I blame all of this on the '90s

Plot threads from the X-men comics in the '90s just won't die. Not only will they not die, they are getting wrapped up in plotlines written in 2005 that are referencing shit from 1975. And that's all because of the damn '90s.

Yes, that's the right. The fucking '90s. What other 10 year span of time could be responsible for such things like Macy's Playground, Ozzy lying about "No More Tours", the death of Tupac, Rob Liefeld appearing in Jeans commercial, and people wearing those same jeans backwards all because Kriss Kross did it. Sure, its fun to look back fondly and be all "ahh, remember that shit?" everytime you turn on Vh-1, but in when all was said and done, the '90s were bad. And not bad in that ironic its-so-bad-that's-good 80s kind of way. Bad in that everything that came along in the '90s that was good was only copied and misused in such a horrendous, exploitative manner, that you couldn't even be bothered to appreciate the original version because the original was the reason for so many damn facisimiles.

In the X-men's case, its the "dangling plot thread". Even though it was spearheaded by Claremont in the 70s and 80s, we never saw the full ramifications that these dangling plot threads would wreck upon the loyal fan boys until the '90s came along. Chris Claremont's soap opera that was the X-men was very manageable when there was only Uncanny X-men to contend with. The appearance of New Mutants reared its adolescent head and gave us some room to add a little more depth this growing cast of hated and feared mutants. X-Factor showed up and gave us a chance to see what the old guard was up to. Excalibur came along, but really, that was its own, separate beast. And Wolverine, well he's in everything, so might as well give him his own series. Then the adjectiveless X-Men showed up and nothing was same ever again. And that's not counting the gazillion mini-series and solo series that started up(and mostly failed) in its wake.

The X-traitor was dropped in Uncanny X-Men and eventually consumed the whole Marvel line in 1996, 5 years later. The birth of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor's son eventually led to the modern day appearance of Cable, the same son, but from the future, all because of Apocalypse's infection of the Summers child with the techno-organic virus in X-Factor. And the mention of the third Summer's brother in X-Men # 23? Talk about headache.

Enter Mr. Brubaker

With Deadly Genesis, not only are we going to learn what happened to Professor X after House of M, not only are we re-examining the first New X-Men adventure from another point of view, and introducing a major new villain who will haunt the X-Men for years to come...

But we're also going to finally tell the story of the Third Summers Brother. That's one of the secrets that Xavier has been sitting on for a while, and when fans read this story, they are going to go -- "Oh my god, it's been right there in front of me for years!"

How's that for a tease?

Not only is he going to throw a new spin on a much revered piece of X-Men history, but he's gonna finally wrap up some shit that's been bugging messageboards for years! He's gonna reveal who the third Summers brother is! This may or may not be the obscured face of the third Summers brother that's trying to fulfill some kind of crazy choke-rape incest fantasy on Cyclops:



Ewww......vague.

But wait! He's not the first person to try and tackle it. Almost 2 years ago, former Cable writer, Robert Weinberg filled us in on what his plans were for the third Summers brother over at ComiXFan.com.

I believe that before Christopher Summers(Corsair) married Katherine he had a love affair with another woman (not yet identified) in the Marvel Universe. She may or not have been a powerful mutant. I suspect she was. In any case, Christopher, an Air Force officer, left her before she discovered she was pregnant… and for reasons not known, she never informed him she was going to have his son. His first child.

Then, in typical Marvel melodramatic style, shortly after this nameless woman gave birth to this incredibly powerful mutant child, the boy was taken from her. Stolen by a mysterious figure from the far future, a being who used a time machine to complete his master plan. Not only did this time-traveler kidnap Christopher Summers’ first child, but the traveler then took the baby back into the past and left him there. The time traveler abandoned the baby, who knew neither his father nor mother, on the burning sands of Egypt with only a name. He was called The First One, because the baby was the First Summers’ child, and the most powerful. Or as he became known in the language of those who found him and raised him, En Sabah Nur, the mutant known as Apocalypse.

Did you catch all that? An older brother from a lover affair that Corsair had was kidnapped as a child then taken back in time to Egypt. The Third Summers brother was Apocalypse! Hold on, we're not done...

If my theory is true, then Apocalypse would be Cable’s uncle. They would share the same DNA. Why did Apocalypse infect the baby Nathan Summers with the techno-organic virus? To kill him? Nonsense. If Apocalypse wanted to kill the baby, he would have just done so. Infecting his nephew forced Nathan to survive – to prove that even as a child he was strong enough to survive. And, in doing so, Apocalypse was also creating a powerful body, with tremendous mutant powers, for him to someday possess when his own body gave out. What better replacement for a body than one that shares the same basic DNA code?

I don't know, Rob....that sounds a little fishy...

Need more proof? Apocalypse woke from cryogenic sleep when Nathan was born. Telepathic cries being heard by a relative make a lot more sense than Apocalypse being jolted awake by the birth of a powerful mutant, considering how many powerful mutants inhabit the Marvel Universe. If that was really the case, Apocalypse would have been thawing out every few months in the mid-20th century.

That's followed with a whole lot of blah, blah, blah that eventually turns up this gem:

So, it would be quite possible that the X-gene that developed in the Summers family came from Apocalypse, who inherited it from his own descendents, in a closed-circle time loop. An anomaly in four dimensions, sure to attract the attention of the Lords of Probability and Possibility to Earth, where their servants would encounter Cable, a nexus of time and space...

Fucking heavy, bro. I don't even know if I would be able to make enough money in a year to buy all the pot that would be required smoking for someone to understand that shit. Go and read the whole thing. Its ridiculous.

All in all, I think its safe to say that Robert getting canned after only 18 issues wasn't such a bad thing. Then again, it probably would have just been retconned, reloaded, and revolutionized into the Limbo of Let's Pretend It Never Happened. With Brubaker on the case, its safe to say that the dangling plot thread of the third Summers brother can finally be put rest.

Unless of course, Brubaker gets all '90s on us and makes the third Summers brother the mutant love child of Wolverine and Katherine Summers that Wolverine humped just to get back at Scott when the X-Men were in space fighting the Skrull Professor. I mean, it has to be more than a concidence that the header image for Robert Weinberg's column also has some kind of weird choke-rape shit going on, too.

Right?