In issues before this arc, we saw hints–mostly at the Weisman Institute–the sanitarium where Siryn was held prisoner by Gamesmaster–that Shatterstar is really a dude named “Ben Russell,” and we already knew that Shatterstar has lots of memory gaps so he doesn’t know his own history.
These issues begin with Cable and X-Force interrogating Shatterstar–concerned that he may have been embedded with their team by Apocalypse.
As it turns out, Shatterstar is from the Mojoverse. If you’re like me, that you’re pretty cheesed right now. Other than in the original Longshot miniseries, the Mojoverse has been a constantly bad story element. Gog and Ma’gog kidnap Shatterstar and Cable, while they’re in flight, causing X-Force’s plane to almost crash–except that Longshot appears in the pilot seat to save the day.
And so it goes: Longshot and the X-Force members go to the Mojoverse to save Shatterstar and Cable. Lots of fighting, blah blah blah, Shatterstar dies…
But Spiral takes his soul and puts it in the body of…you guessed it!…Ben Russell!
So instead of having the mystery answered, we get a circular result: We didn’t know why Ben Russell was connected to Shatterstar because Shatterstar wasn’t Ben Russell until he was Ben Russell and then we knew why he was connected to Ben Russell.
In the end, Spiral takes him to the Mojoverse.
There’s also more on the Risque subplot, with Risque refusing to go after Warpath again and some shadowy figure telling her she has no choice. I’ve read that this figure is supposed to be Sledge, but it doesn’t look like him.
This is Jeph Loeb’s last X-Force story. He says goodbye:
