PRIME SENTINELS versus X-MEN

First Blood - Operation: Zero Tolerance Prologue (Marvel)
Where: X-Men #65 When: June 1997
Why: Scott Lobdell How: Carlos Pacheco

The Story So Far...
En route from a mission to wrest the cure for the Legacy Virus from the clutches of both Sebastian Shaw and The Kingpin -- the X-Men find themselves under assault from yet another lurking threat!

Operation: Zero Tolerance has stoked the fires of anti-mutant sentiment in the wake of the devastating attack by Onslaught that seemingly cost the lives of Earth's Mightiest Heroes - The Avengers and Fantastic Four!

The X-Men are primed to become public enemies once again as they find their plane under attack from Operation: Zero Tolerance -- with TV cameras capturing the battle -- and Henry Peter Gyrich on hand to brand it an act of terrorists.

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Wolverine 3 (Athlete)
Intelligence: Cyclops 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Cannonball 5 (Super-Human)
Stamina: Wolverine 6 (Generator)
Agility: Storm 3 (Acrobat)
Fighting: Wolverine 6 (Warrior)
Energy: Cyclops 5 (Lasers)
Total: Wolverine 26 (Metahuman)

The Prime Sentinels are a unique breed of cybernetic soldiers created by Bastion for Operation: Zero Tolerance.

Unlike traditional Sentinel robots; Prime models are actually human sleeper agents outfitted with nanotech implants, which can be activated remotely to turn them into heavily armed, armored attack agents.

They possess greatly enhanced strength & durability, concussive force blasts, flight, and some ability to impede mutant powers, with the added benefits of being able to blend in with humans when not activated.

The X-Men are: Cyclops, Storm, Phoenix, Wolverine, and Cannonball.

All of these X-Men are well versed in battling mutant-hunting Sentinels. We saw Cyclops and Phoenix do some damage during a Christmas attack, with Storm making a vital save when things got a little out of hand.

Cannonball, who is a still recent call-up from X-Force, fought the Sentinels as a member of the New Mutants. His invincible blast-shield generated while in flight makes him a good hand against the classic robots, and he's still riding the high of a proving-moment against Gladiator shortly before this issue.

We don't have any of those moments recorded at time of writing, but we have seen Cannonball join X-Force against the armored Iron Man during the second Contest of Champions. Results were mixed.

Sentinels have a bit of a mixed history when it comes to combat: The Tri-Sentinel super-charged by Loki was no match for a cosmically powered Spider-Man, but when a malfunctioning model sprung out of a scrapyard -- Falcon was caught by surprise!

In an alternate future, we saw scrapped Sentinels become instruments of death for Magneto, and yet another possible future produced the deadly Nimrod: a time-travelling Sentinel that forced the X-Men and Juggernaut to team-up, and later resurfaced to overwhelm both the X-Men and Hellfire Club!

How will the X-Men fare in their first encounter with the Prime Sentinels? Let's find out!

The Tape: X-Men Ranking: Wolverine (#5)

What Went Down...

Over a previously undisturbed wooded Colorado valley -- a sophisticated Operation: Zero Tolerance aircraft is more than a match for the loaner jet it unleashes its hi-tech weaponry upon!

A direct impact blasts open the cabin, and snaps one of the passengers -- Jean Grey, aka; Phoenix -- out of an unexpected psychic episode that briefly communed her with the believed-dead, sub-dimensionally lost hero: Iron Man!

It seems Operation: Zero Tolerance's weapons have had an unexpected effect on Phoenix's telepathic abilities, making it even more difficult for her to assist the X-Men as Storm battles rapid decompression with her command of the winds.

Things are going from bad to worse as Cyclops discovers the controls of the plane almost completely unresponsive. It's up to Phoenix & Storm to keep them aloft!

In desperate need of a clean landing and facing further assault from two fast-moving aircraft -- Cannonball leaps from the cabin to take them on!

His kinetic forcefield keeps him safe as he rips through the outer hull of the attacking vessels, but from within springs two human-shaped bogeys!

Cannonball finds himself joined in the air by three strange, man-sized Sentinels!

The young X-Man is so startled by their unusual appearance -- he doesn't even realise they're steering him towards an attack from one of the airships! 

Fortunately, he has Wolverine and Cyclops watching his back! Cyclops unleashes an optic blast -- nailing the aircraft before it can attack!

Unfortunately, there's nobody to save Cyclops when the jet is hit from another aircraft and he's thrown from the opening in the cabin!

The irony of ironies is that Cyclops' life is saved by the Prime Sentinels that catch him unconscious in mid-air, to be flown to future internment.

Wolverine can see the X-Men are being picked off, one by one.

This time Storm takes the initiative, leaping from the plane to take the fight to the Sentinels, but she was expecting more energy blasts -- and completely failed to anticipate the deployment of a rapidly expanding polymer!

