Appearing in "Five Card Studs"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Lucas Bishop (Earth-295) (Only in flashback)
Thing
Adversaries:
- Dark Beast
- Sugar Man
- Fatale (Cameo) (as "Pamela Greenwood")
- Havok (Earth-295) (Cameo) (Appears in shadow only) (Only in flashback)
Locations:
- Marvel Universe
- Earth-295 (Only in flashback)
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Five Card Studs"
In Archangel’s SoHo loft, several X-Men are playing poker with the Thing when Cannonball announces the cards Beast is holding. Everyone else folds, Beast grouses, and an amused Thing dons his coat and leaves. Beast tells Cannonball to deal the next hand, but Cannonball clumsily scatters the cards on the floor. As the others pick them up, Storm tells Gambit she is concerned about Psylocke and Bishop. At a bar, Cyclops and Phoenix listen to Bishop recall being older and fleeing from an unknown enemy through a war-torn landscape. Struggling to process decades’ worth of these memory-like visions has left him disoriented. Having had a similar experience, Cyclops and Phoenix try to reassure him. Dark Beast is secretly monitoring the three of them from his lair when Sugar Man enters and accuses him of welching on their agreement to share information. In the Xavier Institute infirmary, a wounded Psylocke wakes up and tries to console the increasingly frustrated Professor X. Back at the loft, Beast realizes Cannonball was only pretending to be a novice at poker when he wins the latest hand overwhelmingly. As Gambit challenges Cannonball to another hand, Iceman asks Storm to tutor him in using his powers, and she agrees. Meanwhile, Dark Beast warns Sugar Man that Bishop has the memories of his counterpart from their timeline and thus has information about them. At the loft, Beast listens to Gambit lecture Cannonball about bluffing and has a sudden insight into the nature of the Legacy Virus. In Dark Beast’s lair, Dark Beast tells Sugar Man they must kill Bishop to keep their existence secret from Mr. Sinister. Back at the loft, Gambit wins the poker hand but then uses his powers to blow up the table, confusing Storm and angering Cannonball.
Notes
- This issue is reprinted in the X-Men: The Road to Onslaught vol. 2 trade paperback published in 2014.
Trivia
- Bishop received the memories of his Age of Apocalypse counterpart in X-Men Omega #1.
- Cyclops and Phoenix spent 12 years in a distant future timeline during the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix mini-series. They returned to the present in X-Men Vol 2 #35.
- Sabretooth eviscerated Psylocke when he escaped from the Xavier Institute in Uncanny X-Men #328.
- Dark Beast and Sugar Man escaped from the Age of Apocalypse to the Marvel Universe in X-Men Omega #1.
- Mr. Sinister finds Sugar Man in Cable #28.