Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Paul Smith
What Went Down: The Acolytes have recovered the space debris from X-Men: Prime and brought it aboard their home base Avalon. Kooky old Exodus is convinced that this is some kind of fortuitous sign from God, and many of the other Acolytes start to catch on that Exodus might not be all together sane. Many, including Colossus, question the safety of bringing an unknown life form aboard. The Acolyte Milan is tasked with analyzing the mystery mutant; he is overwhelmed with images and memories of the Age of Apocalypse before being disintegrated and absorbed by the mutant, who turns out to be Holocaust.
In the mansion, Professor X is watching a news report about the battle with the Juggernaut in New Jersey. Storm comes in to announce the club murder plot points from Uncanny #322 for the Professor’s benefit, as well as voice her fears about Wolverine’s well being. Down in the basement, the Beast is analyzing Juggernaut after their fight; he is also taking care of Gambit and Sabretooth in the medical ward.
In Florida, a trenchcoated figure who looks a lot like Gambit charges a card to break into a house to steal a helmet. The figure is stopped by Iceman, and we learn that it’s Rogue, who is reliving memories from Gambit’s life.
Up on Avalon, Rusty and Skids are talking about possibly defecting with Colossus. Scanner calls and tells them that Exodus has ordered Rusty to check in on Milan. Skids worries that Exodus is aware that they were questioning his authority, but Rusty tells her not to worry. Rusty finds that Milan is missing and that the stranger looks stronger. Rusty is then killed, but not before Scanner calls and sees him die.
Holocaust emerges and is confronted by Exodus. Holocaust mistakes him for the Exodus in the Age of Apocalypse that was an X-Man; he also reveals Exodus’ real name, Paris. Exodus gets mad for being called an X-Man, and the two begin a fight that tears a hole in the space station.
Back on Earth, Scott and Jean are returning from Jean’s parents’ house after telling them that her sister Sara was dead in Uncanny #322. Coincidentally, Amelia Voght teleports directly in front of their car, which somehow causes them to go through the portal she opened. This results in Cyclops and Jean ending up on Avalon in the middle of all of the wackiness.
How It Was: The highlight of this issue is probably the characters on Avalon. While Exodus is still a one-dimensional loony toon, it’s nice to see that a lot of the Acolytes are starting to question the overt craziness of their leader, you know, like real people would. Even more surprising is that characters like Milan, Skids, and Rusty are shown with actual personalities, relationships, and flaws for the first time in a long time. Of course then two of them die, which is a shame for the Acolytes to be dissolved right as someone thought to characterize them a little. But I actually felt a little bad when Rusty died, and he hasn’t had any character development in ages.
I also really like Holocaust’s response to the whole situation as he mistakes Magneto and Exodus for X-Men trying to battle his father. And it’s nice to see Exodus get some comeuppance as the “sign” he foresaw turns out to be a character as crazy and powerful as he is.
It’s also nice to see the X-books making a bigger effort to connect with each other. This is done really well with the scenes of Beast analyzing the Juggernaut, and not so well when Storm shows up to info-dump a bunch of information from other X-Men books that the Professor should already be aware of. Even the fact that Cyclops and Jean get hijacked while returning from events in a different title is a neat detail for fans. The Rogue/Gambit stuff is a little bit of a misfire since Nicieza has her remember all this stuff about Gambit’s past only to forget about it in a couple of issues.
Paul Smith’s art is a little softer then Kubert’s. It’s really nice and the colorist does a great job with the issue, but there are a few details to pick at. Smith uses the Age of Apocalypse design of Iceman, which is never used again. Also, Holocaust outside of his suit turns out to equal Ghost Rider with beady eyes, which is a real disappointment. Plus Xavier’s mansion is drawn much smaller than it usually is.
This book is doing slightly better than Uncanny at this point in regards to quality. The story has bigger stakes, and it’s nice to see Nicieza take some blank slates and make them actually interesting, even if he does kill them off a couple of pages later. Once again, the narrow focus is working well for the book, and it’s great to see Colossus again.
B+
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