Our issue opens with Colossus struggling with a Danger
Room test, pushing futilely against two metal walls closing in on him from
either side. Cyclops and Wolverine watch from the control room, with Cyclops
particularly confused as he states that this is nowhere close to the limits of
Colossus’ strength. Wolverine points out that Colossus has being having
feelings of inadequacy since they fought Magneto and can’t properly focus on
his current task. Wolverine heads into the Danger Room himself, before Cyclops
sees that he punctured the Danger Room controls with his claws. Wolverine
forces his way into the Danger Room and climbs up in between the two enclosing
walls with Colossus. He surmises that Colossus has been feeling down due to
having a family back home, whereas most of the X-Men are loners, his inadequacy
stemming from questioning his place on the team due to homesickness. Cyclops
reveals that Wolverine’s ploy sabotaged the controls, forcing Colossus to give
it all he’s got and stop the machine, lest he and Wolverine both be crushed. He
succeeds and thanks Wolverine’s belief in him, while Cyclops gives Wolverine
the task of fixing the controls he destroyed.
They exit the Danger Room, where Cyclops finds
Colleen Wing waiting for him. Cyclops then uses the intercom to check on Nightcrawler
and Banshee, who’re in the process of getting the Blackbird back up and
running. Nightcrawler says it’s slow going, as is the rest of the state of
the abandoned mansion. Cyclops continues to worry about where the Professor
could have gone to and we check in on the man himself. Charles Xavier
accompanied Lilandra back to her home world Imperial Center, where she is to be
crowned Empress. We then check in on Jean Grey in Scotland, where she runs into
a dashing fellow by the name of Jason Wyngarde. There’s an instant attraction,
as Jean heads off with Moira MacTaggert, Havok, Polaris, and Multiple Man back
to Muir Isle, where Moira wants to test the limits of Jean’s powers as the
Phoenix. Back on the pier, Wyngarde watches them sail away while musing about
how Jean will soon belong, body and soul, to him and the Hellfire Club!
Back in New York, Scott and Colleen get finished at
the phone company, getting the phone lines for the mansion back up, before
grabbing a bite. They talk about the state of their relationship while Scott
admits that everything’s been completely flipped upside down lately. Meanwhile,
Wolverine drops Storm off in Harlem, before spotting Mariko out of his side
mirror. He abandons the car and runs up to the building she entered where he is
told that she is not to be disturbed. Meanwhile, Storm walks through Harlem,
her father’s birthplace, garnering strange looks from everyone, while horrified
at the poverty and grunge she sees. She finds the building where she was born,
where her father grew up, and enters to find it crawling with drug-addled
teens. The teens think she’s an undercover cop and mean to attack her.
After one of the teens slashes Storm across the hand,
she whips up a hurricane to keep them off balance without hurting them. One of
the teens sneaks up on Ororo to stab her from behind, before he is stopped by
the arrival of Luke Cage and Misty Knight. Luke comments on the hopeless state
of drugs and crime that these kids often find themselves in, while Storm wishes
there was more they could do. Elsewhere, Scott sees Colleen off at the train
station, where she gives Scott a key to her apartment before she leaves. We
then get an epilogue aboard a fancy private plane, where Black Tom Cassidy and
Juggernaut wait to meet someone about killing the X-Men. Juggernaut objects
before the assassin in question, Arcade, makes his appearance, promising that
the X-Men are as good as dead! To be continued!