UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #24
“Where Monsters Dwell, part two”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Morbius, about to bite Jubilee.

THE X-MEN:

Rogue. We get a flashback to her watching old monster movies on TV as a kid; she says she finds the Legion of Monsters scary as a result, but also recognises that the X-Men are acting weirdly in this issue – Jubilee isn’t fighting back properly, at least at first, and the group allow themselves to fight separately instead of working as a team. So everyone’s behaviour (in the core team) should be taken with a degree of caution. Their opponents in the Legion of Monsters are out of character to carying degrees as well.

Wolverine. Rogue thinks he’s a bit more violent than usual here, though it’s not really outside normal parameters for him – more a slight throwback to earlier days. An attack on his carotid artery can cause him to bleed out enough to remove him from the fight temporarily. Somehow – presumably because of the bite – he apparently gets turned into a werewolf.

Gambit. Despite his behaviour last issue, when the X-Men were trying to stage an intervention over his addiction to the Eye of Agamotto, he seems relatively normal here. Perhaps he’s the team member most used to keeping up a persona (including for himself). He disdains the theme park as tourist-level Cajun schtick.

Nightcrawler. He seems quite unnerved by the monsters, though he suggests that Frankenstein particularly unsettles him, “as part of my folklore”. (Although Frankenstein isn’t really folklore, or German for that matter, since he was created by Mary Shelley in 1818.) His lines of German are “Mother. I’m really not having any fun at all.”; “My god! It’s the monster, it’s really the monster!”; and “My brother, must we fight?”

Jubilee. She seems paralysed by the monsters, possibly because of her personal association with vampires – though she does ready herself to fight Morbius later in the issue. She admits to missing aspects of being a vampire.

GUEST STAR:

The Rawhide Kid. Presumably – there’s bound to be a reason why Marcus’ story links to the main plot, right? For what it’s worth, the name of the town in the story has changed from “Willow Flats” in the previous issue (which was actually part of Rawhide Kid’s back story) to “Willow Falls” in this one.

Quite reasonably, he’s not willing to guarantee that he can shoot Pete without hurting his hostage.

SUPPORTING CAST:

The Outliers (Ransom, Jitter, Calico and Deathdream) appear almost entirely in the western story segment. In the story, Jitter can imitate Hawkeye, which seems fair enough in terms of her powers. Marcus implies that Calico’s horse Ember is “magic” in his own right.

Marcus St Juniors continues to tell the story, and Chelsea St Juniors serves as a hostage within it, as well as part of the audience.

Waffles. Deathdream’s cyborg dog attempts to defend Haven House from the Mistress and Salem as the issue ends.

VILLAINS:

Mistress. The Legion answer to a woman referred to simply as “Mistress”, who’s accompanied by a large wolf thing called Salem. She vaguely resembles the current design for Agatha Harkness, but that’s probably a coincidence, since she refers to being undead. She says that she plans to claim New Orleans as a city of her own – she refers to it as a “new Darkhold”, and later in the issue Elsa seems to refer to Rogue as a “Darkhold” too. In the Marvel Universe, the “Darkhold” is normally the name of a book of black magic, which is basically Marvel’s version of the Necronomicon.

The Legion of Monsters continue to fight the X-Men at her behest:

• Elsa Bloodstone still appears possessed, with blank eyes, and she’s clearly acting out of character.
• Frankenstein’s Monster only seems able to say the words “Mutant. Bad.” This isn’t normal for him – Marvel’s version of the character is usually quite articulate.
• Werewolf By Night. He doesn’t speak, but he does seem to be fighting intelligently, with a realistic strategy to take down Wolverine.
• Morbius. The one member of the Legion who seems to be acting more or less normally – he at least expresses regret about having to harm Jubilee, and tries to engage her in conversation. It might be significant that Morbius isn’t genuinely magical – perhaps he’s less susceptible to Mistress’s influence than the others?
• Manphibian and the Living Mummy are also there, but don’t get much to do.

Cobra Pete. The villain in the western story may or may not have any sort of counterpart in the real world. He’s certainly not a genuine Rawhide Kid villain. For what it’s worth, the Cobra’s real name is Piet, but that’s probably just a coincidence. Cobra Pete’s coat design seems clearly designed to echo a cobra’s hood, though. In the story, Cobra Pete and his men have been bitten by some sort of zombies and now become undead monsters at night. Like Mistress, he claims to be mainly interested in claiming the town as a home for his monsters; clearly, it defies belief that Marcus would come up with this by coincidence, so something must be going on.

OTHER REFERENCES:

Sweet Water Park. Rogue describes this as a theme park that was abandoned by its owners after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The likely reference point is Six Flags New Orleans, which never reopened after Katrina, but wasn’t demolished until 2024. Six Flags declared it an economic write-off in 2006, although there was a dispute about whether they were entitled to walk away from the lease, which became academic when Six Flags entered bankruptcy in 2009.