Wolverine is down in the Morlock tunnels looking for survivors and a prisoner to interorgate. Psylocke contacts him to see how things are going and he gives her an update about no survivors and how he ran into Power Pack, but sent them home (which didn't happen as you can find out in the issues of Power Pack). Meanwhile, Moira and the X-men are losing people left and right and we see Storm starting to break down. She looks at Nightcrawler in IC and misses his laughter and prays he lives. She then visits Kitty, who we find can't talk in her current condition. They have put Kitty into basically a big bottle to keep her as "together" as they can, but she is completely phased and has become a living ghost. Piotr stands by Kitty and tells Storm he looks forward to killing the Mauraders for everything they have done and when Ororo realizes how many are injured and dying and how Piotr has turned into a killer when before he was so gentle, she immediately blames herself and her leadership and completely wigs out. Piotr tries to go after her to make sure she's okay, but returns later. Psylocke opens the door, sensing Piotr's pain and he ends up falling on her and hurting her as he passes out.

Psylocke calls out to Rogue and Rogue quickly comes and lifts Collosus off of her. They are trying to figure out if Collosus is still alive since he has no heartbeat in metal form. Callisto basically tells Psylocke she has some broken ribs but isn't going to die in a very casual way and Psylocke is just thrilled to hear it (sarcasm there).

Wolverine is down in the tunnels still and smells a familiar female scent when he's attacked from behind.

We switch to Storm in the middle of a nervous breakdown. She strips off her clothes and runs naked through the woods.

Magneto tries to figure out how Collossus is doing and uses his powers to heal Collossus's wounds. Collossus wakes afterward but we find out he can't move. Magneto can't figure out what he did wrong.

Wolverine finds out he was attacked by Sabertooth and he realizes that Sabertooth is helping the Mauraders and that the Mauraders are being led by a Mister Sinister (before Mr. Sinister becomes overused a a weenie he was a really good "Who is that?" type of villian). Mr. Sinister wanted the Morlocks and the X-men out of the way because they were "wild cards" and he was planning something that didn't include them getting in the way. Sabertooth also has a prisoner, which happens to be the Morlock healer, but Sabertooth doesn't know that. Wolverine plays it cool and picks a fight with Sabertooth so he'll drop the healer. Those two go at it.

Callisto goes after Storm and finds her and confronts her. Storm is feeling sorry for herself and Callisto is having none of it and yells at her about stuff. The two of them get into a fight. We switch back to Wolverine and Sabertooth. Wolverine gets Sabertooth into a position where he knocks a section of tunnel on top of him so that he can get the healer and escape. Wolverine realizes that he's grown quite a bit since being an X-men because before he would have done everything in his power to kill Sabertooth darn the consequences and now he was able to use his head and out-think Sabertooth. He feels a bit better about himself as he carries the healer out of there.

Callisto finally beats some sense into Storm (who by the way found and took a dress off of someone's line and put it on before her and Callisto fought) and gives her back her leadership vest that Rogue had given to Callisto to return. Storm puts on the vest and you know they are going to return to the mansion.

Wolverine carries the healer to the mansion. Storm and Warpath are guarding the tunnel entrance and greet Wolverine when suddenly an explosion/heat wave rips through the tunnel. Wolverine is barely able to get inside in time and we find out he had smelled the New Mutants out in the tunnels and he fears that if the New Mutants had been out there that they were dead now.

My Opinion: Kitty really isn't in this issue for more than a couple of panels and of course she can't talk, but it still does continue the whole "Mutant Massacre storyline. Also, I did like the interaction between Storm and Callisto. Callisto starts to come out as a pretty good character at this point. Really if you think about it Storm really IS being somewhat selfish in her self pity. Callisto has known the Morlocks longer and was their leader longer and she just watched 99% of her people get slaughtered and SHE was holding it together...of all the people to fall into self-pity I would think it would have been her. It also starts to show the mutual respect that Callisto and Storm feel toward one another. Overall? Not a great Kitty issue so if you're looking solely for her don't pick the issue up. If you want to see other character development among the other X-men, go ahead and pick up this issue.

Psylocke is scanning with Cerebro looking for any sign of the New Mutants, but checks on the critical care X-men in the infirmary as well. Kurt is in a coma and she can't even read a trace of him conscious. Collosus is conscious but can't move and is stuck in his armored form. Kitty's state is getting worse and she'll eventually cease to exist, but she is calm and at peace so much so that her courage makes Psylocke ashamed of herself. Psylocke then scans Cypher/Doug Ramsey's room and she knows that Doug loves her with a depth of emotion even he doesn't realize and she wonders how she feels about him (which it turns out she loves him by the way later on).

We switch to the Morlock tunnels where everything has been burned clean. No bodies no nothing. It is like the Morlocks never existed. This upsets Callisto to no end and she wonders what caused it. Turns out that it was lightning. Storm wonders if she was somehow responsible in her wigging out session earlier and wonders if she's getting her powers back. They can't find any trace of the New Mutants, but Magneto refuses to believe that they are dead.

Psylocke senses a prescence sneaking into the mansion grounds. She tries to scan it and pretty much fries her brain. As is she knocks herself through a loop.

We flash to Dazzler who is possessed by Malice and have some foreshadowing to the next issue.

Back to the mansion where Rogue is attacked by Sabertooth and he kicks her butt. Psylocke regains consciousness and realizes how stupid she was because Cerebro magnifed her powers so much that when she made mind contact with Sabertooth she pretty much hurt herself. She is going to contact the X-men, although weakened, when Sabertooth attacks her. He gets a good shot in at her arm and she mind blasts him, which hurts him but not as much as she could do if she had been up to full strength. Psylocke then fights Sabertooth and is doing a pretty good job of it. If she hadn't had broken ribs and a ripped up arm she probably could have done very well. As is she is saved from getting her throat ripped out by Storm and Wolverine. Wolverine and Sabertooth fight and Psylocke realizes she can find out about the Mauraders if she slips into Sabertooth's mind while Wolverine and he are fighting. Wolverine keeps the fight going until Psylocke has all the information she needs and then he dives with Sabertooth off of a cliff. Rogue recovers Wolverine, who is battered a bit but alive and kicking, but Sabertooth is gone.

The X-men, after this, accept Psylocke as one of them and she shows up in a costume at the end of the issue and is happy to be called an X-men.

My Opinion: Not a great Kitty issue really, although the part where Psylocke feels shamed for how brave Kitty is, is pretty cool. But if you want an awesome Psylocke issue you should definitely pick this one up. Makes you realize the whole "Psylocke getting her butt handed to her by Sabertooth" bull crap in the 90's was really stupid. Psylocke has always been much tougher than that.

Kitty is still in critical care during this period of time and isn't in this issue at all.

Storm, Wolverine, Psylocke and Rogue take on Malice who possesses first Dazzler where she's currently working as a background singer and keyboard player for Lila Cheney. Dazzler starts acting very odd, so Lila calls the X-men. Cerebro for the time being is toast thanks to Sabertooth (and since Kitty and Kurt are down they can't fix it), so the X-men have no way of knowing that Dazzler is possessed until they show up at the nightclub and are attacked.

They manage to subdue who they think is Dazzler only to have Wolverine flip out when he's possessed. They take out Wolverine and she possesses Rogue. Rogue/Malice than goes and beats up on the cops outside and Psylocke tells the others of what she's learned of Malice when she slipped into Rogue. She tells the others that Malice is in with the Mauraders and that she was using Dazzler to get to the X-men. Malice is an energy being that possesses people through their emotional center in their brain so that most people can't resist her.

Storm decides to act as bait to try and defeat Malice. They take on Rogue and Malice slips into Storm only to have Storm's sheer force of will and her acceptance of her darkside be her undoing. Storm rips off the pendant that signifys Malice's possession and Malice is gone. They invite Dazzler to come back and join the X-men and she accepts.

We then see at the end of the issue a security guard with Malice's pendant on, showing that she's going to be around as a villian for a while.