The substance slowly twists its way along Storm's body until she's completely encased in the translucent substance -- helpless in a grip of claustrophobia and the inescapable encasement!

With the situation growing increasingly desperate -- Wolverine steers the shaking jet towards the trees and mountains below, urging the Operation: Zero Tolerance aircraft to follow as he takes Phoenix by the hand and plays for a hasty exit.

A holographic display shows the spectacular explosion of the crashing plane to Bastion, who relishes "... the X-Men's final flight from justice..."

While the Prime Sentinels carry a polymer-encased Storm back to their craft, more of their agents discover Cannonball unconscious in the nearby river, while others clasp a hi-tech cradle over Cyclops' head & eyes, and descend to retrieve Wolverine and Phoenix from rubble near the crash site.

The Hammer...

A shocking defeat for the X-Men as Operation: Zero Tolerance kicks off the full scale threat of Bastion and his Prime Sentinels!

As you might have noticed at the top of this entry -- we're back in 1997. A year I generally look back upon very fondly, and has come into vogue again thanks to the just-concluded first season of Disney's X-Men 97 animated series -- a revival of the classic X-Men cartoon.

I was still buying occasional X-Men issues from the newsstands around this time, and probably rewatching Season 1 videotapes of the cartoon as well, but the presumed grind of constant X-over events meant I was a little less focused on what was going on around this time. The end of the cartoon likely contributed.

It was probably another year or so before I really started to feel like X-Men's time had passed, and questioned their enduring place at the top of the monthly sales charts, but after the blockbuster of Onslaught, my focus was already transferred to the Heroes Reborn titles, most enduringly Fantastic Four - a perennial fave.

In 1997, the return to a meandering Sentinel-based danger, and purple-clad arch-villain, felt a little bit passe and "samey", but in hindsight, I think I'd be much more complimentary now. It was easy to be flippantly disinterested back then -- there were exciting things going on across pop culture, competing for time & dollars. There was a disposable exchange and we didn't always get it right.

Looking back on Operation: Zero Tolerance now -- it strikes me that it's a vibrant return to classic X-Men. A welcome centering after a couple of years of disruption, most notably with 1995's Age of Apocalypse, that moved things forward well after the drawn out mystery of Onslaught, and consequences of Heroes Reborn.

Artists like Carlos Pacheco and Salvador Larroca were giving tremendous energy to pencils amid the exit of Joe Madureira, and I'm also inclined to compliment the computer-assisted colours of Chris Lichtner, Aron Lusen, and Liquid!, however those duties might be divided. This work really pushes the nineties style to its apex, and is still very appealing.

The nano-tech twist on the classic Sentinels formula is also a fresh and topical of-the-time detail I overlooked. It would come back into focus brilliantly when Grant Morrison breathed new life into the whole thing with his 2001 New X-Men -- a welcome evolution of the X-Men that, at least as far as Nano-Sentinels are concerned, also further validates what was done here. A similar idea also consumed DC in 2006 with Project OMAC. If only I'd paid more attention in '97!

Then, and now, I have mixed feelings about the technology and concepts bridging the gap to Nimrod. At the time, the vague techno-connection was played up as a bit of a bigger deal than it really wound up being. A symptom of another push for a mystery identity ala Onslaught, with the trickiness of moving us closer to a future that was always presented as a bit more distant.

Here in 2024, that time crunch has been concluded, with Nimrod playing a big role in the recent Fall of X that has once again given us a re-centering moment, after a few years of the very niche Krakoa era. A moment that seems to have been rapidly overtaken by a slightly nostalgic revival, led by X-Men 97, and the influx of related merchandise into a market starved by Marvel Entertainment execs.

I have some slight misgivings about nostalgia, these days. It's been a steady few decades of inescapable, often vacuous, retreads of eighties and nineties pop culture icons in multiple mediums. We're starved for genuinely enjoyable, exciting, enduring things, but some of that comes from the tedium of post-millennial movements away from vibrant, colourful, enduring icons. In comics, this type of centered reset has felt overdue amidst the many deaths and distractions.

Whatever may come next -- I'm having a great time digging out those old X-Men back issues that have notoriously been neglected here on Secret Wars on Infinite Earths. The To Do List is always longer than the road, but I do feel like I especially left my X-Men fandom out in the cold for far too long.

If you'd like to help make it possible to dedicate more time to classic X-Men battles and curiosities - consider becoming a supporter on Patreon. I always appreciate seeing you hitting up our extensive back catalogue of articles, and it would help me tremendously to have your support for all that work.

Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has featured well over 700 fights and ranked more than 1,000 characters! You can find them all by diving into the Secret Archive for a complete index of battles in order of publisher, series, and issue, or by hitting up links to your favourites things found throughout each entry.

