X-Men #167

Publisher
Marvel
Year
2005
Month
4
LastChanged
2/3/2024 8:20:05 AM
Golgotha

The Night of the Mutant
Summary

  Los Angeles: there's a mutant riot going on. Boy remembers being thrown out of his employers' bomb shelter; they said he'd be okay since his kind stick together. He's attacked in an alley and uses eye-beams to blast his attacker. His employers liked having a low-level mutant as a houseboy; it made them feel liberal. They treated him as a servant and called him "boy" till that became his name. Now he gathers followers, scatter-brained mutants happy to have a leader. Graffiti on the alley wall says, "Golgotha."

  Antarctica: Emma takes the team to the tank holding Golgotha; it isn't pretty, it's big, and it stinks. Remy remembers a dead body in the Mississippi river, bloated to three times its size. Emma realizes Golgotha is triggering random receptors in their brains. It reaches toward Alex with one tentacle, and he blasts it. Remy can't stand it any longer; Bobby says he'd feel that way, too, if his girlfriend didn't let him touch her. Rogue yells at him for being so nasty; he apologizes, not even sure why he said it. Lorna, fed up, blasts upward to create an exit, and Alex yells at her to stop, "This is crazy!", and he blasts the falling debris. Lorna is angry he called her crazy; Bobby explains he just meant "rash." Alex says it's not healthy down there, and they need to get the fungus up to where they can blow it to pieces. They haul the large, toothed creature up to the snowy ground; Bobby jokes about, "how I fought a giant mushroom and lived to order dessert." Alex wants to make sure it's dead, but Emma wants to take it back to Westchester for study. It has a form of telepathy she hasn't seen before, and she wants to see if it's an alien. Alex insists it's his decision; Emma says he sounds like his brother; he's not happy to hear that; she reminds him of the X-Men rule against killing, but he says it doesn't apply to bugs. Logan walks over, having hitched a ride with Emma, and reluctantly acts as the voice of reason. He says he has a compromise. They tether it to both X-jets and fly low so it doesn't break apart. Lorna muses about manna falling from heaven and cultures that eat their own god; Alex admits to Logan that he's worried about her. He realized how eagerly the team takes direction from Logan instead of him; Logan suggests he tries too hard to be a leader. Bobby apologizes to Remy for his cruel remark; Remy admits the no-touching thing is getting to him but thinks Bobby was a jerk for saying it.

  Los Angeles: the Collinses throw a dinner party; a guest notices Boy is gone, and they say they had to let him go "when the craziness happened." Another asks if anyone here has had sex with a mutant, but they're not sure that's legal. Another says he enjoyed the craziness, like the riots: it assured him "the great god Pan still exists just beyond the manicured lawns." There's a noise; Mrs. Collins says it could be their son Johnny, who sleepwalks ever since the bomb shelter; but no, it's a gang of red-eyed mutants outside.

  Xavier's: they have Golgotha hermetically sealed inside Cerebra, for Emma to analyze. She notes that Alex still has feelings for Lorna, even after what he did to her (UXM 425); he tells her not to read his mind, but she says he's broadcasting his feelings.

  Alex leads the team to Golgotha, or at least one of the possible sites of Calvary, in Israel. A few weeks ago a suicide bomber killed many archaeologists there. Alex investigates the cave. Meanwhile, Rogue and Remy walk through a nearby bazaar and find an old man selling religious trinkets. Rogue sees one shaped like Golgotha the fungus and reaches for it; she touches the man's hand and learns of old stories of a creature living under the rock.

  In Cerebra, Emma reaches into Golgotha's nervous system and gets a nasty shock. A tentacle reaches for her.

  Los Angeles: the news reports on "The Night of the Mutant." The Collinses and their guests were slaughtered in their mansion once owned by Burt Reynolds in the Hollywood hills. It's like the Manson murders in the 1970s.

  In Cerebra, Emma staggers away from the helmet and tries to concentrate, to force Golgotha out of her mind. She knows she must warn them, but she collapses.

  Calvary: Logan looks at the Golgotha necklace but can't explain it. Then he realizes something's alive down in the cave.

  The word "Golgotha" is written in blood on the wall of the Collins mansion.

  Notes: Boy's Crazy Gang has nothing to do with Captain Britain's foes.

  Golgotha/Calvary was "the place of the skull," where Jesus was crucified between two thieves. He was buried in Joseph of Arimathea's cave-tomb, but not necessarily in the same hill. On one possible site stands the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built by the Byzantine emperor Constantine in 336 A.D. In 1885, C.G. Gordon suggested another site, north of the city.

  Jezebel was killed and eaten by dogs (2Kings 9:33-37). Pharaoh's baker was hanged and eaten by birds (Gen. 40:16-22).

  "Pan" means "all" and is the source of the word "panic." He was an ancient Greek god, a faun/satyr, who spent his time playing the syrinx, drinking wine, raping women and ripping people apart (music, drugs, sex and violence: how modern!).