My Opinion: Eh...it's not a bad issue really. The art, in my opinion anyway, isn't that great. The women come out looking somewhat skeletal in it. Part of my bias is that I always thought Malice was a stupid one-dimensional character and she was waaaaayyyyy overused over the years, so I'm tired of seeing her, even in some of her early appearances. If you're looking for a Kitty issue though, as I've said, Kitty isn't even in it at all...not even a footnote to her condition.

Madeline Pryor awakens in an ambulance after she remembers a plane crash that she was the only one who walked away from. She's in the ambulance when she tries to remember why she feels she lost something and then she remembers her son. She realizes that she's in hostile territory aboard the ambulance and she knocks the woman who is "treating" her aside and dives out of the ambulance. She remembers that the people who grabbed her and her son called themselves "Mauraders" and they were after her and Nathan because they were family of Scott's. She laments that her husband isn't there to protect her when she needs him when the Mauraders catch up with her and shoot her down.

At the X-mansion the wounded, namely the few surviving Morlocks, Kitty, Kurt and Collosus are being loaded into the Blackbird for transport to Muir Island. Callisto is going along for the ride to be by her people. Psylocke and Rogue are going along to provide support in the event of an attack. Dazzler and Longshot are going along so that the others can keep an eye on them.

Storm and Wolverine head upstate to do a "job".

Madeline wakes in a hospital thankful she's alive. She tells the doctors who she is.

Storm and Wolverine arrive at what is left of Sara Grey's home. She and her two children lived there. They are wondering why Sara was attacked and Wolverine senses no death in the fire/bomb explosion and they are grateful. Storm wonders if Forge is in danger if the Mauraders are going after people they care about and wonders if she should swallow her pride and ask for Forge's help in recovering her powers as he offered. She's interupted when Wolverine ends up smelling someone's scents...Scott and Jean's. Freaked out that Jean is dead and shouldn't be alive, Wolverine feels like his senses are lying to him and he nails Storm accidently unconscious and runs into the woods like a wild animal.

We then switch to the Blackbird where Kitty isn't following orders well. She comes out to the front of the ship when she's supposed to stay in her Lifecell, but she wants a chance with Longshot, whom she considers beautiful. She knows she can't tell him how she feels because she is unable to, she laments mentally that she doesn't want to die. She decides she has nothing to lose so she kisses him. Shocking to her he feels it. Kitty runs off before Longshot can talk to her, but he tells Rogue he got impressions from Kitty like he did off of inantimate objects and that he had gotten scenes from her past and scenes from her future, which included chaotic jumbles and a yawning void that hungered for her. Rogue and he both wondered if it was death he saw and Rogue looks really terrified for Kitty.

Storm awakens the captive of Crimson Commando, Stonewall and Super Sabre. She goes through an adventure where the group thought she was a criminal, although it's continued next issue. The group thought she was an arsonist who burned down Sara Grey's home, but when they find out they were mistaken they go after her anyway figuring she knows too much.

My Opinion:

If you're looking for a good Kitty issue...well the scene she's in is a good one, but overall she's not in the issue for more than a page, so I would just pass on this one.

As the "Behind the Scenes" implies, Kitty isn't in this issue at all. Just figured I'd put that up front.

Wolverine is flipping out and going into animal mode after smelling Jean's scent, but eventually he wakes up and starts to come back to himself, but only after two people die.

Storm is running with a young woman by the name of Priscilla. Priscilla had been dealing drugs for quite some time even though her family was loaded and she didn't need the money. She had just done it all for the thrill and that's why the group of hunters were after her. Storm tries her best to keep the girl alive, but it's all for naught because the girl is just plain evil. First she gets ticked at Storm for not killing Super Sabre when she has a chance (tripwire would have taken off his head if Storm hadn't thought better of it) and when Super Sabre and Storm get into a scuffle the girl brings down an avalanche to bury them and take off. She ends up killing a couple of people and stealing their motor home, which breaks down further down the highway and that's when Storm catches up to her and knocks her out. Wolverine had watched the girl kill the couple and hadn't stopped her because he wasn't himself and the incident starts to wake him up back to himself.

Stonewall catches up to Storm and she knocks him into quicksand and instead of letting him drown saves him. At that point Priscilla tries to kill Storm with a huge rock while she's still recovering her strength, but Crimson Commando shoots her and kills her (we don't miss her trust me). Storm then takes on Crimson Commando with Wolverine showing up in time to guard Stonewall from doing anything unfair to Storm. Storm wins the knife fight (duh) and tells Crimson Commando she'll let them live if they turn themselves into the police. The two reluctantly agree and turn themselves in. We leave with Storm and Wolverine having a moral discussion about how ruthless you can really be before you become evil.

My Opinion: Yeah, I could have gone into more super-detail about Storm's adventure, but honestly the morals at the end of the issue almost wreck the story because you are hit over the head with a sledgehammer about them. "If we become like our enemies to defeat them how do we stop from becoming our enemy", "What lives are worth saving and which ones are not worth saving"...it's pretty angst ridden. But honestly, overall, for a Storm story it isn't bad...it shows a lot of her resourcefulness that she's able to survive everything and come out in one piece.

This issue takes place on Muir Island and once again Kitty isn't in it. Don't worry though, in the upcoming issues she's in them.

Longshot, Psylocke, Dazzler and Rogue are having a training session and it turns into a mess when Banshee breaks it up. The X-men return to the house and are working out in the gym when Callisto starts verbally going at Dazzler for being a weakling. Dazzler gets fed up and leaves the island where she hits a bar and parties for a while. She is talking to a guy outside the bar when she almost gets run down by a car driven by Juggernaut. She decides stupidly to go at Juggernaut alone to prove herself to the X-men and it doesn't go well.

Juggernaut is thrilled when he finds out she's Dazzler and wants her autograph. Sadly he doesn't even really try to hurt her at all through the issue because he worships the ground she walks on and she STILL gets her butt handed to her. At the end of the issue she overextends her powers and passes out. Juggernaut is horrified and thinks he killed her and the issue ends.

My Opinion: This is a Dazzler based issue period really, so if you like her pick it up, if you don't, I'd avoid it. Kitty isn't in it at all, so if you're looking for a good Kitty issue I wouldn't pick this one up.

Little Franklin Richards has a dream. A horrible dream in which his dad kills the Fantastic Four and the X-men. He wakes up and goes to find his father, and Reed is too busy to deal with him so he asks Susan to do it. Susan uses a forcefield to whisk Franklin to her and when she finds out he has had one of his "special" dreams where he sees possible futures she hugs him close and tells him not to worry that she'd protect him. He tells her the dream where Reed kills everyone and then opens a book and turns into Dr. Doom. Susan is trying to figure out if it is normal childhood anxieties or if its something more sinister when she finds Reed's old journal from college and Franklin flips out and tells her that's the book from his dream.

We shift to Muir Island where Havok is trying to help Rogue and she's not going for it. We then shift to the lab where the X-men are looking in on Shadowcat. Kitty's only means of communication is through Psylocke and when the others leave their examination complete Kitty relaxes. She's trying to be cheerful to raise spirits but everyone knows she's dying and no one can figure out anything they can do to stop it. They are talking to Moira about the situation when Magneto comes on the comm and says he has found out about an experimental device that Reed Richards developed that might save Kitty.

Storm is a bit antsy about Magneto going to the Fantastic Four because they still think he's a super villian but Magneto means to tell them the truth and to get the device to save Kitty.

Longshot and Dazzler are out on the sea looking for a lost group of Fishermen and they supposedly finds one, which foreshadows that the Fisherman is evil and is looking forward to getting on the island.

We switch back to the FF building where Susan confronts Reed about his journal. She read something in it that she didn't like and hands it to Reed to read himself. Franklin watches in his dream self and waits for the really bad stuff to start.

We switch to the library where She-Hulk is doing some research. She then meets up with The Thing and they talk for a few minutes when suddenly there is an explosion at a construction site that if the site goes down a whole bunch of the city is going with it. She Hulk and The Thing try to stop the collapse but aren't having a lot of luck because of lack of leverage when Magneto shows up and helps them. He even gives The Human Torch orders and the four of them end up at least stopping the building from going down.

