Number Eight - Angel Underground

First Published: August 2002
Stars: Storm
Writer: Devin Grayson
Art and Colors: Udon, Long Vo, Charles Park and Saka of Studio XD
Letters: Randy Gentile
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Associate Editor: Brian Smith
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
President: Bill Jemas
Pages: 23

For more information about this comic, including scans of the first four pages visit Toon Zone!

Summary

Cut to the Institute, and Beast’s busy writing a mail back to the ‘admirer’, that it’s impossible for him to accept his funding without knowing more about him. The kids storm into the Professor’s office, and start talking together. The Professor urges them to take it one at a time. Jean starts explaining she suddenly had a vision of an angel, screaming for help, and as the Professor shows her a newspaper, she recognizes the angel. Rogue and Scott explain to her that his name’s Warren Worthington III, they had met him last Christmas and that he had declined their invitation for the Institute. The Professor tries to track Warren with Cerebro, but he can’t track him, as he’s not using his powers. The Professor tries another approach to the problem: he links telepathically with Jean’s mind, and tries to see where Warren is through Jean’s vision. And it works: he discovers Warren’s in the sewers.

Cut to the New York sewers. As the team – Storm, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, Cyclops, Jean, Spyke and Rogue – search the sewers, they complain about the smell. (Rogue: “I have been in some pretty rancid places in my life, but this is unbearable!” Kurt: “Brimstones smells like roses compared to this!”) Kitty asks why Angel would live underground. Jean answers she doesn’t know, but that it can’t be good. Spyke notices that Storm’s behaving tense. When he asks her why, she shrugs him of, but Spyke tells her he can tell she’s in a bad shape. She tells him she’s struggling with her claustrophobia. As they progress, they can’t find anything. So Cyclops decides to draw the opposition out. (“We’re not gonna find anything, gang. Nothing could possibly survive down here in this sickening muck.”) While the gang thinks Scott means it, his words have their effect: the Morlocks appear. They start ‘sizing out’ the X-Men, and as they ask ‘who’ and ‘what’, Scott tells them… they surrender.

As the X-men are guided by the Morlocks, Storm asks Cyclops’s intentions. He tells her he indeed wishes for them to take them to their leader, their base, and Angel. He then notices, too, that Storm’s having problems with her claustrophobia.

As they arrive at the Morlocks’s base, they find Angel chained. Jean notices something (other than the chains – she isn’t dim, you know!) is wrong: Angel’s not in control of his own thoughts. As Callisto asks why they’re there, and she hears they surrendered, she finds that hard to believe. When jean tells her they’re there for Angel, and they won’t leave without him, she tells her nobody’s saying they’ll leave at all. Things turn ugly. As Callisto grabs Jean, Scott fires a blast at her and hits her hand. The Morlocks tell them that they have it easy, that they don’t have reasons to hide. Kurt argues with that, shows them that there are means to go topside – image inducers. Callisto calls them cowards, as she thinks they are hiding ever harder than themselves.

Things really turn nasty. Storm kicks down Callisto, calling the Morlocks nasty as they force others to stay down there by controlling their minds. Jean tries to unlock Angels mind. As Storm tells Callisto they’re leaving, Callisto tells her they’re not. One of the Morlocks grabs Storm and they all flee. The X-Men split up, and begin to pursue. Rogue and Scott take one tunnel. She tells him he’s brave. He tells her they have no choice. She tells him she’s actually referring to leaving Jean with a ‘hunk’ like Warren…

Kurt and Kitty are in a dark tunnel. As Kitty lights up the tunnel with her flashlight (“You brought a flashlight?”) they hear flute music. They realize one of the Morlocks was carrying a flute. Suddenly, they’re ‘attacked’ by hundred of rats. They scream. Kurt ports them out. They’re attacked by an alligator. They scream even harder. Kitty tugs along Kurt, and together they phase through the tunnel walls. They find the flute-playing Morlock. Rogue and Scott end up at a spot where their tunnel splits into several others, but before they can chose one, they’re attacked. Scott takes on a Morlock with a similar eye-blast. Rogue takes on Tar. (“Touch me and you won’t be able to let go. I’m very sticky…” She gives him a hand…

Meanwhile, Jean manages to puzzle together Warren’s mind. She manages to guide him out of his void, back into the real world. She tells him he’ll be okay. Rogue appears, joking “unless Cyclops decides to kill you.” Callisto responds, saying “Or I do.” Angel goes into a rage, telling Callisto his mind. And that he pities her for her inability to understand other mutants.

Jean invites the Morlocks to join them above. Callisto responds “We prefer this filth to the trash you find above the ground. Maybe you’re all too weak to understand this, but we would rather be covered with grime than with loathing.” The X-Men depart. Storm vows to return…

Cut to the Institute, and Storm tells Scott she’s impressed by the way Scott showed his leadership. Jean asks Warren whether he would join them. Scott objects. Warren agrees with Scott, telling her he’s not ready to join them. He asks Jean out for a dinner. Jean accepts.

As Hank’s mailing ‘Xessen’, his wanna-be funder that a person-to-person meet is impossible, Kitty tells him what he missed. Hank responds he heard she was very brave. Kitty tells him that if Kurt told that, it was because he hoped she wouldn’t tell they both “screamed like kindergarteners.” Hank suddenly receives another mail from ‘Xessen’. He tells him he knows Hank’s a mutant, and that he hopes that’s not the reason for the refusal…

Summary written by Nikko for -

Beyond Evolution Copyright © 2004 Denaill.