This miniseries introduces a crew of Chicago Morlocks, most of whom will never be seen again. It’s affected by the greater X-Universe, but doesn’t create impact of its own. In other words, it’s about characters you don’t need to know about who do stuff you won’t ever hear about.
And it’s good. Very good.
It’s also one of the earlier works by the soon-after-this-he-was-mega-famous writer Geoff Johns.
The mutants are hunted down by cops and Sentinels, hiding underground to avoid the government that is trying to murder them. These are mutants who are not a part of either Xavier or Magneto’s dominant world visions.
Since most of them are never seen again—and NYC, not Chicago, is the hub of Marvel live—the details aren’t all that important. I will take a few moments to talk about the two Chicago Morlocks who are seen again after this series because I think they typify the novel nature of this series. I’ve tagged these two individually, while the rest are just getting a collective tag: Chicago Morlocks.
First, there’s Litterbug. He was an army brat who joined the service himself, but then later his mutant gene manifested and he turned into a giant monster—hunted by the same people he used to hunt with. In the series, he uses his tactical knowledge to help the Chicago Morlocks disable the local Sentinels command center.
The other recurring character is Electric Eve.
She was a teen dope addict whose parents kicked her out. As a runaway, she became a hooker and then her powers manifested—killing one of her johns.
In the story, the motley crew are preparing to live in hiding forever, but they all agree to collectively help each of them do one last thing in the surface world. For Eve, she wants to get back her grandmother’s diamond ring—which was stolen by her pimp.
Finally: Shatter.
Shatter attempted suicide by gun when his mutant invulnerability manifested and saved him—but left a permanent dent in the side of his head. He spends most of the miniseries clutching a baseball bat and hitting things that try to hit him.
Other mutants include Cell, who can disperse his cells into an ooze and Angel Dust, who gets his powers from using PCP, among others. Each of these mutants are different from what we generally get from Marvel and I wish there’d been more issues of this series.