Later at the FF building, Susan is holding Magneto in a retaining bubble because they don't trust him and Magneto asks them to help with Shadowcat. They agree and we switch to Muir Island (pretty much) where Reed is having a lot of doubts about his abilities and stuff. She-Hulk and The Thing unload the machine for Kitty and Reed is having some serious mental debates over whether or not he knows what he's doing. He's scared he'll kill Kitty instead of help her like the mistakes he made with the rocket that originally gave the FF their powers. Franklin's astreal form watches his dad leave the plane and worries.

Reed enters the room later where everyone is waiting for him and tells them that he can't help Shadowcat. Magneto calls him on it saying that by all of the literature he'd read that the machine was perfect for what they needed to save Kitty. Reed disagrees. Magneto tries to take the machine to try and save Kitty himself, but She-Hulk stops him forcefully. Human Torch is losing his temper when Wolverine socks him in the gut and loses it himself. He dives at Reed just like in Franklin's dream (we are reminded of this by Franklin's astreal form which is in the FF jet watching the whole thing) with his claws out and basically tells Reed he's going to help try to save Kitty or die.

My Opinion: These are some pretty important Kitty issues. She's really NOT in them too terribly much but they are about her and trying to save her (save for the sub-plot with Dr. Doom, but you know...). I would suggest any Kitty fan should read these issues.

Okay, this issue has a lot in it, so be prepared to get a little bit lost in the midst of all of it.

Wolverine has Reed in his grasp and is threatening to kill him if he doesn't save Kitty. Storm tries to get Wolverine to let Reed go, but Wolverine isn't listening. Magneto is going to separate them, but Thing doesn't trust Magneto so he isn't letting Magneto anywhere near Reed. Thing decides to help by slapping his hands together and creating a mini sonic boom, which sends tons of people flying, and gets Magneto out of the picture, but doesn't budge Wolverine. It does however put Storm into close enough proximity to Wolverine to grab his arm. Storm is trying to separate a mad Wolverine from Reed when Human Torch comes around (from where Wolverine had knocked him unconscious last issue). He sees what is going on and decides this has to be a trap set by Magneto. He turns his flame on and tries to scorch Wolverine to scare him away from Reed, but Storm gets in the crossfire and he torches Storm's arm/body instead (hurting her pretty darn bad).

Rogue shows up and sees Wolverine berserk and Storm hurt and decides she's going to break up everything. She grabs Thing and kisses him, both of them somewhat enjoying the kiss because the both of them are trapped in their bodies by their powers. Rogue steals his powers and memories and realizes how beautiful he really is. Psylocke meanwhile is attacking The Human Torch mentally and she knocks him out. She tries to grab Wolverine mentally and calm him down while taking some of Storm's massive pain away. Wolverine isn't happy about it. She-Hulk is surprised an X-man is helping them as she tries to hold onto Wolverine. It isn't working very well. Wolverine is like a wild animal in a snare. He'll go to any extreme to get at his objective, even if it means seriously hurting himself in the process.

Franklin's astreal form tries to stop them and he ends up throwing his physical form, which is across the ocean, out of bed and onto the floor, hurting himself a bit. Susan comes in and tries to calm him down when he explains the situation the others are in. Finally Franklin falls asleep again. Susan goes out into the other room and picks up Reed's journal and wishes she had never read it. She loses control and yells out how she hates Reed.

Back to Muir Isle where Havok, Dazzler and Longshot are watching the monitor on what is happening and run to help the X-men. The "fisherman" that Longshot and Dazzler rescued from the drink last issue wakes up and we find out he is a robot, with weapons. Sharon, a nurse at Muir, decides she doesn't like the sound or look of the robot when he starts talking about potential threats and missions being compromised and we see the robot turn her way.

Moira stops the fight between Wolverine and Reed by stepping between them and telling Wolverine he'll have to go through her to get to Reed. Storm also steps between them, her wounds bandaged up a bit, but you can tell she's in pain. Wolveirne calms down. Storm apologizes to Reed for her teammate but Reed says he understands why Wolverine attacked him. He also says once again that he can't help Kitty. Rogue tells Storm not to worry about Reed, that they can work around him by copying his knowledge with Psylocke's telepathy and doing the work themselves, but Storm says no. She knows it will cost Kitty her life, but she refuses to sink to such low levels as to forcefully steal knowledge out of someone's mind. Havok, Dazzler and Longshot show up right when Storm is telling the Fantastic Four that it would be best if they left before they provoked further conflict. They are about to load the ship when Longshot calls everyone's attention to the robot taht has just come outside and shed its human "skin". Turns out the robot was sent by Doctor Doom.

A hologram of Doctor Doom pops out of the robot and offers his help with Kitty. He says that he can mimick Reed's experiments quite well and will save Kitty. He won't say what the price is for this service, but we know that it will be something big and bad in the future. Reed begs the X-men not to accept Dr. Doom's help, that the price would be too high for them to pay. He says they would be making a bargain with the devil. Storm then tells him that the whole situation is not his concern and that he had been asked to leave, so leave already. Reed is still arguing with Storm that Doom is evil when Moira steps in, tells him this is her land and if he doesn't leave now she'll call the authorities and get him arrested for trespassing and assault. She-Hulk tells Reed that Moira means it and she does. Moira tell Reed to just get the heck off her land now. Dr. Doom says that once the X-men have made a decision they know where to reach him and disappears right as Reed, head down and looking guilty, gets onto his plane to leave.

The X-men are very happy to see the Fantastic Four leave and right after they do Storm passes out and goes into shock. She's rushed into surgery. Moira is talking skin graphs and other things and Kitty watches it all from a distance, mentally saying that this was all her fault. She says she wants to live, but not if it means the X-men have to sell their souls to save her. She wonders if maybe it's time to take the decision out of the X-men's hands.

Reed returns home and is confronted by a very angry Fantastic Four.

The X-men debate what to do about Dr. Doom and Kitty. Storm somehow is awake and in the living room area of Muir with the X-men, so we assume she's going to be just fine.

Back to the FF tower. Turns out that the journal was talking about mutants and how they are better able to adapt to their environment and how they are the next step in evolution and all and then the journal implies that Reed purposefully had his team bombarded by the cosmic rays in the hopes that they would develop super powers. Determined that Reed was just too bright to make a stupid mistake like forgetting about cosmic rays the team believes what is written in the journal. Ben takes off for who knows how long, Johnny takes off as well and says he doesn't know when and if he'll be back. We don't know what Susan's decision is.

Back to the X-men. The X-men, after a lot of debating, have reached a decision. Storm decides that she'll make the deal with Doom so that she's the only one obligated to pay back the debt, but the X-men are having none of it. They decide they're all in it together and decide to accept Doom's help. And onto next issue.

My Opinion: Don't blink in this issue or you'll miss something. There is a lot going on. Personally? My favorite issues in this series are the last ones, you'll see why when I explain them, but I can't call the beginning ones boring.

We open with Dr. Doom showing off, really.

He's put Storm under anesthetic and is looking at the serious second and third degree burns on her left arm and shoulder, talking about how bad the scarring would be even with Moira's advanced technology. But, he says, luckily for the X-men he's Dr. Doom. He basically rebuilds the tissues in Storm's arm from the ground floor up and heals the burns, without even breaking a sweat. Psylocke and the other X-men note this bitterly and think of all of the burn victims that could have been saved in Von Doom had just shared some of his secrets with the world.

We find out that the X-men are in Dr. Doom's castle and aren't exactly happy about it. They are talking about how nasty Doom is when one of the robot guards talks about an incoming attack. We find it's not really an incoming attack it's just Rogue returning from a shopping trip she took to Latveria's (the country that Dr. Doom is the leader of) capital. The robot guards attack her, wrecking her new outfit, and the X-men end up basically doing a training session on Doom's robots.

The X-men are surrounded by another batch of guards when Doom and Storm show up. The X-men see she's completely healed and she wants to know what is going on. Rogue points to the robots and says that they started it and Doom apologizes saying that mistakes were made on both sides.

