A man named Jock Forrester sits in a Florida swamp,
having just been told he has inoperable cancer. The creature called Man-Thing
approaches, drawn to the man’s increasing negative emotions. A black smoke
creeps across the ground and Jock Forrester picks up a gun. Spurned on by the
smoky voice, Jock ends his suffering and shoots himself, the smoke overtaking
him and reforming into the evil being called D'Spayre. Man-Thing lunges at
D’Spayre, who makes Man-Thing feel fear, causing Man-Thing’s own power to cause
things that feel fear to burn to effect itself, as D’Spayre takes on the
appearance of Jock Forrester, ready to feed on even more pain.
We cut to the ship, Arcadia, where Scott Summers has
taken a job on the crew, captained by Jock’s daughter, Lee Forrester. The ship
heads ashore to relax at a local bar, where Scott reads a letter he received
detailing Kitty’s little adventure last issue. Speaking of, at the Xavier
Institute, the X-Men work to get the place in working order again, with Storm
leading the others in fixing up the Danger Room. Professor X summons Angel to
his study and asks for Warren’s financial assistance in getting the place back
up and running. Kitty Pryde arrives with refreshments and Nightcrawler and
Wolverine tease her a bit about her destruction of the mansion last issue.
Colossus attempts to console Kitty, but she takes their jokes seriously and
runs out of the room in tears. Kitty makes it all the way outside where
Nightcrawler reappears with her parka. He apologizes for their remarks,
reassuring her that they couldn’t be more proud of how she handled things. His
words seem not to reach her, and Kurt chastises himself for being so cruel,
wondering if perhaps he meant to hurt Kitty, unconsciously.
Back at the bar, the other guys offer Scott to play
pool with them and he takes the opportunity to practice his optic blasts. While
no one is looking, he very lightly shoots the cue ball with an optic beam,
perfectly knocking all of the balls into the pockets in one shot! Lee then asks
Scott to accompany her to see her father. They arrive at the big house to find
Lee’s father replaced by D’Spayre, who morphs the surrounding area into a tall,
foreboding castle. D’Spayre sends out a flash of light and Scott finds himself
reliving some of his worst moments. First, Scott finds himself a child once
more, having to jump out of a burning plane with his brother Alex, while his
parents seemingly perish after the plane explodes. Scott lands and realizes he
remembers everything about that day, after the memories had been locked away
from him for so long.
Scott then finds himself with Alex, surrounded by
Sentinels that look like the new X-Men. They’re forced to destroy them until
Alex is struck down and he and the X-Men rise again and taunt Scott about
killing them. Scott then finds himself on a familiar cliff-face with Jean,
which soon morphs into a church. Jean cycles through her various incarnations,
from Jean, to Marvel Girl, to Phoenix, to Dark Phoenix, as she and Scott are
set to be married. Jean lifts his visor, much like last time, but this time Scott
accidentally kills her with his beam! D’Spayre continues his mental torture of
Scott, until Scott jumps out of the window of the castle into the swamp below.
There, Scott encounters Man-Thing, and the two take the fight back to D’Spayre.
Scott realizes how to beat D’Spayre and thinks of Jean, and the hope she
brought him, having shown him the best and worst humanity has to offer. Scott’s
refusal to give in to despair causes him to be unaffected by D’Spayre, and his
emotions free Man-Thing as well. Man-Thing and D’Spayre burst into flames and
Scott escapes with Lee as Man-Thing and D’Spayre seemingly perish, the audience
only finding out later that both survived after all.