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A Very Lobdell ThanXgiving Part 2: Generation X #23 [X-ual Healing]

Published Thu, 22 Nov 2018 13:00:57 -0600

Last updated Mon, 26 Nov 2018 14:25:05 -0600

Ah, Thanksgiving, a wonderful holiday where families gather together to gorge on Turkey and stuffing, watch football, and argue viciously about politics. What better time could there be to slip away from your loved ones and read about comics on the internet? We've got your back here at X-ual Healing, the weekly X-Men recap column, so we've prepared a 2-part special looking back at two memorable X-Men Thanksgiving-themed issues, both written by Scott Lobdell.

In A Very Lobdell ThanXgiving Part 1, we looked at the events of 1993's Uncanny X-Men #308. Now, it's time to skip forward a few years to Generation X #23.

Sworn to sell comics for Marvel executives who feared and hated the fact that Fox owned their movie rights, The Uncanny X-Men suffered great indignities, but with a corporate merger on the way, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in all of comics.

Generation X #23

by Scott Lobdell (writer), Mitch Byrd (penciller), Jason Martin and Karl Story (inks), Steve Buccellato (colors), and Richard Starkings (letters)

In Part 1 of A Very Lobdell ThanXgiving, we saw Jean Grey propose to Scott Summers in Uncanny X-Men #308, back in 1993. Generation X #23 came out in 1997, three years after Cyclops and Jean Grey got married in X-Men #30. This one is set the day before Thanksgiving, and opens with Banshee, co-headmaster of the Massachussettes Academy where he and Emma Frost do their best to mentor a group of cynical 90s teenage mutants. It's Banshee's daughter, Siren, who Sean is thinking about though, feeling guilty about raising Generation X when he didn't raise his own daughter. He puts off calling her, instead meeting up with one of his students, Synch, to take another student, Monet, to the doctors to perform autism tests. It was actually Claudette, one of Monet's younger twin sisters who were together impersonating Monet while the real Monet was actually Pennance, who had Autism, but we wouldn't find out any of that for many issues to come. In any case, "Monet" isn't feeling going to the doctors, so she's trashed several cars on the grounds.

Meanwhile, Husk has taken Chamber home to the Guthrie estate for Thanksgiving, but he won't stop sulking about the fact that he has flaming psionic energy where his lower face and chest should be. Paige is into him, but he's too busy feeling sorry for himself to care.

They head back to the house while Paige questions her choices in life. Hey, this isn't anywhere near the worst houseguest Paige brought home. We'd take a sulky Chamber any day of the week over a live sex display in the sky with Warren Worthington. Back at the Academy, Banshee chases M through the sky trying to get her to open up, and she eventually says she doesn't want to go to doctors because she had bad experiences with them as a child.

Banshee may not have been a good dad to Siren, but he's clearly trying a lot harder with his students. Back at the Guthrie Farm, Paige and Jono find a note from Paige's mom telling them the family has gone to church, though it may have just been a cover story in hoping that Paige would get any X-rated PDA out of her system before she had to watch it. The paranoid Chamber freaks out again, worried that Paige's family is ditching them because they don't want to be around him due to the whole flaming face thing. Paige tries her best to console him.

Elsewhere, Bastion is sniffing around Emma Frost's history, trying to figure out whether she's a mutant. Back at the school, we get a brief crossover with the Howard the Duck holiday special as Howard brought Beverly to the school to meet his new friends Skin and Chamber, who he picked up hitchhiking a few issues prior, but finds himself accosted by Artie, Leech, and Franklin Richards, who want to introduce him to the alien Tana Nile, who also arrived on Earth a few issues ago and is currently hiding out in their treehouse, eating junk food.

At the Guthrie farm, Paige and Jono are pulling a Chevy Chase during Christmas Vacation as Paige looks through old memories in the attic. This causes Jono to accuse Paige of being into him as a replacement for her father. This is the final straw for her, and she tells him off.

She explains she kissed him (way back in Generation X #6) because she actually likes him and that not everything is about him. Back at the school, M is sleeping on the couch and Sean has a chat with Emma, who accuses him of being manipulated by Monet and warns him not to trust anyone lest he put them all in danger. Not even her. At the Guthrie farm, Chamber leaves before Thanksgiving.

While the Thanksgiving issue we covered in Part 1 of A Very Lobdell ThanXgiving was full of optimism, this issue is all about pain and people failing at trying to connect with others. We also see a brief cameo at the end by Generation X's unwelcome uncle, Black Tom Cassidy.

Which of these comics better captured the spirit of Thanksgiving? We'll leave it to you to decide.

This issue, sadly, like most of Generation X, is not available to read on Marvel Unlimited, so you'll have to locate some back issues.

Well, we hope we were able to provide you with some brief respite from your own holiday suffering. Be sure to check back on Sunday at the usual time when we recap all the events of this week's current X-books.