Meanwhile, Kitty has come to a decision. She decides she won't let the X-men make a deal with the devil for her. She floats out of her holding tank and heads for the roof. Franklin's astreal form yells at her to stop and not go anywhere, but she isn't listening to anything, but her own thoughts. She decides she's going to wait for the dawn and then relax her concentration, letting her molecules go. She prays that God and her friends will forgive her for what she is about to do. Franklin is freaking out and begging her not to do this, that he'll make his dad save her, but please don't let herself die. Lockheed has a better idea than begging. He throws a dragon fit and lets out a roar that shakes the castle. The X-men realize something is wrong. Psylocke connects with Kitty enough for Kitty to tell her to leave her alone. The X-men are trying to figure out how to get to Kitty and stop her. Franklin realizes he's the only one who can save Kitty and he walks out onto the ledge where she is. He keeps yelling at her and begging her not to go and that he won't let everyone die. Kitty is watching the sun come up and is about to disappear when she finally realizes that someone is screaming. Franklin screams at her not to leave him alone and she turns, looking down at him and realizing who he is. She asks mentally why he's crying and gets "Don't go, don't go, don't go" over and over again in answer. The X-men break into Kitty's room, where Franklin is hugging Kitty through the life cell and Lockheed is looking happy. The X-men can see Franklin's astreal form and wonder what he's doing here, realizing how lucky they are that Kitty is still with them. Doom shows up and says he'll be ready to save Kitty shortly. Franklin is upset.

Reed at the FF tower is trying to figure out how to talk to Sue about everything and tries to figure out how to get the FF to believe him that he didn't mean for them to go through the accident. He's even starting to doubt himself. He goes into Franklin's room where Franklin whimpers a little bit in his sleep. Reed sits down on Franklin's bed and Franklin, still half asleep tells Reed that he's scared and throws himself into Reed's arms, saying that he was glad his papa was there. Reed tells Franklin he needs his sleep and tries to find a way to make him feel better after his bad dream so he tells Franklin his favorite story. Sue walks up right as he and Franklin are both laughing at an elephant shape that Reed is making with his stretchy arms and she cries and realizes how beautiful Reed really is.

The X-men have a training session at Doom's castle and decide to see how Kitty is doing.

Thing is in a bar and his friends the bartender tries to get him to talk. Thing only wants to eat and drink. He walks out of the bar not even the least bit tipsy and he is depressed he couldn't even get falling down drunk as he thinks of everything that he thinks Reed has done. He's walking down the street when he sees something going on. He sees a severe car accident and dives into the fray when he finds out that a child is trapped in a burning car. He throws a burning fuel truck into the river and gets the child out of the wreck. The mother is so happy to see her child alive and throws her arms around Ben and kisses him, which surprises the heck out of Ben. The mother puts the child into Ben's arms and thanks him again for coming to the rescue. All of the emergency personell thank him as well and he starts to realize that being the Thing isn't so bad.

Johnny is at Alicia's house (his girlfriend who is a blind sculptor) and she talks to him about how his powers are a tool and he needed to consider them that way. He, it turns out, isn't upset with Reed. He's upset that Sue and Ben hate Reed and he actually loves having his powers because they made him into such a better person than he used to be before he gained them. He doesn't know how to tell the others that without sounding like a callous jerk kid. Alicia comforts him, tells him that his heart is good and true and that he's the man she loves.

Back at the FF tower, Reed has finally gotten Franklin back to sleep and he realizes how everything he's ever done pales in the face of his son and what a miracle life really was. Sue becomes visible and offers him a cup of coffee and he realizes that she's smiling at him. She says that the man who wrote that journal wasn't Reed because if Reed had been the writer he would never have been able to relate to Franklin that way. She realizes that the journal is fake at that moment and kisses Reed.

Doom is almost ready to start the process to save Shadowcat. Psylocke is keeping Kitty's psyche in tact, but it's getting hard to do because the process is still progressing.

Back at the FF tower Reed is thinking of Kitty's predictament and tells Sue that Magneto was right, that he could theoretically save Shadowcat. He explains that all the tests on the device came back positive and everything, but the tests on the shuttle mission had been positive too and it had gone horribly wrong. He tells Sue that she might no longer doubt him but he's not so lucky. He realizes he's got to face his fears and that means doing what he can to save Shadowcat. The rest of the team shows up and they decide they're on their way to Latveria.

My Opinion: Great Kitty moments in this issue. It shows how much Kitty's friends mean to her that she would do something that she considers so very wrong, like suicide, to save them despite themselves. And it shows a little bit of the bonding that Kitty and Franklin do by the end of this LS. Check out the next issue. Some pretty cool stuff happens

We open with Kitty reflecting that she's dying and there is nothing anyone can do about it. She knows that it is wrong for someone her age to be thinking about death and it sucks. By tommorrow, she figures, she'll be gone. She sees Lockheed depressed sitting outside of her lifecell and tries to cheer him up and then remembers she can't talk. She rants a bit about that when suddenly Franklin shows up in his astreal form. Lockheed checks him out and licks him, happy to see him. Kitty laughs as Franklin makes "ick" types of faces and rants about dragon germs. He tells Kitty that his daddy is coming to save her and that he's the most smart man in the world so he's sure to save her. He then tells Kitty about his prophetic dreams and he makes Kitty cry. Realizing he'd been a blabbermouth he decides to tell Kitty the elephant story that Reed told him to cheer her up. He tries to make the shapes with his fingers as he tells the story.

We switch to the FF in mid-flight. Sue holds Franklin and talks to Ben about Reed and they decide they just need to have faith in Reed and pray that he realizes that he's not evil or bad. Johnny tries to figure out what he's going to say to Storm when he sees her next and then tells She-Hulk how the Dr. Doom and Reed grudge match got started when they were both in college. In the front of the plane Reed is sitting and looking at the journal when Franklin's astreal form shows up and tells him that he visited Kitty and told her that he'd be there for her and that he'd save her. Reed is worried that he'll let Franklin down and tries to tell him that but Franklin tells him that he needs to get back to keeping Kitty company and disappears before Reed can get it out.

The X-men have a training session, again to keep themselves busy. Kitty is still visiting with Franklin and Franklin talks about how he had a baby sister but she'd been still-born and his mom couldn't have anymore kids. Kitty understands being a single kid herself and they both think at the same time that if they had a sister or brother they'd want their sister/brother to be like the other. It takes them a minute to realize that they just heard each other's thoughts. Cue the entrance of Psyocke, who smiling tells them that she mind-linked them so they could have a proper conversation. Any type of conversation they could have had though is wrecked when Doom shows up and asks Psylocke if she's ready to hold Kitty's mind together during the process. Psylocke says yes and Franklin hides behind the life cell. Lockheed doesn't look happy to see Doom and doesn't through the entire LS (it's a nice touch). The process begins.

Magneto uses his powers to create a metal statue and Doom zooms out a holographic image to warn him not to do it again because it will screw up the process to save Shadowcat. Magneto listens for all of three seconds when the FF plane shows up and Magneto makes it crash. The magnetic power surge causes problems in the chamber where the operation on Kitty is being performed. Dr. Doom sicks the X-men on Reed and the others blaming the entire thing on Reed and Kitty watches and knows that Doom is lying, but can't do anything about it. She also knows the only chance she's got is that if Reed and Dr. Doom combine their powers together to save her and she figures she's screwed because that's never going to happen.

The X-men and the FF get into a rip roaring fight until a voice of reason tells them that they are all being idiots. And that voice happens to belong to Franklin. He shows up on Lockheed's back and tells them all off and yells at them that their fight is just making Kitty fizz away faster and that she's dying and don't any of them even care? The lot of them, FF and X-men alike, suddenly look very guilty and feel really stupid.

Kitty realizes that she's dying and tells Psylocke that while she's not going to give up, she figures she's going to lose this fight and is okay with it. Psylocke looks majorly determined and tells Kitty that she's lost too many friends in this world and she will NOT add Kitty to those numbers. Reed shows up and looks over Doom's equipment, realizing that there is a mistake in the readouts he sees. He suddenly reaches over and turns off the process. Doom and Reed yell at one another about what is right and wrong, but Franklin stops them. He asks Doom and Reed to work together and Doom, surprisingly, listens to him. Reed explains the mistake he found and that if the procedure had been allowed to continue Kitty's own bio-feedback would have killed her. He realizes he will have to run the machine manually to compensate for the bio-feedback. Doom picks that minute to start playing mind games with Reed, realizing how vunerable Reed is when he sees the journal. Reed hesitates and Psylocke yells she's losing Kitty and to DO something. The X-men debate on what to do. Rogue is going to absorb Reed's knowledge, but Storm stops her, realizing that if Reed doesn't overcome his doubts now he'll never be the same man again. Wolverine agrees with her. Sue realizes looking at Doom that he's the one that wrote that journal, she's sure of it and prays that Reed will overcome his doubts.

