By John Ostrander, Carlos Pacheco & Cam Smith (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0211-3
The Uncanny X-Men draw their members from a wide variety of places but none more striking than the home of moody, monolithic Bishop, an energy-manipulating mutant super-cop who fell into our world from a dystopian alternate future.
He and his partners Randall and Malcolm first came to this era to eradicate a band of time-hopping evil mutants led by the malevolent maniac Fitzroy. In a cataclysmic final clash his comrades sacrificed themselves to stop the future-marauders and now only Bishop remains; trapped, traumatised and continually questioning his current status as a member of the mythical team of champions who inspired his own era’s “Xavier’s Security Enforcersâ€.
Whilst desperate to fit in, Bishop carries a lot of baggage. He is particularly obsessed with his failure to save Malcolm and Randall, haunted by the death of his sister Shard and conflicted about the historical knowledge he cannot share: how the X-Men are fated to be betrayed and murdered by one of their own…
This gripping and fast-paced thriller (originally released as a four-issue miniseries from December 1994 to March 1995) opens with ‘Escape from Tomorrow’ as the brooding émigré from Eternity constantly and fruitlessly runs through Danger Room simulations, looking for the mistake that cost his friends’ lives.
Eventually convinced by Professor X to let it go for one night, the bluff giant accompanies Storm into the city and is accosted by the only survivor of Fitzroy’s band – an inconsequential little nothing named Bantam.
The cowering future fugitive has been hiding a terrible secret: on the fateful night of the trip back to now, Bantam had been the unwilling vessel of lethal mutant parasite Mountjoy, a psychotic predator who merges with, absorbs and eventually consumes his victims. Now Mountjoy is loose and keen on tying up loose ends – such as anyone who knows of his existence…
Ambushed by the leech, Storm is taken over and Bishop is forced to beat the beast out of her before total absorption occurs…
When the life-jacker critically wounds the XSE man, ‘One-Man Posse’ finds Bishop fighting for survival whilst plagued by memories and hallucinations as he chases Mountjoy from body to body and battle to battle, his only advantage an interactive hologram of Shard.
After the parasite kills a number of cops and civilians in spectacular but inconclusive clashes, the tension escalates in ‘Future Intense’ as Mountjoy attacks the X-Men, stealing the bodies and powers of Gambit, Psylocke, Archangel and Bishop himself; intending to destroy his most hated enemy’s soul by making him the long-dreaded betrayer of his life-long heroes in the climactic ‘Final Reckonings’…
Mercifully there’s far more to the hologram of Shard than anybody suspected…
Affording tantalising glimpses of the charismatic Bishop’s secret history whilst delivering a fast and furious, scary action-epic The Mountjoy Crisis offers a full-on frantic Fights ‘n’ Tights experience no dedicated devotee of Costumed Dramas can afford to miss.
© 1996 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.