Get free daily links to fights inspired by the topics of the day by subscribing to Twitter! Don't forget to smash that like, fave, and share -- and keep your eyes peeled for the week's top trending battles every Sunday on Twitter & Discord! The lively Discord chat is one of the bonuses of becoming a Patreon subscriber.

Winners: Prime Sentinels
#368 (new) Prime Sentinels
#162 (-2) Jean Grey
#5 (--) Wolverine
#36 (--) Storm
#92 (--) Cyclops
#160 (-1) Cannonball

BLADE versus GAMBIT

Old Wounds, Fresh Blood! (Marvel)
Where: Gambit #4 When: May 1999
Why: Fabian Nicieza How: Steve Skroce

The Story So Far...
In the darkest shadows of New Orleans operates a network of secretive clans and guilds committed to the arts of murder, thievery, occult ritual, and more.

The Antiquary is a rogue operator within the Thieves Guild whose collection of ancient texts & artefacts is rivaled only by his enslaved children. It is a life Gambit escaped as a boy, but now that a vampire from the Assassin Guild is stalking the organization, he must return to protect a child threatened by both!

Gambit and Blade have both been drawn into the hunt for the vampire assassin Francios Chicault, and will stop at nothing to end his bloody trail, but when the sun is setting over a New Orleans cemetery, it's each other that they'll be fighting!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Blade 3 (Athlete)
Intelligence: Blade 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Draw 3 (Athlete)
Stamina: Blade 5 (Marathoner)
Agility: Draw 3 (Acrobat)
Fighting: Blade 5 (Martial Artist)
Energy: Gambit 4 (Arsenal)
Total: Blade 26 (Champion)

Blade specializes in stalking the creatures of the night, but occasionally he finds himself crossing metaphorical swords with a different breed of opponent. His line of work doesn't afford many friends, and sometimes the need to shoot first leads to old fashioned cases of mistaken identity!

In Fear #24, Blade stalked future "frenemy" Morbius, confusing the science-based "Living Vampire" with the undead bloodsuckers he typically hunts. Many years later they'd team together as part of the supernatural Midnight Sons.

When Blade was possessed by the Demogorge after reading from the Darkhold, he began a "Midnight Massacre" of friend & foe alike, battling Ghost Rider & Frank Drake, before he temporarily killed Ghost Rider!

No such worry when he found himself face to face with Wolverine, though! This later encounter with an X-Man included a casual impaling, but Wolverine's healing factor kept him in the fight, turning Blade against SHIELD in the process.

Gambit, aka; Remy Lebeau, might not survive a skewering, but he knows the darker side of life well, having been well prepared by a career as a master thief in his years before joining the X-Men.

Gambit's mutant ability to charge inorganic objects with explosive kinetic energy compliments well-honed skills of deception, speed, agility, and staff fighting. A combination that could actually make him a good match-up for Blade!

Gambit's hand-to-hand "physical methods" were demonstrated in his first melee with the X-Men, where a simple fly kick put one of Ahab's Hounds on the backfoot.

His preferred technique of throwing kinetically charged playing cards proved instrumental when the X-Men infiltrated Avalon - even if cards thrown in Magneto's face earned harsh reprisal.

Gambit's playing cards demonstrate a preference for fast, numerous projectiles, but in a rare display of his potential power, Gambit helped the team escape Onslaught by charging an entire floor of a room in the mansion!

Blade has an arsenal of weapons to counter Gambit's mutant abilities and might just edge him out in hand-to-hand fighting skills, but with his most lethal weapons reserved for vampires, this one is anybody's guess!

The Tape: Blade Ranking: Blade (#126)

What Went Down...

The search for vampires across a network of New Orleans cemeteries makes for busy work -- and Gambit finds himself lighting a cigarette as the sun begins to set, still hunting for his target: the elusive Francois Chilcault.

Before he can drag the first hit -- the deathstick is cut with a sharpened blade!

There are worse things out tonight than vampires!

A darkly dressed man in sunglasses leaps between the tombstones, brandishing his katana as Gambit yanks his staff away from the sword's tip, and backflips clear!

As he shadow dances just out of reach, Gambit puts hands on a deck of cards and sends them streaming towards his attacker with a blanket charge of explosions!

Blade keeps low, avoiding the kinetically charged playing cards, and moves in close with his sword leading the way.

Gambit manages to block the weapon with his metal staff and uses it to swing his legs around for a dangerous low sweep kick.

Blade flips into the air and lands flat on his stomach on the cemetery ground!

This might be an escalation in an ordinary fight, but the moments pause lets Gambit do the talking. Blade realises the dark, burning eyes of his target are not those of a creature of the night. They're both on the same side.

The Hammer...