Reed finally comes to the conclusion that if he was a horrible person his friends and family would not have the faith in him that they do.

We switch to Kitty's perspective, later in the evening. She's happy to be alive and wishes she could be downstairs dancing with the others. Reed explains to the X-men that Kitty's molecular cohesion is back within normal perameters, but her body will have to heal itself. While he and Doom were able to stop her body from getting worse and killing her, her body would have to go through a normal healing process to heal her phasing ability, which in turn was going to take time. But, "...the prognosis is good. Her recovery should be complete. My mistake -- and Doom's -- was to rush things along." So, we get the impression that given time Kitty will recover okay.

Reed and Magneto bury the hatchet when Magneto apologizes for over-reacting. Sue confronts Doom about the journal and tells him she knows he wrote it. Doom and her confrontation gets so heated that everyone wonders what is going to happen when Sue smiles and just says that the FF won because they had Reed back and the team was stronger than ever. Franklin is asleep when she gets over to the couch where the team is and we find out where Franklin went. He goes to visit Kitty, who can talk now and Kitty tells Franklin that she'll be out of the tube someday and hopefully they'll be able to hold hands for real. He says he'd like that and he and Kitty start to waltz to the music down below. Franklin asks if it would be okay if he visited her from time to time in his dream form and Kitty says she'd like that and the two continue dancing.

My Opinion: Very awesome issue. I love the play between Kitty and Franklin and I love the way Franklin is the voice of reason...the phrase "out of the mouths of babes" comes to mind...throughout the issue. I wish they had done more with the friendship between Kitty and Franklin. The two of them seemed to get along great. Some parts of the issue where the two of them are talking and stuff almost makes you want to cry (if you're that type, which normally I'm not, but for some odd reason it got to me tonight). I'd go out and get these issues pronto. Pretty important stuff and good Kitty moments.

Okay, this issue is majorly trippy because the X-men are fighting demons and Forge's past. Roma, Storm and Forge (who have their own LS before this issue and stuff) are being held captive by a demon force from Forge's past. Turns out that Forge, in Vietnam, was there when all of his teammates got wiped out by the Vietnamese so he used his powers in grief and shock to bring back his buddies to kill the Vietnamese. To even the scale and stop the demon from taking over the world and send the demon back to Hell the X-men have to give up their lives willingly to close the gate. Madelline too. That's the basic overview of the issue. For more details I'd have to go into the past issues and what the "Fall of the Mutants" is all about, but since the X-men don't stay dead anyway, it doesn't really matter. All you really need to know is that the rest of the world thinks that the X-men died in Dallas and that includes Kitty who is watching TV when she sees the X-men die where she is recovering on Muir Island. Moira calls her down to the infirmary for some good news and Kitty is thrilled to see that Nightcrawler is out of his coma and awake. Kurt is happy to see her too, but realizes she's hiding something and asks if it has something to do with the X-men. Kitty throws herself into his arms and says that the news is the worst.

We then see that Forge is not a popular person anymore as people call him murderer and other nasty things as he walks into the sunset, knowing that he killed his friends. Then Roma brings the X-men back (told you they weren't going to stay dead...didn't even last an issue) and the X-men choose to stay on Earth and that is how they end up in Australia and for a while they are invisible to electronic devices and stuff.

My Opinion: I always thought "Fall of the Mutants" was a disappointment. I thought it would have made more sense to leave the X-men dead and had Kitty and Kurt and the New Mutants have to pick up the pieces and carry on, creating new teams (thus new blood and new storylines and such) and it would have given the "Fall of the Mutants" ultimate impact. So when they didn't even keep the X-men dead for more than two pages I was needless to say ticked when I read it...and I was reading it as a back issue so I KNEW they weren't going to stay dead. The only thing you really need out of this issue is to know that Kitty and Kurt think that the X-men are dead and are trying to carry on, and thus we get Excalibur (awesome book) formed in the process. Kitty IS in the issue, but I'll let you decide if you really need to own it or not. There are better Kitty issues and there are worse Kitty issues.

Heh, how to explain this issue. Okay, the thing is that this issue is a complete dream sequence of Illyana's where she has to save the X-men (who are clones) from the Brood. It's a very trippy issue to get through. Kitty IS in it as a clone and also as part of Illyana's dream as her regular old self. Let me give you a quick overview.

Illyana is in her room writing in her journal and talking about a dream she had where Kitty is in the room with her and asking her about a suit of armor that Kitty found in the closet. Illyana then goes into a story about how she got the armor. Oh by the way Lockheed is a major player in this issue as well.

Illyana and Lockheed end up taking on Warlock (a flashback to when Illyana first met Warlock and thought he was a dangerous type). She gets the TO virus on her arm and flashes to Limbo where to cure herself she tries to hack off her own arm with her soulsword. She then wakes up in bed but not in her room because none of her stuff is there. She takes some of Kitty's clothes thinking that it's a bad joke played on her by the New Mutants, but then Kitty comes into the room and asks who she is and what she's doing there. Illyana gives her explaination about being Piotr's sister to the X-men, but they aren't listening. The X-men lock Illyana in her room. Her arm is still attached but numb, so she has it in a sling. She tries to conjour a magic pentagram to get her out of there, but she isn't strong enough yet. Lockheed comes to her rescue and flies her out of the mansion, knowing that the X-men are up to no good. Illyana then ends up defending herself from the X-men. She realizes that in this dimension, wherever it is, Wolverine doesn't have any claws and other differences among the X-men. Illyana then stumbles across an alien spaceship with Lockheed and fights the Brood. Illyana fights them off with an alien rifle and finds the space suit in the ship. She puts the armor on and is then attacked by the X-men. When she ends up confronting the Brood queen it turns out to be Professor Xavier and the X-men are under his influence. He reveals that he grew the X-men in test tubes and that they are clones of the real X-men. The X-men overhear this and are NOT happy. They take on the Brood and win, with some help from Lockheed who scorches the Brood queen into ashes.

The X-men figure they are doomed, but Illyana transports them to Limbo and using her magic cures them of the Brood eggs growing inside them. She then sends them to another dimension where they can be happy. She's then back in her room where Kitty tries on the armor and discusses the fate of the X-men with Illyana. We then switch to the real Illyana where she's writing in her journal about her dream and about how she wished it was real that her powers had saved the X-men, that Kitty wasn't hurt and everything. Lockheed is wrapped around her shoulders as she realizes that the X-men and her brother are dead and that Forge is still alive and well. She decides she needs to do something about that.

Like I said...trippy dream sequence.

My Opinion: Really if you think about it, I thought this was a pretty good dream issue just because it reminds me of some of the weirder dreams I've had in the way it unfolds itself and skips around. Also, Lockheed and Illyana make a good team in it, so if you want to read a solo Illyana issue, go forth and read this. If you are looking for a good Kitty issue, skip this one. Kitty is only in it as a dream in the first couple of panels and the last couple of panels and otherwise she's a clone that is infested with the Brood and is pretty much a bad guy in the rest of the issue. Not a great Kitty issue.

Forge is in troouuuubbblllleee!!!

Sorry I couldn't resist.

Illyana is out for revenge in this issue of the New Mutants and it could very well spell out the end of everything if she suceeds.

