Mutant X #17

Issue Date: 
February 2000
Story Title: 
The Wake Up Call
Staff: 

Howard Mackie (writer), Javier Saltares (pencils), Andrew Pepoy (inks), Chris Eliopoulos (letters), Gina Going (colors), Jason Liebig (editor), Bob Harras (editor-in-chief)

Brief Description: 

Havok can’t sleep and, when wandering off from the rest of his team, he’s once again reunited with his brother, Cyclops! Cyclops is on the run for a mysterious enemy that has wiped out the rest of his Starjammer teammates and he has come to warn Alex. Alex and Scott fight their way through but get, nontheless, captured by Mr. Sinister. Sinister wants to use them in his experiments and gives the boys the free choice of aiding him volunteerly, but to him it doesn’t really matter, as Sinister would hate it if he had to destroy them. Alex and Scott find a way to free themselves and destroy Sinister’s entire headquarters and escape. Scott finds it best that he leaves the Earth to keep them both out of Sinister’s hands. Alex agrees, but admits he is going to miss his brother, and so will Scott. Mr. Sinister has monitored everything from another base, having what he needed from the Summers brothers. He orders his “employee,” Jean Grey, to return to the living and to her former comrades-in-arms. And, after that, it shall finally be time to unleash the X-Man!

Full Summary: 

Havok is dreaming a nightmare he’s been having for several days now. Havok believes that the dream is the real thing. In the dream, he is haunted by a huge, dark and mysterious character. As he powers up and chases the character, he finds his fellow teammates all dead! Havok is never able to tell if they are still breathing or not and, when Elektra and Scotty show up, Havok himself angrily lifts them up by their throats and kills them, too. After this, Alex wakes up and finds out that his teammates, unlike him, are all still asleep in the woods. Alex wanders around a bit and sees that Captain America is still guarding their backs, like he promised to do. Cap happily greets Alex, who wonders who Cap trully is.

Alex goes looking for the nearby lake and washes his face and overthinks his mission. He knows he can’t save all the haunted mutants from S.H.I.E.L.D., but they have to try. Alex doesn’t realize that he’s being watched by a familiar, looking red light. Alex hears a noise and, when he searches around, nothing’s there. Alex hears somebody running around and powers up, ready for a fight. A man holds his arms against Alex’ mouth, not allowing his “little brother” to speak, or else they’ll both be dead! Alex greets his brother, Scott, and is happy to see him. Alex immediately notices that something’s wrong and wants to warn the Six, but Cyclops doesn’t allow it, because it won’t do no good against him. As Alex asks where the other Starjammers are, Scott can only say that they are gone.

As the ground starts to shake, Scott tells Alex that he has his reasons to believe that Scott let him down in the past, but this time Alex simply needs to believe him. Alex can’t believe that Scott says that he is letting him down, but Scott warns Alex to run, as something huge lands in front of them. Cyclops and Havok fight their way to safety and Scott explains that, after the moment the Kree attacked their parents’ plane, Scott couldn’t save Alex then; but now that he is back on Earth, nothing else seems more important to him and nothing else matters if Scott would loose Alex again. They make it to the bushes, where Scott hid his spaceship, and he believes to be safe there and having a fighting chance.

Alex believes that this went too easy and he is right, as Cyclops gets knocked down by a powerful beam. Scott can only apologize for letting Alex down again and knows that he is there. Havok angrily powers up and shoots some plasma-blasts, demanding their attacker to show himself. The same powerful beam that hit Scott now hits Alex as well and, before Alex faints, he can see a dark shadowy man revealing himself. But before Alex can figure out who he is, he loses conciousness. While unconcious, Alex has another nightmare and is attacked by another shadowy figure, who tells him not to be afraid of anyone else but her. Alex powers up and attacks, but then wakes up and is in pain, trapped in a holding armor next to his brother, Scott.