I threw a little bit of shade at our boy Gambit in a previous update, speculating that we'd all moved on after 1997, but with Disney's X-Men '97 animated series taking us right back to those halcyon days, I figure now is as good a time as any to see what the ragin' Cajun was actually doing around that time.

'99/2000 was notably a rare down-period for my comic book reading, which meant I wasn't even aware of a Gambit on-going series that lasted twenty-five issues at the turn of the millennium! That's what ya get for having other interests!

To be honest, I guess I lost sight of what happened to Gambit after around Uncanny X-Men #350, when the revelation of his secret past with Mister Sinister contributed to a parting of the ways with the X-Men. So, after stumbling upon them at a seller I frequented a few years back, I picked up Gambit #4, and a few other issues, with a sense of intrigue and enthusiasm.

It turned out it was a pretty good investment! Not just because of whatever speculator shenanigans are driving up prices now that cartoon-fueled X-Mania is gripping the masses -- but because the Gambit series is kind of right up my alley!

A Blade guest-spot is just one of the thrills giving the series an unexpected sense of buoyancy, with gratuitous appearances by favourites like Sabretooth, Daredevil, Bullseye, and a rogue's gallery of ne'er do wells that prowl the seedier side of the Marvel Universe. Some are more surprising than others, given X-ties and the era.

On that subject of timing; it's almost obligatory to note the frustration of a lack of comic book momentum for Blade after the mainstream success of the 1998 film. I probably would've liked to have known more about this issue of Gambit back then! It's limited in page count for the guest hero -- but kicks the teeth in on the few solo Blade books that came out in the months, and year, prior.

The first few pages of the issue announce Blade's arrival with a cold open worthy of the movies. He jumps his muscle car through a building, with guns blazing at a pistol-packing vampire, who forces him to choose the hunt - or a small child thrown from a window. It plays somewhere between the digital stuntman opener from 2002's Blade II, and the baby chase from Blade: Trinity -- only much cooler!!

A Blade solo series probably could've benefitted from this kind of kineticism and movie-compatible depiction - not to mention a reciprocal guest-spot by somebody as colourful & distinct as Gambit. Steve Skroce as penciller coulda helped, too!

All we actually got in '98 was a flavourless one-shot, and a three-issue snoozefest following Morbius around restaurants & cafes. Blade briefly slipped back into his seventies look in the first scene of the first issue. Baffling choices that showed a reluctance to embrace the slick cool of the Wesley Snipes character, which I argue leveraged the work of the early nineties Midnight Sons period more than its often given credit.

In the past, the insular drama of the Thieves Guild tended to have about as much appeal in Gambit-centric stories as some of the more generic vampire fare found in contemporary Blade efforts -- so it's of benefit to both characters that they're paired up for an otherwise unlikely meeting in New Orleans.

It's mildly surprising they didn't sew New Orleans vampire mythology into the clan rivalry of the Thieves and Assassin Guilds sooner. As I recall, Mutant X made the most of the association, building upon the overlap between Gambit and Storm as former thieves, and Storm's comic book past with Dracula. I suppose there were limited opportunities to do similar in the mainline books.

It's easy to forget Gambit debuted in 1990 and was only approaching his first decade in comics when Gambit (Vol. 3) #4 hit stands. A lot of his past was shrouded in mystery, and this series and issue are still putting pieces into place, including Remy's childhood in slavery as part of The Antiquary's "Collection".

I probably would've enjoyed seeing Blade and Gambit team-up again. The dark corners of "N'orleans" seems a much more natural setting for Blade to branch out into than his subsequent incorporation into the Avengers. It might've even been interesting to see Fabian Nicieza develop a recurring working relationship between the pair, or some kind of agency, but maybe the latter is skewing a little too close to Chief Wiggum PI. A reader poll on the letters page suggests they were looking for more of a people pleaser than high concept push.

I'll happily settle for this curious little encounter. An unlikely showdown that quickly ends in the classic style, as noted, with the realization of mistaken identities & intentions, and a typical superhero team-up that follows.

It could be a lot fun to take a closer look at that battle in a future entry. If you'd like to help make that happen - consider becoming a supporter on Patreon. It's been unfortunately difficult to find time for updates this year, but with your help I can make growing this curious corner of the web a personal priority.

Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has documented & discussed more than 700 featured fights and ranked more than 1,000 characters! You can find them all by diving into the Secret Archive for a complete index of battles in order of publisher, series, and issue.

Follow links throughout each entry to find more content from your favourite characters and subjects. Get free daily links to fights inspired by the topics of the day by subscribing to Twitter! Don't forget to smash that like, fave, and share -- and keep your eyes peeled for the week's top trending battles every Sunday on Twitter & Discord!

Winner: Inconclusive (Draw)
#125 (+1) Blade
#369 (+4) Gambit