Uncanny X-Men #350

Publisher
Marvel
Year
1997
Month
12
LastChanged
1/26/2024 9:32:32 PM
Trial & Errors

Summary

  Before he joined the X-Men, Remy was in a church in Seattle to meet Sinister, who had hired him to assemble a team and now pays him with a high-tech vial. He demands one more job: to get the team to its objective.

  In Antarctica, Rogue had given Remy the queen of hearts to remember her by, before going off with Grovel and Spat, who slaps it out of his hand, expecting an attack.

  Rogue has Hank working to fix the skimmer, so they can rescue Remy whether he likes it or not.

  Betsy investigates Maggott while Warren is cornered by his slugs.

  Xavier has a nightmare: the center does not hold.

  Remy is held over for trial, by Sinister, he thinks. Rogue gets a whiff of Ms. Marvel's 7th Sense and has Hank stop the skimmer right on top of the dropped queen of hearts. Joseph collapses, saying, "he's here." A fortress rises out of the snow and ice. They enter and find a statue of Justice.

  Betsy's power to slip through shadows is not entirely under her control, and she and Warren find themselves separated and facing the Code of Hammurabi and a noose, respectively. Maggott finds himself facing Joseph and says he's his friend Magneto (see X-Men II:76). Someone calls Joseph an abomination and knocks him out; Maggott recognizes him and is told to cooperate.

  The rest of the X-Men are collected for the trial. Rogue finds Remy, but he tries to make her leave, saying he never loved her, wanting to face his fate alone. She argues with him, saying she loves him unconditionally. Erik the Red interrupts: the trial is ready.

  Jean is holding together Scott's insides, which are wired with a nanotech bomb (Wolverine 118), while Ororo and Logan race their craft back to Westchester.

  Erik stands for the prosecution, Warren for the defense, the rest are the jury, and Remy already has his head in a guillotine. He is accused of causing the deaths of Prizm and Scaleface, and the mass murder of the Morlocks (iss. 211).

  Warren protests, saying Erik is just an alias, maybe for Scott again (iss. 52); Rogue thinks it's Joseph until she sees him captive and beaten. Erik says the X-Men were unfair in leaving the deformed Morlocks to fend for themselves. He gets Remy to confess that he worked for Sinister; the X-Men are shocked; he claims to have put all that behind him when he joined the X-Men; Erik says "You cannot set aside your past! A man's character is the sum of his actions."

  Betsy testifies: she bonded with Remy (iss. 324) and now remembers that he assembled the Marauders. Remy asks forgiveness; Warren is furious and refuses to defend him. Erik forces Rogue to kiss Remy to get the rest of the story: he showed them how to get into the Morlock tunnels, tried to stop them when the killing started, but Sabretooth attacked him. Horrified at what he had helped, he snatched up one little girl (Marrow), and ran.

  Rogue uses Remy's power and charges the queen of hearts, throwing it at Erik, who ducks. But she was aiming at Hank's shackles; Maggott's slugs also eat chains, and the X-Men are free. Erik tells the X-Men to judge, then pulls down the ceiling and leaves with Ferris. Rogue saves Remy, over his objections, but then tosses him into the snow, abandoning him to his fate.

  Erik, of course, is Magneto, and he gloats over causing dissention among the X-Men.