Havok still hates his brother and plans to get rid of him, and even having Cyclops save his life from a rebelling mutant grizzly bear – bengal tiger hybrid that Beast created isn’t changing that fact.  At the same time Jean is sneaking back into the facility to find Sinister, because she doesn’t know he’s gone.  When Cyclops sees her we get a flashback sequence that shows us what happened when she was captured many years ago.  She strongly refused to join Apocalypse’s side no matter what they offered her, and it was that strong spirit of hers that made Scott question what he was doing and whether he should be following orders so blindly.  He was set to help her escape the complex when Logan showed up to rescue her, and it was Logan attacking first that resulted in the fight that made Cyclops lose an eye and Logan lose a hand. Continue reading →

Wild Child is being chased by Infinites, but the X-men intercept them and take them down.  Unable to communicate with them to let them know what happened to Sabretooth, Wild Child actually licks Rogue on the face so she can absorb some of his memories.  Gross. They head toward the plant in an effort to destroy it and possibly also save Sabretooth.
However it doesn’t look like they’ll be too successful when Holocaust seemingly beats him to death.

Continue reading →

The actual “story” of this issue is only three pages long.  One of the Madri sneaks into Apocalypse’s lair to find out if he is considered chosen or forgotten.  The rest of the issue is devoted to character profiles told from Apocalypse’s perspective.  While you might think these would provide some new information about this world’s back story we haven’t seen, in fact it just sums up what we’ve already seen so far in the previous issues.  And yet this was priced at $2.50 when the normal issues were $1.95.

Suffice to say I’m not going to bother recapping the profiles.  What may be slightly surprising is that “chosen” does not equal “fighting for Apocalypse.”  He chooses who he truly thinks is the fittest to survive rather than who agrees with him.  That is pretty consistent for his character.

Chosen: Magneto and Rogue, Cyclops, Sinister, Storm, Quicksilver, Four Horsemen, Weapon X and Jean Grey, Colossus, Angel, Sabretooth and Wildchild, Bishop, Madri*

Forgotten: X-man, Havok, Northstar and Aurora, Beast, X-calibre, Human High Council, Gambit and the X-ternals, Charles Xavier

* The Madri are chosen but then quickly switched to forgotten on the last page when Apocalypse kills the idiot for snooping.  Really I don’t know what else he expected.

Obviously this issue is not much more than an art gallery, though nearly all the art is stuff we’ve seen previously.  It’s a cash grab, nothing more.  I was one of the suckers who fell for it back in the day, probably hoping to get more details like some of the previous guidebooks I had purchased had contained, but instead was left with nothing but a recap of stuff I already knew.  It’s the risk you often take as a comic book fan.

In an effort to speed things along, the remaining reviews will contain both issue #s 3 & 4 at the same time.  I imagine that means they’ll be a little longer, but it also means I’ll be done with this project before the end of the year.  That part makes me happy at least.