Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Paul Smith
What Went Down: At the mansion, Bishop and Beast are observing Xavier straining to find Jean and Cyclops after they disappeared last issue. On Avalon, the Acolytes are attacking the two X-Men while Exodus and Holocaust continue to fight and tear apart the space station. Some of the Acolytes blame the X-Men for bringing Holocaust aboard, which makes absolutely no sense at all, but there you have it. Jean discovers that Skids is outside in space, protected only by her forcefield. Jean reads her mind to figure out what is going on, as well as fill in new readers on what the story is about. They also find out Rusty Collins is dead, which angers them because they used to take care of Rusty as members of X-Factor.
Jean tries to contact Exodus, and we learn that Exodus is a very powerful telepath as well. Holocaust kills another Acolyte, Javitz, and Exodus flips out on him. In another part of the station, Colossus gets the catatonic Magneto to an escape pod, but decides to go back to help Scott and Jean. Outside the X-Mansion, Amelia Voght is trying to get in, but Bishop won’t allow her to enter. Voght just teleports in instead, but the effort weakens her. She tells Xavier that he won’t find his X-Men anywhere on the planet because they’re on Avalon.
Cyclops convinces the Acolytes to stop fighting so they can all help each other escape. Jean leaves to go help Skids while Cyclops leads the other Acolytes to safety. Xavier contacts Jean, then Colossus, telling him to make his escape. The Acolytes find that all of the escape pods are gone, so Cyclops has the Acolyte Unuscione project her exoskeleton around the chunk of station they’re all in. Jean joins Skids on some space debris and helps boost Skids’ forcefield with her telekinesis.
How It Was: For an introduction to such a forgettable villain, this story really does stand on as feeling significant, even today. The stakes work because the Acolytes have been genuine presences in the X-Men books, yet it doesn’t feel like Nicieza is wasting perfectly good characters because the Acolytes have mostly been faceless dead weight in all of their appearances. The destruction of Avalon is an awesome sight, and the addition of Scott and Jean just adds to the chaos of the story. There’s plenty of action, but all of the action serves a greater purpose, and the reactions of the characters mostly seem natural for the given situation.
Xavier’s scenes searching for his students are a little slower; it feels like it takes Voght forever to cross the X-Men’s front yard from last issue. The art is once again really nice looking, and the only nitpick I have is that the artist depicts Scott’s blast going through his glasses instead of having him lift them up. It’s also nice to see Colossus still putting himself before others. Just a really exciting issue.
B+
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