MV1 #78 MARCH Year 4

They are homo sapien superior - men and women whose genetic structure has gifted them with extraordinary abilities. Gathered together by Professor Charles Xavier, the X-Men have been instructed in the use of their powers for the betterment of mankind. Shunned by society at large, these outlaw mutants  fight an endless battle to bridge the ever-widening gulf between humanity and mutantkind by protecting a world that fears and hates them.

"Dissolution and Rebirth Two - Challenges"

What Has Gone Before: The X-Men "outed" themselves on national television at the same time that Professor Charles Xavier announced that he'd be running for the United States Senate!

"Wow... look at all the unhappy people."

Bobby Drake was not usually noted as being a master of understatement, but this time, there it was. And while he was the only person aboard the X-Men's modified SR-71 Blackbird to speak, they were all thinking the same thing.

We did this.

Seven people - four women, three men - looked below, and saw that New York City was burning.

"This is Trish Tilby, for SCN. I'm in the SCN News Helicopter, above New York City, and, as you can see, things are not pleasant at the moment. Several chapters of the organization called the Friends of Humanity have taken to the streets following yesterday's landmark announcement by the group of mutants called the X-Men*, and the situation quickly escalated into a full-scale riot. The United States hasn't seen a disturbance like this since the riots following the trial of the four policemen accused of beating Rodney King, in Los Angeles..."

[*Last Issue! --Don't-Tell-Me-You-Missed-It-Shawn]

Aboard the Blackbird, Nightcrawler - Kurt Wagner - was outraged.

"Take us down, Scott! People are being hurt down there!"

Cyclops, known to his friends - and, as of yesterday, the entire world - as Scott Summers, reflected on how Kurt, easily the least "normal"-seeming member of the team, was almost always the X-Man most filled with compassion and faith... and what that said about humanity as a whole. But he made no move to land the Blackbird.

"I can't, Kurt. I want to - we all do. But if we go down there and start pushing people back, forcing them around with our powers... think of the message that that sends. 'You have no right to speak out against us, because we have superpowers.' It would only make the hatred worse. And you know it."

"Spare me the verdammt platitudes, Cyclops!" The harsh words from Nightcrawler were uncharacteristic, and telling. "Those people are out of control!"

The X-Men, as it happened, were not the only ones watching the riots. While, all across the city, heroes like Spider-Man, Daredevil, and yes, even Doctor Strange tried valiantly to keep the damage to a minimum, other heroes - heroes like police officers and EMTs* - saved lives, without benefits of mutant powers or superhuman abilities. And ordinary reporters found themselves becoming poets, oracles... showing to the world the face of a deranged, unthinking mob. Showing all of us what happens when people are swept up in a tide of emotion and anger and stop thinking.

[Emergency Medical Technicians --Emergency-Shawn]

Some of those reporters would, in the coming days, recieve awards for their coverage of the riots. One would win a Pulitzer. Two would die of injuries sustained while getting just a little too close to their subjects. One reporter, a man named Josh Anderson*, would later call it, "a rebuttal to all things superhuman... a release of the beast inside of us. I think that after watching this happen, I'm starting to understand the Hulk a bit better. We've all got rage inside of us, it seems."

[Appearing monthly in MV1 Saga, by Jason "Heroes" Kenney! Read it! --Cross-pluggin' Shawn]

And they showed all of America what was happening, live and in color.

Charles Xavier wanted to weep. Warren Worthington III, he of the blue skin and feathered wings sometimes called Archangel, was weeping. But Xavier could not afford himself that luxury. He had to be strong. For mutantkind... for the nation.

"Warren. Have Tom Corsi bring the van around front. We're going to New York."

The argument raged and raged, but when the fires started, Cyclops finally had to give in.

"All right, people... all we're doing is saving lives and containing property damage. Do not engage in any combat if you can help it."

Setting the Blackbird to 'hover' - a feature not included on the original model produced by the legendary Skunk Works, but due instead to the Shi'ar technology utilized extensively by the X-Men - the mutants swung into action. Nightcrawler teleported to the streets below with a 'bamf' and the stench of brimstone, while Iceman created an ice slide and glided gracefully down. Cyclops, Rogue, Colossus and Shadowcat were each gripped by gentle invisible hands thanks to Jean Grey's telekinesis, and floated to terra firma as well. It was a well-orchestrated, well-practiced maneuver, thanks to the X-Men's years of extensive training. This was more than a team, their movements implied. This was a family.

Fast-forward two hours.

Two hours of brutality, anger, and chaos. The Avengers and the Fantastic Four were both away, delaing with menaces of one sort or another, leaving the burden of keeping New York in one piece squarely on the shoulders of the X-Men, as well as the more 'mundane' defenders of law and order - the police. The situation had not, as of yet, demanded the mobilization of the National Guard, and the Governor had spent the entirety of the riot praying that such would not become necessary.

It didn't... but only by a hair.

All pretenses of unity within the X-Men had vanished. No more were they a team, only seven individuals pushed to the limit and trying their best to keep things in one piece. Nightcrawler, for instance, didn't even know where the others were.

