After the chaos in issue #98, issue #99 introduces a new lineup—with Sunspot quitting the team on the cover.
Tribute cover to X-Men #138!
Cable is a complete dick when Sunspot says he needs time to mourn his father, killed last issue as a result of Gideon’s machinations.
He also shows zero compassion about Rictor’s disappearance.
Lots more new characters are introduced.
First, in a literal two-page “spread,” we meet Feral, who is fighting Masque. She needs help fending off the evil Morlocks.
Also joining in this issue is Warpath, who defects from Emma Frost’s school after his family’s reservation is destroyed by the Hellfire Club.
And then comes Shatterstar.
He fights some of the New Mutants with shooting swords.
Cool. He’s also got some kind of healing factor which enables him to stab his enemies through his own body.
Cool.
So the big issue #100 has Cable’s team fighting off invasions from both the evil Masque-led Morlocks and Mojo’s soldiers. Big battles.
It’s a good way to introduce new characters’ abilities.
It’s also a good way to remind us that Cable is a leader wholly unlike Professor X, as he shoots one of Masque’s Morlock’s in the face and kills him.
In the final pages, the new MLF team forms…
Can it be that Cable has been doing double-duty as the leader of both the New Mutants, who he is turning into X-Force, and the Mutant Liberation Front? Or is that really Cable in the panel above, or is it his clone, Stryfe? (It’s his clone, Stryfe.)
That’s the final panel of this series.