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.

The small boy we saw trying to escape with his family last issue cries out for someone to help him, but unfortunately the only person who hears his cries is a mutant who promises to feed off his misery.  His skin is made of a strange stringy material and it makes numerous “frip” sounds as he ties up the boy within himself.  His name is Abyss and he’s one of Apocalypse’s four horsemen.

Not far away, the X-men are beginning their fight with the brotherhood, who have hacked into the sentinels so that they are now on their side. Copycat temporarily distracts Quicksilver by shape shifting into his dead sister the Scarlet Witch, but Dazzler puts a stop to it quickly by shooting at her with a bolt of light. The brotherhood responds by having a sentinel fire at her.  Storm swoops in to save the day by bringing lightening interference.  While the X-men try to determine how to help the humans, Iceman pops up fully reformed, and makes a nice sarcastic joke about how no one cares that he’s back.  I care, Bobby.  I care.

Banshee has been pursuing the escaping Brotherhood, and is surprised to find the priest Madri dead.  Abyss happily claims credit for the murder, though he says he’s disappointed that Madri was enough of a religious fanatic to think he deserved the death.  He also says he needs to fire his publicist since Banshee has never heard of him before.  When Banshee calls him insane, he starts singing “Crazy” before offering to make an exchange with Banshee.  The little boy is still alive inside Abyss, but he’s willing to trade him if he can have Quicksilver instead.  Quicksilver agrees to go to him, but Storm insists she will be there for back up.

While Storm rescues the boy, Quicksilver takes on Abyss, his high speed punches doing a pretty good job of unraveling him.  He also somehow manages to punch all of those ribbons into Abyss’ center, which pushes them into his own void, therefore blinking him out of existence.  I’m aware of how little sense that description makes, but it is what happens.  They reunite the boy with his parents as Dazzler informs them that the sentinels have been reprogrammed yet again so they will be helping the humans escape the United States.

Meanwhile in New York, Karma is being tortured to give up information about Magneto’s whereabouts, since she works for Angel and usually reads people’s minds when they enter the club.  She’s not telling, but they threaten to use the Shadow King to dig it out of her brain.  Apocalypse interrupts, mostly because he wants to monologue as the proper way to end this teaser for next issue.  He announces that he will be taking on Magneto and “We shall see who is truly fit enough to survive!”

So much more happened here than in the first issue.  We got a decent fight, though most of the enemies were dispatched off camera.  It works well though, surprising us with the knowledge that Abyss is actually the one getting rid of them.  And speaking of, he’s such a fun villain, reminiscent of characters like the Joker and Deadpool, gleefully making jokes as he goes about his killing spree.  I’m fairly certain Quicksilver’s trick didn’t actually kill him, and I’m very glad for that, as he’s definitely a character I want to see more of.  The humor from both him and Iceman help to keep this issue from being too dreary.  The end teaser is a bit pointless, but it still gives us something to look forward to in knowing that we’re going to see an even bigger fight very soon.