He'd spent the last twenty minutes teleporting in and out of burning buildings, getting people trapped inside safely into the custody of the EMTs who had been far too busy trying to save lives to express any antipathy towards the "freakish mutie".

The exhaustion was taking it's toll, however. Each teleport was just one push too many. Nightcrawler was having trouble catching his breath, his limbs felt wooden. But still he pressed on.  And people noticed.

Phoenix could be found in one of the hospitals that said EMTs were so often rushing to, standing still as a statue in the middle of the Emergency Room hallway. She'd been there for an hour, and people were getting used to her. Gurneys were maneuvered around her still form, and when time permitted, an orderly would wipe the sweat from her brow with a cloth.

She was doing more for the patients than all the doctors combined, so she was allowed some leeway.

Telekinesis kept hearts beating, telepathy keps minds active. When the anesthetic ran out, due to overuse and a clerical error in Appropriations a week before, it was Phoenix who put patients to sleep, who kept them from registering pain. At one point, when there were simply not enough beds to put patients in, she provided makeshift ones with telekinesis. There was an intravenous drip supplying glucose to her blood supply, lest she collapse from the effort, and the doctors would later credit her and her alone with saving no less than twenty-six lives. And people noticed.

Iceman found himself particularly suited to this environment. With his control over thermal energy, he could literally extinguish fires with a thought - a power he'd discovered that he possessed only moments before. By chilling the fire's fuel to a point almost-but-not-quite cold enough to form ice, the flames would die.

He rode on Engine 1 of New York City's 17th Fire Company, like some bizarre humanoid Dalmatian. The firemen didn't even stop, save at the largest blazes - they just drove at top speed, lights flashing, siren wailing, letting Drake put fires out 'on the fly' as it were. And people noticed.

Rogue, on the other hand, was not suited to deal with this mess.

Having recently lost the powers she had siphoned from the Avenger Ms. Marvel, she possessed only her natural ability to absorb other people's minds and memories with a touch... but even she found a way to be useful.

When a paramedic was struck by a fallen timber, she used his skills to treat other victims while firefighters extricated him from the blazing edifice. When a taxi driver was hit in the head by a thrown rock, she used his intimate knowledge of the city streets and his phenomenal skill at driving to get him to a hospital. Her efforts were less spectacular, but no less noteworthy. And people noticed.

Cyclops was not a subtle man, nor was he a flexible one.

He had intended only to help those in danger from fires and whatnot, but when he saw the pair of teenagers in the street, being chased by no less than twenty angry man... he could do nothing save what he did.

A wide-angle optic blast, just enough force to push but not enough to burn, to injure, or to kill, kept the attackers at bay while the teens got to safety. At the crowd's angry hollers, he shouted, "I could have killed you - the way you were planning on killing those two kids! If I was such a monster, would any of you still be breathing?"

They wouldn't, they knew. So they dispered. And people noticed.

Colossus had always been a paradox. The soul of an artist, inside the body of a warrior. Piotr Rasputin was a gentle man, it was true.

It was Colossus that provided what many saw as the definitive picture of the riots, as photographed by a nearby Josh Anderson.

A man in metal, standing before a young boy, taking no action against the rioters - even when they shot at him. His silent, unbending vigil was later credited for keeping that child alive. A full hour he stood there, not moving, not giving an inch of ground, whilst rioters did everythign they could to harm him and get him to move so that they could attack the young child, who they claimed was a mutant.

He stood there.

And when the mob's fury had dispersed, he picked the boy up and walked to a hospital with him... and a single tear fell down his organic steel face.

And it was that photograph - the single tear, the face of metal, the gentle arms cradling a bleeding, unconscious child - that made the front page of the Daily Bugle the next day, and which later appeared in Newsweek, Time, and Now.

And people noticed.

But no less impressive were the actions of the man who the X-Men saw as a founder, a teacher... to some, a father.

Charles Xavier moved his hoverchair into the middle of Times Square, armed with nothing but a megaphone and a will of steel.

No one thought to record his speech... no one even clearly remembered it. Xavier himself claimed not to know what he had said, and in private consultation with Jean Grey later in the week, confessed that he had been so terrified of the mob - which he once could have turned back with his telepathy, but now might have failed against - that he had not even been paying attention to his words.

Pundits proclaimed that he had simply repeated the words of the man who defused the last great American riot, Rodney King, and shouted, "Can't we all just get along?" Perhaps it was true.

One thing is certain, however. Charles Xavier - a bald man who couldn't walk - stopped the riot. On that, all agreed.

And people noticed.

When the rebuilding began two days later, the X-Men were there again. They used their powers to aid construction crews and police officers, sanitation workers and EMTs. They had never left, in point of fact.

Cyclops made a statement, three days after the riots.

"In the past, the X-Men have fought supervillains galore - Magneto, Doctor Doom... too many to name, really. But no villain, no battle, will ever terrify me so much as having to stare human hatred in the face."

Words to live by.

Response has been pretty good so far, folks! Sadly, I don't have any letters - because I lost 'em all. I recently moved across the country, so bear with me, both for the lack of recognition for you folks, and the enormously long wait. It won't take so long for next issue, I promise.

-Shawn-