After last issue saw Wolverine plummet into the
sewers, the Hellfire Club send their henchmen to scour the sub-basements to
make sure he’s really dead. Unknown to them, Wolverine is waiting in the
rafters for them and gets the drop on them, slicing through the henchmen in
brutal and violent fashion. When there is just one henchman left, Wolverine
pulls a “Dirty Harry” and intimidates the man into surrendering, before
grilling him for information on the Hellfire Club and the other X-Men.
Meanwhile, the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club have the X-Men in restraints
that naturally also negate their powers, with Cyclops even fitted with a
ruby-quartz helmet, making him effectively blind. Sebastian Shaw congratulates
Jason Wyngarde on his successful control of Jean Grey as their Black Queen,
while also thinking to himself how Wyngarde will likely try to seize control of
the group for himself soon.
Colossus is confused what’s going on and the other
X-Men can provide no answers, only Cyclops, who can’t communicate at the
moment. He knows that Mastermind’s illusions are causing Jean to think she’s
living the life of an ancestor from the 1700s, and can only see them as her
captured inferiors. Unfortunately, given the time period, she sees Storm, in
particular, as her slave, even striking her when Storm attempts to get through
to her. Cyclops thinks back to a week ago, during their intimate night, when he
and Jean decided to set up a permanent psychic rapport between the two of them,
so that they’d always be with each other in some way. Cyclops is banking that
that rapport will be the key to getting them out of this whole mess.
Nightcrawler inquires why the Hellfire Club have left them alive and Shaw
reveals that they’re to be used as guinea pigs, in order to custom build more
mutants that the Club can use for their own personal gain.
We then take a quick interlude to Muir Island, where
Banshee is finishing up a jog and comes upon an exhausted Moira MacTaggert. She
reveals that Mastermind’s meddling has been causing the psychic blockers Jean
placed on herself to limit her powers to fail, and that she could begin tapping
near infinite levels of power once more! Our second interlude takes us back to
Angel, who returns from a flight to find Professor X up and about. Xavier
admits to feeling helpless to aid his X-Men and also admits that he secretly
resented when Cyclops took over control of the team, fearing he made mistakes
that could have dire consequences. Back in New York, Wolverine continues
sneaking around the Hellfire Club’s headquarters, seeing the only path forward
through a room full of party guests. Before he can make any moves, however,
he’s caught by a guard, with a gun right to his head.
Meanwhile, Cyclops attempts to reach Jean through
their psychic bond, hoping that he can snap her out of the illusion. He
concentrates and finds himself in an entirely white space that he realizes must
be the astral plane. Suddenly he’s dressed in 18th century attire
and Jean appears as the Black Queen, making him realize that this is going to
be harder than he thought. Mastermind appears as well and he and Cyclops begin
a mental sword duel, utterly confusing Cyclops as Mastermind’s powers are not
actually telepathic in nature. So how can he be here? Back with Wolverine, he
overcomes the guard and storms through the headquarters, before being swarmed
by more traditional guards, not wanting cut loose too much in case they’re
legit employees and not henchmen of the Inner Circle. Cyclops and Mastermind’s
duel continues, with it clear that Mastermind is only toying with Cyclops. He
stops his fun and stabs Cyclops straight through the chest, as in the real
world, Cyclops falls to the floor, apparently dead! To be continued!