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Today's Uncanny X-Men #19 Kills the Eighth Mutant Ever Invented (Spoilers)

Today's Batman #72 takes a run through fifty issues of Tom King's Batman run, reinterpreting it as one big plan from Bane, every nuance, every influence, every action, leading to a reprise of one classic moment that is also the shape of the entire two-year twice-monthly run. It's rather impressive. Well, today's Uncanny X-Men #19 is in the same ballpark. Running through the last almost-two-years on the book, telling what on earth Emma Frost was doing all this time. Whose side she was on, how she interfered with the events that unfolded, how she dealt with the supposed deaths of so many mutants (though we know they are all in the Age Of X-Man reality).

There wasn't such an easy out for Rahne Sinclair, Wolfbane, beaten to death by a crowd.  One of the older mutant characters, created for the early eighties' New Mutants, today's Uncanny X-Men #19 sees the death of a far older mutant character – the eighth mutant ever invented by Marvel Comics.

Because, counting them from the first X-Men comic in 1963, issue 1 brought us Professor X, Cyclops, Beast, Angel, Iceman, Marvel Girl and Magneto. While issue 2 gave us… The Vanisher, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

A teleporter, real name Telford Porter (seriously??), defeated by Professor X by making him forget who he was. Since then he has been reinvented and reinvented. After his memory returned, The Vanisher joined alien-funded mutant terrorists Factor Three. He used Sentinels to fight the Champions but was trapped in mid-teleport, a scenario that would see him join Nightcrawler on a trans-dimensional journey. He reformed (a bit) and joined the Fallen Angels, a mutant survival group.

Revealed as using the Darkforce Dimension to teleport, he ended up being controlled by the Darkling, later joining Spider-Man foes The Enforcers, returning to the Darkforce Dimension until he was freed by Warpath at the behest of mutant information broker Sledge for unknown reasons.

He then became the drug lord behind gene-altering drug MGH, sporting new tattoos, until he was bought out by Warren Worthington. Pursued by the remaining X-Men over his stockpiling of the Legacy Virus, repeated teleportation gave him a terminal brain tumour. He joined X-Force as their transport member, hoping at some point to have the tumour removed. Getting sicker and sicker, he tried to get himself healed, only to be told that his brain tumour had been cured earlier and his symptoms were down to stage four syphilis.

He really couldn't get a break, could he? But before that could get worse, he was shot and supposedly killed by another longtime villain, Sentinel inventor Stephen Lang. Though he returned without explanation, joining the Marauders. He was last seen three years ago smuggling stolen vibranium out of Wakanda in order to sell it to criminals.

And now he is part of Emma Frost's gang – and her butler as well. However, this new position didn't last long, up against General Callahan and his new bag of tricks… including an anti-mutant serum from Hank McCoy.

Might this make him a little less able to return without explanation again? Maybe as a sentient form of teleporting syphilis?

UNCANNY X-MEN #19
(W) Matthew Rosenberg (A) Carlos Villa (CA) Whilce Portacio
First – learn the truth about the Hellfire Club's involvement in the X-Men's quest. Then, the mutant race faces elimination at the hands of a vaccine erasing the X-Gene from future generations…
Rated T+In Shops: Jun 05, 2019
SRP: $3.99

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