X-Men Annual Vol 1 10

 Bedee-Bedee-Bedee--th-that's all folks! But I'll be back! 

—Mojo

Appearing in "Performance"

Featured Characters:

• The X-Men
  • Storm (Ororo Munroe)
  • Wolverine (Logan)
  • Colossus (Peter Rasputin)
  • Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner)
  • Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde)
  • Rogue
  •  Magneto (Michael Xavier) 
  • Psylocke (Betsy Braddock)
  • Longshot (Joins Team)
  • Graduated X-Men / The New Mutants (Only appearance as Graduated X-Men)
    • Mirage (Dani Moonstar) (Joins Team) (Leaves Team)
    • Cannonball (Sam Guthrie) (Joins Team) (Leaves Team)
    • Magik (Illyana Rasputin) (Joins Team) (Leaves Team)
    • Karma (Xuân Cao Mạnh) (Joins Team) (Leaves Team)
    • Sunspot (Bobby Da Costa) (Joins Team) (Leaves Team)
    • Cypher (Doug Ramsey) (Joins Team) (Leaves Team)
    • Magma (Amara Aquilla) (Joins Team) (Leaves Team)
    • Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair) (Joins Team) (Leaves Team)
    • Warlock (Joins Team) (Leaves Team)

Supporting Characters:

• Lockheed

Antagonists:

• Mojo
• Spiral
• Major Domo

Other Characters:

• Arne & other unnamed New York policemen (Single appearance)^[1]
• Puddlegulp
• Queen Greensong
• Lois Lane
• Clark Kent
• Bratpack
  • Alfie
  • Butch
  • Darla
• Walter, Weezie, Carrie, Alfy & other unnamed New Yorkers (Single appearance)^[1]
• Unnamed citizens of Mojoverse
• Magus (Mentioned)
• Professor Charles Xavier (Mentioned)

Races and Species:

• Mutants
• Mutant Technarch
• Humans
• Spineless Ones
• Androids
• Flock
• Frogs

Locations:

• Earth
  • North America
    • United States of America
      • New York State
        • New York City
          • Manhattan
            • Central Park
              • Delacorte Theater
        • Westchester County
          • North Salem
            • Salem Center
              • Graymalkin Lane
                • Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
                  • Danger Room
• Mojoverse
  • Mojoworld
  • Wildways
• Body Shop

Items:

• Wolverine's Suit
• X-Uniforms
• Transmode Virus
• Cerebro
• Soulsword

Vehicles:

• Professor Xavier's Rolls Royce

Synopsis for "Performance"

This issue takes place before Mutant Massacre^[2]

The X-Men are playing a unique style of tag in the Danger Room, trying to get one of them to 'touch' the master of magnetism, Magneto, but they fail. Cypher, Betsy, and Sunspot are watching from the control room. This necessarily means that Mojo is also watching.^[3] Mojo decides he needs to increase ratings, so he sends in Longshot and a blast of ectoplasmic goop directly into their danger room session. Longshot is unconscious, clearly not human (he has two heartbeats, and three fingers on each hand), and is taken to the medical lab. The goop disappears before it can be analyzed. The X-Men go to bed.

In the morning it quickly becomes apparent to the New Mutants (but not the X-Men themselves at first) that the X-Men are getting younger. The female X-Men mostly fall in love with Longshot, while Warlock and Cypher do some investigating in the Danger Room. Betsy figures out who the bad guy is, and Magneto and the X-Men leave to find him, getting younger and more childish all the time, knocking out the New Mutants when they try to stop them (Warlock and Cypher also figure out who's responsible on their own).

The X-Men drive the X-Mansion's Rolls Royce to Central Park (Kitty apparently pooping her costume at least twice due to her de-aging), and when they hop out, the older X-Men are about the size of 6-year-olds, while Kitty is not much more than a diaper dependent baby. Magneto helps them escape New York police, and they run off through the park. Storm heads off on her own, and the rest follow her to a building, where she's already picked the lock before they got there. Then they find Mojo and the nine children become all too eager to listen to him.

Back at the Mansion, Lockheed wakes Dani up, just in time to answer the door. It's the police, reporting that the car is in Central Park. Later after all the New Mutants are up, they resolve to go after the X-Men. Dani gives them all their graduation costumes, and Illyana tries to teleport them to Central Park... except they end up on-stage in a theater thanks to Spiral. There, the rapidly aging X-Men, clad in new costumes and brainwashed by Mojo, attack the New Mutants.