Illyana confronts Magneto and tells him that they have to go and kill Forge in revenge for the deaths of the X-men, but Magneto is slowly losing it himself and not only refuses to help her one way or the other, when she disappears he forbids the other New Mutants from using their powers or leaving the house or he'll make them. The New Mutants don't like the sound of that. Illyana takes off in a teleportal to Muir Island where she talks to Kitty. Kitty is thrilled to see her and is actually able to hug her briefly but concentrating to stay solid. Illyana starts ranting about Doug being dead and the X-men being dead and how they need to do something. Kitty tries to calm her down and explain to her that she's grieving too, but nothing...not all the power in the universe can bring the dead back again and killing Forge won't take away the pain either. Kitty is trying to figure out why Illyana is acting this way and Illyana can't understand how Kitty can take everything so mature all of a sudden. She was going to ask for Kitty's help, but realizes it's worthless to try. Kitty tries again to talk to her, but Illyana is beyond listening and takes off. Kitty falls to the ground crying, with Lockheed trying to calm her as she asks how Illyana could ever accuse her of not caring about the X-men...they were her family.

The New Mutants are getting their uniforms on behind Magneto's back when Illyana shows up in a teleportal and grabs her uniform from a box. The New Mutants are faster this time and dive through the portal after Illyana and are shocked at how horrendous Limbo has gotten with Illyana's mood. Illyana, despite the New Mutants begging, grabs her soul sword so she can kill Forge with it, and it makes Limbo not under her control while it is missing from Limbo and as the New Mutants disappear into a new portal, Illyana clad in Soul Steel armor from head to foot, Sym looks forward to his new rule in Limbo.

The New Mutants appear in Dallas and try to take on Forge only to find out he's being protected by Freedom Force. The New Mutants essentially get their butts handed to them a couple of times fighting Freedom Force until Illyana realizes that Forge is actually Mystique in disguise and she gets a bead on where Forge really is. All the while Destiny keeps yelling about the end of the world and how it is Illyana's fault and how the fate of reality is going to rest on Illyana's shoulders (cue foreshadowing of Inferno). As the issue progresses Illyana looks more and more like a demon. She grows a tail, her eyes glow red and she gets horns on top of her head...she becomes Darkchilde completely by the end of the issue and takes off after Forge. Freedom Force realizes that there is nothing more that they can do for Forge...that he is on his own and Destiny realizes that the fate of everything rests with the choice that Illyana makes.

My Opinion: Pretty good Kitty moments in this issue, few as they are and it is good to see Kitty and Illyana touching bases. It's also the last time Kitty and adult Illyana are together as friends, so pick up the issue and weep for the loss of our Magik, who should never have been reverted to a child and then killed by the Legacy Virus darn it!!!

The issue starts with Kitty having a nightmare where she is stuck in a movie set with the "now dead" X-men. Everything is very trippy and weird and then Rachel shows up in the dream and has a conversation with Kitty, but then she is chained by the X-men/movie actors. Kitty then reaches where Rachel is chained and phases her free and Rachel says something about seeing Kitty soon. The X-men then turn into Warwolves and Kitty backs into a wall and realizes she can't phase. She is screaming "No please" types of things when she wakes up screaming. Still half asleep she runs through the wall of her room on Muir Island and onto the lawn. She watches the sunrise where she sees to her amazement the Phoenix Effect. She tries to figure out the symbolism and returns to her room where she tries to pet Lockheed and phases through him. She gets irritated that she has to concentrate to stay solid. She then remembers that she had been looking at pictures of the X-men and had fallen asleep. She looks at the pictures again and starts to cry, falling to the floor in grief. Lockheed tries to confort her as she cries for her lost friends.

We then switch to the future Excalibur lighthouse where Meggan is swimming with some dolphins. She sees the Phoenix Effect and heads back to the lighthouse. She wonders where Brian is and then she sees tons of articles and old pictures of Betsy on the floor and sees the TV where the news is covering the death of the X-men. Meggan falls apart because Betsy had always been kind to her and she is grieving hard for her. She goes to find Brian and sees him so drunk that the smell is making her ill. Brian is mean to her as she tries to console him and she flies off to their bedroom where she is feeling sorry for herself and then realizes that he's just lashing out because he's grief-stricken. Meggan realizes she can't stay there when Brian is still in such a state and she leaves a note and takes off to try and find some advice on what to do.

Back to Muir Island where Nightcrawler is trying his best to get himself killed in a robot simulation when Kitty phases in and stops the robots before they can cut Kurt to pieces. Kitty then rips him a new one for being an idiot. Kurt agrees after a few moments and Kitty realizes that he actually feels guilty because he's happy to be alive after beating the reaper with the injuries he had sustained. He then tells Kitty about the dream he'd had the night before and Kitty realizes that he had the same dream she did the night before. They are trying to figure out the significance of that when Gatecrasher shows up (if you don't know who Gatecrasher is, she's the leader of the Technet, an interdimensional bunch of bounty hunters that are usually being hired to hunt down Captain Britain by Saturnyne. Saturnyne is the maintainer of 616 *our reality* and other such sections of reality to maintain order. If you have no idea who I am talking about, you're just going to have to read Excalibur because the Technet are sort of hard to explain...in a good way :-).

Gatecrasher asks to see the owner of the home, namely Moira, but Moira isn't there which is what Kurt and Kitty tell her. Meggan takes that opportunity to show up and tell Kitty that she needs to speak to her and it's urgent. Kurt is completely lost because he doesn't even know who Captain Britain or Meggan are. Gatecrasher than plays a message from Saturnyne. The message demands that any mutants on Muir Island (basically) are to help and apprehend Phoenix, who is heading toward Earth because Phoenix is a threat to reality. Kitty isn't happy about them forcing her and the others to try and capture Rachel and tells Gatecrasher that until she knows the score of what is going on, no one is taking Rachel anywhere. Which leads to Kitty and Meggan getting captured by the Technet. Kurt gets away by teleporting.

We switch to Rachel who is trying her best to get away from the Warwolves who were sent by Mojo to track her down. She is crashing from one stage to another and finally crashes through a wall into what looks to be London. She's a bit confused, but is too busy alluding the Warwolves to think about it. Rachel wastes one of the Warwolves while running away and the other Warwolves find it and howl in grief. Gatecrasher hears it from on top of a tower and Snee (a little creature that always sits on her shoulder and calls her "Mother" all the time) says he senses the Starchilde (Rachel). Gatecrasher is pleased.

We then switch to the lighthouse where Captain Britain is currently drunk off his butt. Kurt just decides to sober the guy up the old fashioned, and quick, way and throws him in the ocean. Kurt figures if the guy drowns there's no great loss from what he's found in the lighthouse. Brian is NOT happy when he flies out of the ocean. He demands to know what is going on from Nightcrawler (since he knows of the X-men and all from Betsy's time with them) and Kurt gives him an explaination once he's sure Brian is sober enough to hear it. Brian has a major defeatest attitude and goes on a rant about how they might as well let Kitty and Meggan die now because they'll just sacrifice themselves later anyway and Kurt almost gets into a fist fight with him, but finally just gives up in disgust and leaves.

The Technet finally catches up with Rachel and Bodybag (who is currently holding the other two in stasis as well) swallows her. Then the Warwolves show up. The Technet and the Warwolves are in an out and out fight when Nightcrawler shows up and watches for a few moments. He waits for an opportunity and nails Bodybag and then as one of the Warwolves takes a swipe at him he angles his dodge just right that the Warwolf takes out the tops of the pods that Kitty and the others are being held in. He then realizes that the others are not going to be much help because Rachel tells him that the Warwolves are immune to her powers and she's the only one that is currently conscious. Brian then shows up and tries to be of assistance and he is really and then Kitty and Meggan come to as well. Unfortunately the heroes have never functioned as a team before and are getting slaughtered pretty hard when Nightcrawler steps in and starts taking control of the situation and makes the others function as a team. Kitty even gets to slug Gatecrasher, which takes all of her concentration to stay solid enough to do it, but Kitty figures it'll be worth the hurting tommorrow. The Warwolves and the Technet retreat.

Rachel, Kitty and Kurt have a tearfull reunion while Meggan and Brian make out in celebration of their victory. Later on Muir Island, Rachel talks to the others of King Arthur and Excalibur and how Excalibur was the symbol of hope after Arthur died and how Excalibur still symbolized Arthur's dream. She then asks the others to join her in a new team to help to keep Xavier's dream alive now that the X-men are dead and they could call themselves Excalibur. The others agree and the noble Excalibur, in a symbolic sense, is once again Redrawn.

