Issue: #4 - February 1995
Title: Between the Cracks
Creative Team: Scott Lobdell (writer), Chris Bachalo (art), Mark Buckingham (inks), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters), Steve Buccellato & Electric Crayon (colors).

Summary/Review:
Ah, the holidays. In this cheery X-Mas issue (no pun intended), we see the kids trekking off to Maine, when they stop to check out what all the ruckus is as a nearby school that is surrounded by police officers. What's going on is that a mutant named Eliot is holding a class room full of kids and his favorite teacher hostage. He's apparently mad because he can't go to school anywhere. Unfortunatly, the little x-mas midget running around throughout the pages isn't enough to keep this ish from being a downer. The teacher, who tried desperatly to get Eliot into the school, dies due to his bad heart.
Meanwhile, Orphon Maker shows his ugly head up outside and tries to kill the parents of Eliot (see his profile for more info on why he would do this), but the GenX kids stop him. It is later found that Eliot wasn't even a mutant, "he's just ugly", in Jubilee's words. Also, Chamber confronts Penance and she finds a butterfly and eats an apple. Yum.

Quick Thoughts: My, what a dreary issue for Christmas. No matter, though, I think this was a fabulous one. It showed the team's first mission, of sorts, that was actually one that wasn't intended to happen. What's more, is that this issue did something quite well that, as far as I've seen, no single comic from the X-Men imprint has been able to do, and that's show the true mutant. It's not some beautiful woman with amazing powers, or a natural born leader intent on making the world peaceful. The real mutants, the real persucuted ones, are those like Elliot, and he wasn't even what is technically considered a 'mutant.' Beautiful job, Lobdell.

Rating: