We start off with a glimpse inside the pens in which Apocalypse keeps both humans and mutants who have been deemed unworthy.  We learn that the brains (and literally only the brains) of six telepaths are what keep the prisoners too dazed to dream of uprising or escape.  Magneto appears among them to take two of the prisoners to escape, but unfortunately for her, Polaris is not included among them.

Meanwhile, Cyclops and Havok go before Apocalypse, who apparently thinks he’s auditioning for a play, because seriously he could not be any more dramatic in his speeches if he tried.  They once again remind us that Sinister has defected, but Apocalypse is certain that it will not be a problem for him.  Havok is a kiss up but Cyclops dares to speak up in front of Apocalypse, so he gains his respect.  This of course makes Havok insanely jealous.

The brothers leave and have a discussion about power.  Havok wants it, but Cyclops is only concerned with being the good soldier and following orders.  Because you know, that’s kind of his thing (recent developments in the comics not withstanding). The brothers part ways and Havok heads to speak to the Guthries about the prison breakout.  While their security systems can’t identify Magneto, they know Polaris saw him, so they go to speak with her.

The irony here is that in the main continuity, Havok and Polars are lovers. But here he slaps her when she tells him the truth, because I guess he can’t believe Magneto made it through their defenses.  She reacts by using what little powers she has left to move the iron in his blood, before the Guthries taze her.  They bring her to Beast so he can dig through her mind and see exactly what she saw of the breakout.  He explains to them and us that Lorna thinks Magneto is her father because her real parents died in the cullings and the trauma had her hold on to the belief that Magneto was her real father.  She and Rogue formed an alliance for a while, but something apparently soured between them because Rogue ended up stealing half her powers away from her.  But none of that explains why Lorna calls Havok Alex and asks him why he’s doing this to her, as if her madness somehow allowed her to know of their connection in the main reality.

Meanwhile Cyclops meets up with the Bedlam Brothers, who tell him they can’t find any evidence of where Sinister is now.  Angel literally drops in on them because he’s heard the news and he can’t help but think that a war with Europe would be bad for his business.

Alex has retreated to Angel’s club to see Scarlett once again, and he assures her that he’s going to get Cyclops out of the way so he can be in line to replace Sinister as Horseman.  He leaves and Scarlett gets a phone call.  We don’t know who’s on the other end, but it’s clear she’s actually there as an agent for the Human High Council.

Beast is torturing Lorna to get her memories out but her powers interfere with his equipment.  He threatens to perform brain surgery on her, but Cyclops interrupts.    He reminds Beast about the treaty with the humans that forbids genetic experimentation.  Beast scoffs, saying that the treaty is nothing more than a charade and he shouldn’t have to follow it.  Cyclops responds by destroying Beast’s equipment with his laser beams.  As he goes to leave the room, Lorna looks at him, but she sees him as Magneto, in the same cloaked fashion that she saw him earlier.  Is Cyclops the one helping the prisoners escape?

Yes, yes he is.  He comes back for her later and guides her out the pens, even attacking Northstar and Aurora when they show up to stop him.  He guides Lorna into the hands of the Underground movement while Havok watches  from far away, confident that he now has the way to overthrow his brother once and for all.

The misdirect of Magnet builds to a good reveal that, yes, even in this reality, Cyclops is still a good guy, but there’s still a lot of rehashing here that feels completely unnecessary for a second issue.  It feels like padding because that’s exactly what it is.  More than anything I’m really confused by Polaris seeming to know Havok here.  I honestly can’t remember if it comes up again or not, but since she’s free of the pens now I would think not.  Overall it’s not a terrible issue, and if I didn’t hate Summers brother drama so much I might have enjoyed it a bit more.

Note: In an effort to save myself some time, these posts will no longer be full of scans from the comics.  I may occasionally still include things that I think are worth showing, but otherwise they will be text only summaries going forward. Continue reading →

The X-universe has three major time travelers among their ranks, or at least they did as of the 90s. Rachel Summers was the first, and it was eventually revealed that she existed only within her particular timeline. There are no alternate Rachels. Bishop is another of the three, and as we know he’s now even further displaced, living in this timeline since Xavier was murdered. The third major character displaced from time was Cable, and he’s got a lot of special circumstances regarding his birth. He’s the child of Scott and Jean’s clone Madelyne Pryor. He was implanted with a virus and raised in yet another alternate future. So we’re not going to see an exact duplicate of Cable in the Age of Apocalypse, but since Cable had a solo book at this time they had to replace it, and that’s how we got this title.

The issue starts with a Terminator reference. The young man referred to as Nate is revisiting his memories, most of which don’t make any sense to him. He also ends up psionically visiting Magneto very briefly, before being awoken by Forge, his friend and leader in a band of travelers.

They’re all mutants, and they travel around in the guise of actors putting on plays to entertain the few remaining humans in America. Forge warns Nate not to use his powers too often, because it turns out he may be just as powerful as Apocalypse himself.

Even the Shadow King (who seems to live inside a lava lamp in Apocalypse’s lair) thinks so. Apocalypse tasks Domino to find Nate and either get him to join their side, or kill him.

This picture is here because I love her costume design.

Forge, Soaron, Brute, Toad and Mastermind all work together to try to save some humans that have been boarded on a train to be moved by Apocalypse’s orders. Nate isn’t supposed to get involved, but his desire to be a hero means he can’t just sit back and do nothing.

Siryn is among the humans, but she suddenly realizes she is not in fact a human anymore. Nate insists they take her along with them. The travelers are stopped on the road by another man, and while he doesn’t look a thing like him, the diamond on his forehead and his name, Essex, tell us exactly who he is: Mr. Sinister.