My Opinion: Very good issue. It goes through how Excalibur forms and shows in reality how people need to learn how to function like a team before they can actually take down the bad guys with any success. I highly recommend the issue.

We open with Tweedle Dope (part of the Crazy Gang) who is sitting in an alley and is shoving junk into some scrap metal. Somehow by doing this he creates Widget (a little metal guy who joins Excalibur later on).

Meanwhile Excalibur is fighting crime by actually helping the police instead of skulking around in the shadows. Kitty and Rachel have just phased through the roof of a building to go and help defeat some robbers when the Warwolves show up and nail the cop they had just been talking to on the roof. Rachel hears the cops mental scream and goes into a sort of psychic shock. Kitty phases her out of the wall they were hiding and puts her unconscious body in a closet when the robbers show up and find Rachel. Now that her telepath is out of the operation Kitty decides to be creative to save the hostages that the robbers have taken. She grabs a sheet and pretends to be a ghost, scaring the holy snot out of the robbers and they waste a lot of their ammo trying to shoot her. She grabs one of the robbers and phases him, but not his gun, which freaks him out even worse. Rachel then comes to and nails the robbers into a wall. Brian picks that moment to crash through a wall.

Kitty asks Rachel what happened to her and Rachel tells her that she basically felt someone die in her head. Later that night the Warwolves strike again and it happens again to Rachel, but this time she's just flipping out in the bathroom, she's not actually unconscious.

Later down in Brian's old workshop (they're staying in Brian's townhouse I believe) Kitty is looking at pictures of the dead X-men and other dead friends, like Doug and Kitty starts to cry. Brian startles her by asking if she's okay down in the basement and Kitty explains that she's working on a project. Brian and Kitty have a sort of bonding moment over technology and we leave with Kitty preparing to do something stupid, you just know it.

Meggan flies Kurt to the lighthouse and shows him around, thinking that Excalibur might want to stay at the lighthouse from now on. Nightcrawler flirts with Meggan a bit and then goes exploring, where he stumbles upon a huge group of monsters in the basement of the lighthouse. He teleports to Meggan in a panic when the monsters try to attack him and Meggan hurries with him to stop the monsters, but they are all gone when he opens the door in the basement. Meggan gives him a look like he's either kidding or just overwrought and Kurt is a bit mystified.

Rachel gets her first meeting with Nigel Frobisher (a major little pig pervert who shows up in later issues as a bad guy lackie). Rachel shrugs his advances off Phoenix-style and Brian laughs where he's meeting with Courtney Ross (an old flame of his who works as a high powered banker/investor). Brian tells Courtney (after some flirting) about a need for her bank and of course she's all ears.

Back to Kitty who is in the middle of enacting what she thinks of later as a "lame brained" plan. She uses a modular cerebro unit to make a very strong signature of Rachel so that she can draw out the Warwolves who are trying to hunt Rachel down. She then dresses up in a spare Phoenix outfit, barely being able to stand in the heels and is a bit put out with how tight the outfit is. She then puts her hair back into a tight braid like Racel and puts on makeup to make it look like hound scars on her face and then she takes off down the street. Kurt and Meggan return to the house at the exact moment Kitty is just out of sight.

Kurt is taking a bath to defrost and Meggan walks in on him to give him some cocoa, not realizing that it's not exactly "polite" to walk in on someone that way having learned everything about life from Dynasty. Kurt slips into the water while thinking to himself that no one on Dynasty has a very hot tempered and super powered boyfriend to worry about.

Kitty continues to walk the streets looking for the Warwolves, just letting herself phase so punks and goons can't bother her.

Meggan is watching the TV like a little kid, her eyes glued to the screen, so Nightcrawler after his bath drinks his cocoa and goes into Brian's old workshop, realizing that someone, probably Kitty has been a busy little beaver. He views the computer screen with Rachel's faux signature resonating on it and immediately freaks out knowing that Kitty is in trouble. He calls Rachel telepathically where Rachel is watching a play and Rachel immediately flies back to meet Kurt.

Rachel makes contact with Kitty mentally to find Kitty unhurt, but not for long as Rachel watches mentally as Kitty is attacked by the Warwolves. Kitty realizes how stupid her plan to hunt the Warwolves down is when she realizes that they can get her even in her phased form and they do. Rachel is there right when Kitty gets whacked and she uses her body, since she can't use her telepathy or her telekinesis directly ON the Warwolves as a projectile to take them on. Unfortunately she's not used to getting physical and ends up coated in some type of goop. The team arrives too late to save Kitty and they know that they have to find the Warwolves to get Kitty back before the Warwolves kill her.

My Opinion: Oh come on, it's the first issue of Excalibur of COURSE you have to read it! Definitely recommend it as it introduces a lot of characters you'll want to know later on. Oh and by the way the art by Alan Davis? Spectacular! Very great stuff.

We start off with a boy who is being hunted by Vixen's men. He's playing with Widget in an abandoned warehouse (well we know it's Widget but you never actually SEE Widget). The boy is about to be caught by Vixen's men when Widget activates and gets him out of there. Vixen isn't a happy camper when her men tell her the boy is gone. We then switch to Widget who has formed some sort of gate and he keeps repeating that friend Colin is safe and then uses the line that Colin did which was "Oh gosh Oh GOLLY oh WOW!".

Meanwhile Kitty is being taken by the Warwolves into the subway and they knock a pedestrian in front of a train where Captain Britain rescues her before the train can crush the poor woman. Rachel stops the train to make sure that everyone is okay and the team gets delayed having to deal with the police. Kurt figures Kitty is in no danger since her natural state is intangibility, but it doesn't work out that way. Kitty is getting slung around like a bag of potatoes and realizing that she made a horrible mistake. The Warwolf who captured her grabs her and prepares to suck her out of her skin so that he can use the skin. Rachel feels the pain Kitty is going through and completely freaks, zooming into the sky shouting Kitty's name. Kurt realizes at that moment he made a horrible mistake holding Rachel back because he knows that something happened to Kitty.

The Warwolf goes to collect Kitty's skin only to find the skin gone. The Warwolf can't figure it out and of course his friends make fun of him to no end for it.

Courtney and Nigel Forbisher both look out different windows and see the Phoenix effect where Rachel is holding a position in the night sky. Nigel immediately becomes somewhat obssessed with Phoenix at that point, while Courtney finds it funny that life got strange right when her old love walked back into her life.

Rachel is trying her darndest to make sure Kitty doesn't die. She's barely holding Kitty's psyche together and she tells the team that so the team immediately leaves to find where the Warwolves have taken Kitty. Kurt leaves Brian to handle the police and follow a police sargeant that had been acting strangely. He's right on his hunch as when the Warwolf is out of sight it shucks the skin its in and attacks Kurt from behind. Rachel is using about 99% of her powers to keep Kitty together but she uses the other 1% to tell the rest of the team that Kurt is being attacked. Meggan turns into a werewolf to hunt Kurt and her and Brian take off like a rocket after him.

To the Warwolf den where the Warwolf that ate Kitty isn't liking what he ate. He starts to feel sick and then suddenly his shape changes a bit to look more like Kitty. The Warwolf is freaking out a bit when the other Warwolf with Kurt knocked out shows up. He offers the Kitty Warwolf Kurt's skin and the Warwolf thinks Kurt's skin is ugly but figures beggars can't be choosers. He's trying to eat Kurt when suddenly he starts acting like Kitty and he won't do it. He nails the other Warwolves back away from Kurt and starts to apologize immediately to them for doing it. And then he grows Kitty's hair. He scratched the skin of another of the Warwolves in the scuffle, which ticked the other Warwolf off and suddenly there is an out and out fight in the Warwolf den. Kurt is trying to sneak away during the commotion (since he finally regained consciousness), but a Warwolf grabs him and tries to eat him.

Brian and Meggan choose that moment to break through a wall, which gives Kurt enough time to flip the other Warwolf off of him and Brian punches his head in. Meggan is trying to rip the other Warwolves off of what looks like Kitty and Brian and Kurt help, as kitty is beating the pulp out of another one. Kurt and Brian figure they better rescue the last Warwolf from Kitty when they pull "Kitty" off of the Warwolf and realize that Kitty IS the Warwolf. The team tries to figure out if the Warwolf is Kitty or Kitty is the Warwolf. Kitty helps by saying, "I'm me", which to Kurt adds "That doesn't help."

