Generation X (1st series) #5

Issue Date: 
July 1995
Story Title: 
Don’t Touch That Dial
Staff: 

Scott Lobdell & Chris Bachalo (creators), Mark Buckingham (inker), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters), Steve Buccellato & Electric Crayon (colors), Bob Harras (editor, editor in chief)

Brief Description: 

Jubilee, Synch, M & Skin are on a field trip when Emma has to pick up two mutants, but she is kidnapped by Gene Nation. M goes catatonic in the middle of Rockefeller Plaza and the others try to find out what happened to Emma. At the school,Chamber tries to comfort Husk, who gets drunk because the possibility of contracting the Legacy Virus making her studies seems in vain. Banshee tries to reach Penance, though she does not respond to any language he tries, she follows him to his cottage to get more apples.

Full Summary: 

Chamber is pissed off because his TV is broken so he skulks round his basement until Gateway appears and tells him psionicly that he should go and see Husk because she isn’t taking the news about the Legacy Virus well.

Meanwhile, in New York City, Jubilee, M, Skin and Synch are on a field trip when they spot the Thing of the Fantastic Four. Synch is hyped because he loves seeing real life superheroes, but Jubilee is less than impressed. As they prepare to leave to meet Emma Frost at her office, M suddenly zones out and freezes in position, almost catatonic, like she was when the Phalanx first captured them. As they are trying to move her, someone recognises Skin, and he can’t believe Skin is alive - he thought he was killed in L.A. Skin pushes his ‘friend’ out of sight from the others and strangles him with his skin, telling him that as far as he is concerned, Angelo Espinosa is dead, and that is what he is to tell people, especially Torres.

Back at the School, Banshee is trying to communicate with Penance in different languages, while worrying about his long term girlfriend, Moira Mactaggart, who Trish Tilby revealed to the world is the first human to contract the Legacy Virus. Leaving Penance he returns to his cottage to find Penance there eating his apples.

The kids are being driven to meet Emma and Synch is worrying about leaving M catatonic in the middle of Rockefeller Plaza when the car is hit by something and crashes. The driver is killed and the kids climb out of the car to find 3 more bodies pegged to a wall. They get an elevator up to Emma’s offices, but are attacked by Hemmingway, a huge member of Gene Nation, as they arrive.

Chamber finds Husk in the games room drunk and rambling about the Legacy Virus. She dosent see the point of studying and fighting and working hard if one day you’re just going to wake up with a virus thats going to kill you, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it.

Jubilee attacks Hemmingway, but is thrown out of a window and Skin saves her. Hemmingway rants about how Gene Nation can do what they want, especially now they have the Leech, but Synch lashes out and knocks Hemmingway down the 30 floor lift shaft. Jubilee wonders what Emma would have been picking up here, and then Skin finds young Artie Maddicks hiding behind a pile of rubble, and they figure out that she was picking up him and Leech, but someone beat her to it. Artie shows them images of Marrow and Hemingway.

Characters Involved: 

Chamber, Husk, Jubilee, M, Penance, Skin, Synch (all Generation X)
Banshee (Generation X‘s teacher and tutor)
Gateway
Artie Maddicks
Thing

Hemingway (Gene Nation)

Story Notes: 

Moira MacTaggert was publicly outed as being the first human to contract the Legacy Virus in X-Men Prime.

M first displayed her tendencies to go catatonic during the Phalanx crossover in Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #317.

Hemmingway makes his first appearance here.

Artie Maddicks has been away at a special boarding School with Leech. His origin was shown in X-Factor (1st series) #2-3 and was part of that books junior team until the Inferno crossover where he was involved with the short lived X-Terminators team.

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