While certainly related to the plot going on throughout the other series, I like that this one can sort of stand on it’s own. The lack of bulging muscles and giant gun make Nate automatically more appealing to me than Cable is too. I also found it fun to see a mutated and more ugly Toad here long before the X-men movie made the change.

And with this, we have finally finished all the number one issues! Can you believe it?! I look forward to leaving the realm of introductions and actually getting into some real story.

The humans are gathering in Maine because word has spread that they may be able to escape America thanks to the plans of the Human High Council.  Unfortunately for them, Apocalypse’s forces are always watching.

Copycat pretends to be one of them in order to gain some information on the coming rescue, and reports back to her team.

But the humans still have a small glimmer of hope thanks to the X-men, who plan to hijack a sentinel and import him with a virus that will see them as friendlies and therefore allow them to aid in the rescue.  This portion of the team is made up of Quicksilver, Storm, Iceman, and Banshee, who we’ve seen to varying degrees already, as well as Dazzler and Exodus making their first appearances here.

We have further proof that this version of Iceman is far more advanced than his normal counterpart in that he seems to have a way of converting other people into moisture, thereby allowing him to freeze them and transport them from place to place.  I can’t imagine why they never tried to bring that into the main universe.  However we don’t get to see an example of how this works now because Magneto reveals to Exodus that he in fact has the ability to teleport people and he should use that now.  Despite having never done it before, he brings them all exactly where he needs to be.

This is the second time that Magneto has hid someone’s powers from them, the first being Lila Cheney over in Gambit and the X-ternals.  Here he says he never told Exodus because he was afraid his powers would corrupt him.  I guess this is all supposed to be a reference to how Exodus acts in the main timeline, but as it is it’s quite silly.

Storm heads out to the ocean and brings up a hurricane to try to mask the oncoming sentinels from Apocalypse’s forces.  It’s difficult, and we’re told Storm does something she normally doesn’t do – pray.  Then she says “thank the goddess” not long after.  I guess the situation is getting her in touch with her religious side?

Storm’s interference works and the Sentinels show up.  The X-men enact their plan to hack into the sentinels, and while they at first think it works, a sentinel then completely obliterates Iceman.

But hey, no worries, remember Checkov’s Iceman’s special ability? The characters assure us he can rebuild himself even from that state.  As they ponder why their hacking didn’t work, it is immediately explained to them by this world’s version of the Brotherhood.

Their programming was switched so that the Brotherhood is protected from the Sentinels while the X-men are still seen as foes.

This issue is pretty firmly average. We’ve got a decent amount of set up, but not much else. We have conflicting writing, where they keep trying to present Storm as someone different from her main timeline counterpart, but then have her use her same religious catchphrase that completely contradicts that. The misdirect is well handled, and Iceman being destroyed did shock me initially, but having it all solved so quickly kind of spoils the suspense.

The last we saw of Logan and Jean, they had just brought some information from Sinister to the Human High Council in England, informing them that Apocalypse intended to betray their truce.

Their reward for their efforts is to be sent on a rather dangerous mission to try to penetrate the Atlantic Sea Wall and take out its control center.

Apocalypse’s goons call in Havok to help fight them off.

Their fight is really just there to grant us a bit of exposition.  We find out that Logan lost his hand to Cyclops while rescuing Jean from Apocalypse’s camps and he took out one of Cyclops’ eyes in revenge.  Havok throws a lot of nasty words at Jean and Logan pounds him for it.

Their battle is interrupted by dozens upon dozens of sentinels being launched, and a footnote assures us we’ll find out what that’s all about next time in Amazing X-men #1.

Meanwhile Cyclops informs Apocalypse of Sinister’s defection while Beast interrupts to let them know that Havok fused with a sentinel hand when he was teleported out, and this dark version of Beast is about to gleefully use a bonesaw to free him.

It’s a quick little moment but it’s also pretty twisted and amusing.  Of course it may just be that any temporary reprieve from Logan hates Scott and Scott hates Logan is always welcome with me after so many years of following the X-men.  Like so many other men in a love triangle, you just want these two to kiss and make out already.

But for now, Logan is making out with Jean instead.  And while doing so he assures us that he loves her completely, though he worries that she only cares for him because he rescued her.  For what it’s worth, I like the chemistry and partnership the two of them have going on in this issue. They seem good for each other in this crazy world they are living in.

Once they’re done kissing they rejoin the human high council which at this point is shown to contain Mariko Yashida and Brian Braddock besides Emma Frost, and Moira and Bolivar Trask.  I think there were some errors in the art here, as it seems like Braddock wants to let Mariko talk, and then strongly disagrees with her shortly afterward.  Regardless, some of the humans want to give peace a chance, but Brian does not.

Their discussion is interrupted with a loud THROOM when Magma drops in on them to attack.  Despite the fact that they don’t truly trust him, Logan kills her to protect the council.

Why Wolverine is so popular in one easy page: He dispatches an enemy with little effort and then shrugs off the fact that his entire arm is on fire.

However she assures him that she won’t be the last mutant they see, and that Apocalypse is determined to kill them all.  Brian says this proves his point, and that they have no choice but to launch a nuclear strike on America aka Apocalypse’s territory.

The art in this issue seems a little sloppy to me over all, and when I looked at the credits, I noticed it said “Adam Kubert – breakdowns, Karl Kesel, Dan Green, Chris Warner – finishes” so I guess that means they were a bit pressed for time on finishing this one.  As such I won’t be too harsh.  There’s not a whole lot happening here, and I had to go back and review a few moments to see just what was going on exactly.  But I do like that Logan and Jean’s relationship shines through as something positive amongst the mess.

Next time I’ll be covering Amazing X-men #1

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