Every installment of Abandoned Love we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer while still acknowledging that the abandoned story DID still happen. Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of Abandoned Love. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

This time around, we look at how the X-Men were made invisible to cameras and all other electronic scanning...

The X-Men sacrificed their lives during the Fall of the Mutants. The mystical being known as Roma admired their sacrifice so much that she returned them to life, only with a twist, since they were supposed to be "dead," they still were, in the sense that no one could see them without their bare eyes, as she explains in X-Men #229...

Obviously, this is no longer the case.

Here is Havok talking through a viewer screen to Cyclops and Professor X in X-Factor #71...

And here is Wolverine with the Astonishing X-Men in Astonishing X-Men #2...

And most recently, here is Havok, Wolverine AND Rogue all appearing on television in Uncanny Avengers #5...

So obviously, this was just abandoned.

One theory I've seen is that when the X-Men later went through the Siege Perilous, they lost the ability they gained from Roma. That would make sense, however, as seen in Uncanny X-Men #259....

and the following issue, Uncanny X-Men #260, Dazzler still has the power AFTER going through the Siege Perilous...

Not to mention that Wolverine and Storm never actually went THROUGH the Siege Perilous, so that one wouldn't work for them anyways.

Heck, one theory was that someone like Storm lost the ability when her body was altered (she was reduced in age by the villains Nanny and Orphanmaker), however, in Uncanny X-Men #253, here's de-aged Storm and she still doesn't show up on monitors...

Chris Claremont actually joked about when the ability went away. He suggested that it was sometime between pages 10 and 11 of Uncanny X-Men #279 (his last issue on that book) or between the end of X-Men #3 and X-Men #4 (his last issue on THAT title).

However, Claremont himself wrote issues where the characters showed up on monitors, including...

Uncanny X-Men #269, when Rogue shows up on one of Magneto's monitors...

Uncanny X-Men #270, when Storm shows up on the Danger Room monitors...

(I love, by the way, the whole "What's up with Storm's powers? I know, let's ask the kids' old dancing teacher to come by and examine her on monitors. She's clearly an expert in the field")

and in X-Men #1, when Colossus and Rogue...

and Wolverine....

all show up on monitors.

The Rogue appearance in Uncanny X-Men #269 and the Storm appearance in #270 also disproves the theory that the spell only lasted as long as the X-Men were still thought to be dead by the whole world (something that was revealed to be false during X-Tinction Agenda, which began soon after the events shown above in Uncanny X-Men #270).

Similarly, the above examples all predate the destruction of the Excalibur lighthouse in Excalibur #50 (which messed with the Otherworld nexus, where Roma comes from), so that explanation wouldn't work, either.

Essentially, the thing was just dropped without an explanation.

It's still interesting that we've yet to see someone address this with a simple, "Oh yeah, that spell wore off" or whatever.

Thanks to commenter Michael for the head's up on the #269 and 270 bit!