As the battle starts, Warlock is quickly taken down by Magneto as he, Storm and Wolverine reveal that the X-Men are growing older and more wicked as they return to their true ages. Nearby, Mirage is briefly subdued by Psylocke while Wolfsbane battles the brainwashed Nightcrawler, Shadowcat and Colossus. While Magik and Karma hold Longshot at bay from harming the actors, Sunspot and Magma realize that, should the X-Men return to their proper ages before the battle ends, they'll be trapped in their new corrupted and brainwashed personalities forever, which Mojo gleefully confirms.

Hearing the captive audience's cheers, a jealous Spiral tries to intervene, managing to briefly floor the brainwashed Longshot before Mojo furiously intervenes and throws her aside. Seeing this, the audience gradually regain their senses and realize the battle isn't a performance. Hearing this, Mojo orders the corrupted X-Men to kill them.

Knowing the team will do it, given how enthralled by Mojo they now are, Cannonball tries to stop Mojo himself, but is intercepted by Longshot. Magma then tries to do the deed herself, only for Storm to use her regained powers to cancel Magma's, with Dani stopping Amara from trying again, pointing out the audience could potentially get hurt.

Nearby, Sunspot notices the brainwashed Colossus trying to topple a pillar into the audience and quickly manages to knock him out, only to be briefly defeated by Rogue kissing him, absorbing his power before she's kicked away by Dani. But things soon turn to the New Mutants' favor when Rogue discovers something's wrong as she realizes her thoughts and Roberto's memories of her true self aren't matching up, which starts to release her from Mojo's brainwashing and corruption.

Nearby, as Rahne struggles with the brainwashed Nightcrawler teleporting them all over the stage, Magik, after staggering Logan with her Soulsword, realizes that whatever Mojo and Spiral have done to control the X-Men must be a form of sorcery as her sword can only effect magic and/or arcane objects and beings. She decides to take the fight to Mojo herself, only to be quickly captured by him upon teleporting to his location on the stage.

Down below, Karma, knowing that the New Mutants don't have much time before Mojo and Spiral's enchantments permanently take hold of the X-Men, tries to possess Logan in order to free him, only for Wolverine to resist. However, before he can injure or kill her, Karma encourages him to remember his real self. At the last second, Logan does exactly that, furiously ripping off his new mask and managing to avoid harming Karma by slashing the wall behind her. After pulling himself together, Logan goes to help Roberto against the also recovered Colossus.

Nearby, Doug goes to help the still recovering Warlock, only to be attacked by Psylocke. Realizing he may have a way to help her from her brainwashing, he begins revealing his romantic feelings for her via her telepathy, resorting Betsy to normal as well before Logan, seeing the duo, tries to attack her. Realizing she's free as well as Doug yells at him while he lunges for Betsy, Logan simply and harmlessly tackles her before noting that they're not in the clear yet.

A few minutes later, Kitty notices Illyana's situation while in the surprised audience. Seeing her best friend in peril breaks her free of Mojo's brainwashing as well as she moves to aid Illyana. The other X-Men (Magneto, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus and Longshot) are then released from Mojo's control after Kitty disrupts Mojo's chair while saving Illyana, though this causes him and all the X-Men a brief, yet extreme wave of mental pain, with the X-Men getting the majority of it.

After recovering from this, the X-Men join the New Mutants in turning their attacks on Mojo, doing some damage, but he teleports away before he can be seriously injured. They do capture Spiral, however, and she undoes the effects of the battle, erasing it from the memories of the actors and audience and fully cleansing the X-Men of Mojo's corruptive influence.

And Mojo, off in the Wildways, smiles as the approval rating of his X-Men show goes through the roof.

Notes

• This issue's cover is an homage to that of Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975).
• According to Marvel Comics' Essential Series, this issue was published between Uncanny X-Men #213 and Uncanny X-Men #214. Continuity-wise, this causes some issues as this issue was published in the aftermath of the Mutant Massacre event. During that event Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, and Colossus were all seriously injured, and Psylocke joined the team. Most notably of all, Longshot was absent during the entire Mutant Massacre event and first appears in the regular Uncanny X-Men Series in issue Vol 1 214. Suffice to say, this story likely takes place before the Mutant Massacre event, even though Longshot does not make an appearance in that storyline.
• This story will be reprinted in the trade X-Men: Ghosts.

See Also

Links and References

References