Random Back Issues #105 - Uncanny X-Men #237

It's the introduction to Genosha, aka, Apartheid for Mutants, oh boy. Maddie Pryor accepted a job trying to help a mutant escape Genosha, but they were both captured because Genosha doesn't want anyone to know how they achieved their utopia (slave labor). Not out of fear of sanctions, heavens no, but because someone might steal their idea.

That is the more realistic response, for all I'd like to see the Avengers show up and just beat everyone's asses. The New Warriors might have done that, but we're still a couple years too early for them. Or X-Force, for that matter.

Wolverine and Rogue went to investigate, they got caught and powers neutralized, which produced two pieces of bad news. One, with his healing shut down, Logan's dying of blood poisoning from all the Admantium. Two, Rogue was assaulted by some of the magistrates and retreated into her own mind from the trauma. There she's being tormented by the specters of all the people she's grabbed bits of memory from. So Carol Danvers, stronger than the others because it's basically all of her, is running the show. Turns out she and Logan worked together at some point. Of course they did.

While the magistrates are chasing an aircraft Logan and Carol hotwired, those two are sneaking around Genosha itself. Well, Carol's not really sneaking so much as trying to draw as much attention as possible for Logan to swipe keycards. At least it keeps him from trying to stab people.

The Genegineer's son - friend of the girl Maddie was trying to help - chose the same bar to get drunk and pick a fight in. Which makes Carol and Logan's work easier, but when the magistrates decide to throw the kid on the "mutant train" to teach him a lesson about how Magistrate Lives Matter, our super-spies decide to hitch a ride. They find the kid and try use him as a way to get deeper into the facility where mutants are experimented on. Logan's fading fast, but he really wants to bring the country to its knees.

Elsewhere, the Genegineer's talking with Jenny, his son's friend. Her father abused his position to switch her positive gene-scan with another girl, who died as a result. So Jenny owes it to that dead girl and their country to be altered against her will into a mindless slave, you see. Fortunately, the bullshit is interrupted because the medical staff are about to start messing with Maddy, including trying to probe her mind with a telepath, despite her warnings to stay out.

It's about this time the rest of the X-Men arrive. After easily dispatching some magistrates, Psylocke is floored by a psychic shockwave of rage she describes as 'like being cast into the molten heart of a star.' Back in the lab, the Genegineer finds everyone other than Maddy (still strapped to the table) brutally murdered. Well, that's not ominous. . .

{12th longbox, 45th comic. Uncanny X-Men #237, by Chris Claremont (writer), Rick Leonardi (penciler), Terry Austin (inker), Glynis Oliver (colorist), Tom Orzechowski (letterer)}