[One Man’s Worth] Amazing X-men # 3 & 4

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Magneto kneels before the grave of Charles Xavier and ponders again how one man could have made such a difference in the world, and if giving up everyone he knows and loves to change reality is truly worth it.  Bishop tells him he’s wasting their time, and I can’t help but agree.  How many times do we have to hear this?

Thankfully, some Infinites, Vanisher, and then finally Apocalypse show up to start a fight.  Magneto quickly tears apart the Infinites, and Vanisher disappears, leaving what would seem to be a big tussle between two powerhouses.  But mostly it’s just Apocalypse beating the crap out of Magneto while dumping some exposition on us.  I’m teasing, but actually it is pretty neat how through this we find out that Magneto did build Asteroid M in this reality, and how he once crashed it into earth trying to take out Apocalypse but failed and lost half his mutant powers in the process.  It helps to make this reality seem more real and less of the temporary event that it actually is.

Magneto is all set to kill himself in an effort to also take out Apocalypse, but Apocalypse reveals that he’s sent Vanisher after Nanny and baby Charles, so Magneto surrenders instead.  So that’s how he ended up captured when we saw him in those previous issues I covered.  Meanwhile, we see Vanisher thoroughly vanquished by an armed to the teeth Nanny, and the gleeful look on baby Charles’ face when Nanny pulls out all her guns is totally adorable.

Quicksilver’s team of X-men return to the mansion to find Magneto and Bishop gone and Vanisher dead.  While the others look for Nanny and Charles, Quicksilver speeds over to Heaven to talk to Angel.  Angel informs him that they sent Bishop and Magneto to two different locations, and since Bishop is essential to the plan they’ve all been trying to fulfill to fix the universe, he’s going to have to let his father stay captured for awhile to go rescue him.

Bishop is being tortured by the Madri who put the Shadow King inside his head to find out what he knows.  The Shadow King is thoroughly confused by the alternate reality he sees there.  Abyss is also there, mostly just  being snarky awesome as he likes to do.  Quicksilver’s team arrives to where they are keeping Bishop, and they split up.  Storm goes to save Bishop directly, while Quicksilver and Banshee go in search of Jamie Madrox to stop the Madri.

It turns out poor Jamie has been locked up in a cell, and he’s been divided so many times that there isn’t much left of his mind.  He’s not controlling the Madri at all, it was Sinister and Beast who made them that way.  He begs for the two men to kill him, but Quicksilver finds he cannot let yet another innocent soul die.  Abyss comes in and interrupts them, informing them that Storm and Bishop are being outnumbered by the Madri and will die soon.  Quicksilver deliberates while Banshee makes a decision.

He dives head first into Abyss’ chest, screaming all the way, letting go as hard as he can to tear Abyss apart with the vibrations.  Quicksilver mourns his friend while Jamie Madrox tells him he must go rescue Storm and Bishop while he can – Jamie has just enough energy left in him that he will take the Madri back.  Doing so kills him, but it does allow Storm and Bishop to escape from the collapsing building.

As the three X-men return to the mansion, characters from Astonishing X-men, X-Calibre, Generation Next, and Gambit and the X-ternals also return, their story lines wrapped up and ready for the climax that is X-men Omega.  It basically spoils what happens in those last three that we haven’t read yet, so let’s wait to recap these moments.

Writing all that out makes me realize just how much really happens in these two issues.  It’s definitely meant to be the large climax of this crossover, saving all but the biggest moments for the finale.  We’re getting close to the end.

 

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