Scott tries to calm Alex down before his powers kill himself. Alex listens to reason, as Scott has found out that their holding cells adopt to their specific mutant powers, thereby not giving them a chance to escape. Alex asks Scott if he knows what’s going on. Scott really doesn’t, but reveals what he does know. When finding out that Alex was still alive, Cyclops and the other Starjammers decided to hang out on Earth and do some sight-seeing. A week ago, at some Southern themepark, Scott couldn’t believe that he immediatly took off after finding his long-lost brother, whom he so long tried to find out to be alive or not. When Binary was trying to convince him to call Alex, they were suddenly attacked and the blast immediatly took out all the other Starjammers. Scott survived but, before he could find out if his teammates were the same, a dark, mysterious figure stood before him. The only thing Scott could think of was to take off and make sure that Alex was safe.

But that didn’t get them anywhere, so Scott wants to know who’s behind this. Before fainting, Alex easily recognized Mr. Sinister. Scott can’t believe that Alex knows their attacker, and also can’t believe that their attacker is serious about that name. Sinister immediatly walks over to his control panels, which show nothing. Sinister says that, with them both, he’s got all he needs to complete his experiments. Alex tries to free himself again but only gets an electric shock in return. Sinister says it’s no use, and he has followed the merging of the Summers family tree for quite some time now and Scott and Alex’ mother and father didn’t meet accidently like they thought. The only surprise on Sinister’s part was that the Shi’ar took Scott away from him, but now he’s finally got him. Sinister gives the brothers the chance to help him volunteerly in his experiments but, as they can see, he doesn’t really need to; though Sinister would hate it if he had to destroy them both. Sinister leaves from his lab, giving Scott and Alex some time to think about his proposal.

Scott panics and tries to free himself again, which fails. Alex powers up, having a plan, and says Scott that, should the plan fail, Alex wants him to know that he never failed him. Alex surges all of his energy through one finger,and blasts Cyclop’s visor free. An impressed Cyclops now has to the power to free himself and his brother from their bounds and asks what to do next. Alex says they’d best blow Sinister’s whole base up, so he’ll have second thoughts when he plans to kidnap them another time; and then they run. Cyclops finds that a lousy plan, but the Summers brothers team-up, nonetheless, and destroy the entire base of Mr. Sinister.

Both Alex and Scott realize that this won’t stop Sinister. Scott believes that he’d best leave the Earth to keep them both out of Sinister’s hands. Scott and Alex say their good-byes and will miss each other.

Meanwhile, Sinister is monitoring them from one of his other bases when Jean Grey shows up, not believing that Sinister’s actually going to let them escape. Sinister says he is, because he’s got all what he need from them for now and their escape fits in his plans. Sinister believes that the boys will play a vital role in the confrontation with him, though. Sinister tells Jean it’s time for her to return to the living and to her former comrades in arms. And, after that, it’s finally time to unleash… the X-Man!

Characters Involved: 

Bloodstorm, Brute, Captain America, Cerebro, Gambit, Havok, Iceman (the Six)

Cyclops (all Starjammers)

Mr. Sinister

Jean Grey

X-Man

(in Havok’s nightmare)

Bloodstorm, Brute, Captain America, Cerebro, Gambit, Havok, Iceman (the Six)

mysterious, unseen man

mysterious, unseen woman

(in Cyclops’ flash-back)

Binary, Cyclops, Nova, the Silver Surfer (all Starjammers)

Story Notes: 

Cyclops found out that his long-lost kid brother, Havok, was still alive in Mutant X #14.

The first mysterious figure in Alex’s nightmare at the beginning of the story has a lot of resemblance to the Dark Beast, who had seemingly turned Alex to the evil side in the real universe, though this has never been confirmed in future issues. Who the mysterious woman is, gets revealed in upcoming issues.

Later issues shall reveal more about Captain America’s true identity and powers.

How Mr. Sinister got a hold on X-Man can be found in the Mutant X Annual 2000.

Issue Information: 
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