Uncanny X-Men #184: Little Lost Rachel

Uncanny X-Men #184 starts with Cooper and Mystique (under cover identity still) visiting Forge. He's a mutant who is inventing stuff for the government, unaware how it might be unethically used. He's made two things of interest to them today: a scanner for mutants, and a gun that depowers anyone. He doesn't know how they work - he's just duplicated them from technology obtained from Rom the Spaceknight. Forge, by the way, is our fourth Native American mutant character from the U.S. (after Thunderbird I & II, Psyche). Which is all well and good - even if the powers for the other ones are a bit stereotyped. But there's something funny going on when we've had these 4 (of a demographic that makes up 1% of the US) and not a single African-American (12%).

The tale of Rom the Spaceknight is slightly sad, in that because Marvel were licensing an existing toyline, they didn't own the IP. So, no Essential Rom today. (Note to Marvel and Parker Brothers: see if you can't work out your differences and sort that out! You don't want the 1960s Batman series to be released first, do you?

That done with, we go to Rachel, who is watching the X-Men on a TV covering the events of #181. She wonders whether she's not in her past, but some other past - Kelly is alive, Illyana is older than she should be, and Storm has gone punk. After a brief alteraction on the street with Selene, she flees to a nightclub, where the kindly boss, Nick Damiano, offers to put her up. Since she's a teep, she can see he has no ulteriority.

For his trouble, he is killed by Selene, who is still chasing after Rachel. She's saved by our first Professor X Machina in a while, followed shortly by the X-Men. Confronted with the reality of them - and seeing Xavier standing - she breaks down. She has made a huge mistake.