So exactly what plot threads would I like to see resolved?

Two leap to mind:

Perhaps shockingly, the first thread is courtesy of one Mr. Austen. Yes, you read that right, I want a follow up to a story from Chuck Austen. No, this isn't Un-CalvinPitt. Yes I'm feeling fine. When Austen left, he had School Nurse Annie realize that the X-Men life is entirely too dangerous for her son to be around, and she leaves. This of course left Havok to fall into Polaris' psychotic arms on the rebound, leading to more angst. Ugh. Anyway, as she and her son leave, the kid (who is a powerful telepath/telekinetic, what a surprise!) is talking to his "new friend" who Annie (and us) can't see. I don't have it in front of me, but as they story ends, the kid says something fairly ominous about her getting to meet his friends, or that they'd definitely see the X-Men again, and he gets a decidedly frightening look on his face. I've always wanted to know what was up with that. Since even a few years ago I didn't understand how switching a creative team worked, I naively believed it would be touched on in just a short amount of time. You'd think that fact that Austen made Gambit blind, and Claremont reversed that in about 3 seconds would have wised me up.

So I'm left wondering who the kid's friend was. Shadow King? Malice? The disembodied soul of Apocalypse? Say maybe that's how he came back, he took control of the kid's body! Keep in mind, I'm not asking for Austen to come back and answer this, I'd prefer someone good at making a surprise that makes sense. Or at least someone who isn't terrible. See, told you I wasn't Un-CalvinPitt.

Second thread:

Howard Mackie introduced a cat near the end of his time on Amazing Spider-Man. Peter found the cat (which smelled very bad) outside a night club, and some weird cyber-goons as well. Peter assumed they were after Spider-Man, but they really wanted the cat. The cat apparently recognized the value in having a super-powered protector, and followed Pete home.

What was up with the cat? We never found out. But between an seemingly intelligent cat, and the dog that Paul Jenkins was about to give Peter's neighbor across the alley, the comedy potential was there. The dog could have been a plant from the cyber-goons, designed to figure a way past Peter's defenses to get at Smelly Cat.

Unfortunately, JMS took over three issues later, and there was no resolution. Now I would be willing to give this assignment back to the original writer. I have at least that much trust in Mackie.