Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Andy Kubert
What Went Down: The Madri cult members are in the middle of a ceremony where they are about to sacrifice Bishop. Storm bursts in and attacks the cult members. She unhooks Bishop from his restraints with her lockpicks and helps carry him away.
Meanwhile, Banshee and Quicksilver are looking for the prime Madri because if they kill him, the rest of the Madri will be defeated. They find him, and it turns out that the Madri are duplicates of Jamie Madrox, the normal universe’s Multiple Man! After years of being experimented on to increase his duplication powers, Jamie has been reduced to an insane infantile state, all though his speech patterns are quite mature and lucid for his supposed state of mind.
We cut to the Astonishing X-Men team returning to the mansion. They find Colossus and Kitty Pryde already there; all of Kitty and Colossus’ students were killed in the rescue of Peter’s sister, Illyana (read Generation Next). Sabretooth and Rogue then go into the sewer to try to find Charles, only to discover Dazzler, Exodus, and the remains of Gambit’s team. Rogue flips out and attacks Gambit, wondering where her son is; Gambit tells her that Guido, normally Strong Guy, betrayed them and captured the boy.
Back in Quebec, Bishop and Storm are fighting against a seemingly endless supply of Madri armed to the teeth. Jamie Madrox keeps telling Pietro and Sean to kill him, but they don’t want to since Madrox is innocent. Their debate is postponed by an attack from Abyss. Banshee decides to sacrifice himself to kill Abyss by flying into the villain and unleashing a huge sonic scream. After the explosion, Madrox decides to kill himself by slowly shutting down the Madri by sheer will.
Back at the mansion, Rogue freaks out more about her husband and son. Nightcrawler teleports in with Destiny, so his mission was a success. The rest of the Amazing X-Men return, and it is established that everyone succeeded except for Gambit’s team. The X-Men strike dynamic poses and announce that they are going to rescue Charles and Magneto and defeat Apocalypse.
How It Was: This issue is paced really well, and the A and B plots really complement each other nicely. I like how the high action scenes of Storm and Bishop facing off against gun-toting priests contrasts with scenes of Banshee and Quicksilver working through their moral dilemma. It works surprisingly well, except for the fact that at no point do we believe that the X-Men are going to kill Jamie. And there is the inconsistency of Jamie Madrox’s dialogue, which isn’t really consistent with his appearance in this issue; he’s surrounded by baby toys and wearing diapers, giving the impression that his mind has been severely debilitated, yet he is fully aware of what is happening the whole time.
Seeing the remaining X-teams come together is also a nice treat. Sure it doesn’t directly tie into the story, but it does build up anticipation for the final chapter, X-Men: Omega. Nicieza saves some nice character moments for these scenes, like how Kitty phases so Rogue can’t touch or comfort her about the death of Kitty’s students. The sad fact is that the deaths of characters that never appeared in this book carry more weight than the death of one of the main characters this issue. Banshee’s death doesn’t carry any emotion because really we never learn anything about him other than the fact that he was retired, but came back to help Magneto. Plus he kills Abyss in a two-page fight; it took Quicksilver one page last time. All in all this book is a little bit of a disappointment since it fails to inspire me to care about any of its main characters, but it does offer a couple of cool moments.
B
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