Rachel shows up and realizes what the Warwolves do with eating people and stealing their skins. The Kitty Warwolf explains it all to the team. Rachel wants to murder the Warwolves, a life for a life, to repay them for all the people they killed, but Kurt stops her. The Warwolves basic attitude is that Excalibur won, big deal, because they got Kitty. At that moment two human hands come out of the Kitty Warwolf and pries its mouth open. Kitty literally crawls out of the Warwolf and we find that Kitty's powers reacted oddly with the Warwolf when it tried to eat her in her naturally intangible state and so it ate "all" of her as it was. Rachel helped to keep Kitty's mind together long enough for Kitty to get the rest of herself together and then Kitty realized she could influence the Warwolf's actions. Like she was a demon possessing the Warwolf.

Kitty then comes up with a perfect solution on what to do with the Warwolves and we flash to the London Zoo where the Warwolves are now on display. The Warwolves don't like it and Kitty is happy about that, figuring it's only right since they made so many people die and so many others miserable.

My Opinion: Pretty good issue, especially the part where Kitty claws her way out of the Warwolf and when Rachel helps Kitty out. Shows a bit how important Kitty is to Rachel (as we now know Kate in Rachel's time raised her so she has a major soft spot for Kitty) and how tough Kitty can really be. Also shows the team starting to function more...as well...a team.

Excalibur vs. Vixen's men and the Juggernaut. One of my all time favorite issues. Great stuff.

We start out with Vixen's team who are trying to spring a prisoner for a cool million bucks, but they quickly find out its a set up when the police move in. Vixen hits the lights and her guys escape into the prison where they find Juggernaut who tells them that if they set him free he'll help them. And he does by staging a prison break.

The prisoners take off in all directions and then Juggernaut takes off in one, only to be intercepted by Captain Britain who hits him in the face. Which leads to one of the most hysterical exchanges I've seen in a long time. Let me give you the first couple of lines they speak to each other.

Ahhh...great stuff. This little lead in ends with Brian telling Juggernaut that he's not going anywhere and Juggernaut taking a lot of hits from Brian and then knocking Brian a good couple miles out. Rachel sees this and offers to help Brian, but he won't have any of it as he rushes back at Juggernaut for more punishment. Rachels has a couple of choice words to say about Brian's stubborness, but Kitty on the other hand figures that Brian can best take Juggernaut's punishment until they get the rest of the prisoners cleaned up. Kitty is sitting in the middle of the road petting Lockheed while she's talking to Ray about it and then she sees the Range Rover full of thugs heading her way and she simply stands in their path and phases their car. The guys go flying out of the car which has suddenly slowed to an almost stop and become intangible and they then, in their stupidity get up from the ground and try to shoot Kitty. Kitty then basically shakes her head at their stupidity and lets Lockheed let loose with a burst of flame. Suddenly the guys are more willing to surrender. Kitty then tells the prisoners that one of them will have to drive because she doesn't know how to drive a stick yet. Kurt dances around his group of thugs and beats the snot out of them, having a great time. Meggan delivers another group of thugs to the cops when she sees Brian being pummeled by Juggernaut and rushes to rescue him.

She tells Juggernaut to leave him alone and Juggernaut throws her out of the way, asking her what a little slip of a girl like her could do to him and Meggan starts to draw on her powers from Mother Earth and starts to become as big and as powerful as Juggernaut. Brian comes around and is impressed to say the least at her stature. Meggan is about to throw a punch that would probably level a city block when Kurt has Rachel throw Kitty at Meggan and phase her through Juggernaut. Meggan is shocked, but not as shocked as Juggernaut when Rachel zooms down to his eye level and says, "Hi! I'm Phoenix. Guess what I do."

Juggernaut knows what's coming a second before Rachel psychically punches him out (Juggernaut can't be stopped by physical force, but he CAN by psychic when he doesn't have his helmet on to shield him). And the fight is over with the prisoners.

We then switch to Widget who is found by a weirdo who wears a strainer on his head. Widget teleports him to the dimension of Sat-yr-9 (evil Courtney Ross from another dimension...you'll see more of her later).

It's moving day for Excalibur as they move into the lighthouse and it is going far from smoothly. Kitty has a horrible cold, which is making her day miserable already and then Brian puts down a heavy box on a couple of ones marked "fragile" and desimates all of her old software that she'd written with Doug Ramsey...or most of it. Brian, to his credit, feels horrible about it and swears he's going to buy her replacements. At that point, Kitty figures she's had enough and just decides she's going to bed. A storm wages outside which Brian figures will be over with shortly.

That was Tuesday. This is Friday. The weather is still crappy. And the team is starting to wear on one another's nerves.

Kurt is working out by doing gymnastics off the furniture, which wakes Brian up from a night of major drinking. His head is throbbing and he wants to use the bath, but then realizes he's missed his scheduled turn when he goes to open the door and finds it locked with Kitty inside. Kitty is still feeling horrible with her cold and is taking a bath. She tells Brian that if he missed his turn he was just going to have to wait until she was done or she died. Brian is about to lose his temper when Meggan calls for help. Brian rushes downstairs to find some of the boxes on fire. Meggan and Lockheed had been trying to fix Kitty a hot toddy to help Kitty get over the flu, but Lockheed had overdone the flames a bit. Rachel and Kurt show up to that explaination and Rachel asks why she didn't use the stove and her answer is she couldn't find it (walls of boxes are everywhere, so no Meggan isn't THAT stupid). Rachel then uses that opportunity to throw Brian's whiskey into the ocean.

Brian is ticked, but the others ask him, including Kitty if he knows exactly how much alcohol he consumes. He swears he doesn't have a problem and Meggan says she hopes so because it hurts when it turns to the alcohol and not to her. Brian flies off in a huff and Meggan breaks down a bit, blaming herself for wrecking everything and being ugly. Kurt comforts her and tells her that if she isn't beautiful then there truly is no beauty in the world and gives a very nice talk to Meggan about how good of a person she really is.

The sun finally comes out and Rachel and Kitty have a heart to heart talk about Brian and giving him a chance if he comes back. Kitty realizes she's being a bit unreasonable, but she misses her old room and Illyana and her folks being together and everything just working right in the universe. She then plugs in her equipment and blows the main fuse to the lighthouse and is once again annoyed at Brian because he assured her that no matter what equipment she set up it would work fine in the lighthouse. She takes Lockheed down to try and fix the electricity and runs into another her, but alien looking. Kitty looks freaked when we go to Brian.

Brian is currently in London and he's tracked down Courtney. He has a heart to heart talk with Courtney, opening up to her in ways he doesn't do with Meggan, about his responsibilities and how he really doesn't want to BE Captain Britain anymore, but he knows he really doesn't have a choice. He sort of blows off his relationship with Meggan to Courtney when Rachel "shows up" as it were telepathically, apologizing for interupting and tells Brian that they have had another weird incident at home. Brian knows he has to go, even though Courtney doesn't want him to.

Back at the lighthouse Kitty is arguing that the incident was NOT her imagination and the others dicuss it with her. Brian shows up and asks if they want to relocate, but everyone decides that no they want to stay there. Brian makes up with Meggan (which doesn't take much since Meggan is a sap when it comes to Brian) and everyone finally makes nice and decides to go from there.

My Opinion: Very good issue. It really shows the group dynamic and how everyone will wear on your nerves until you get used to one another (they still have a long way to go to). I also always liked the way that Excalibur handled Brian's drinking problem and that he didn't just get better overnight. And you've got to read the fight scene at the beginning of this issue...it's priceless!

One of the best covers ever. Seriously. This ranks up there as one of my top favorites when it comes to covers and I've read a LOT of comic books over the years.

Anyhoo, onto the inside of the comic. We open with Courtnety studying an old photo of her and Brian kissing when she had won a contest. Of course she had stacked the deck so to speak because she'd used a month of wages and bought out all of the tickets for the contest. That was how she and Brian had first met. They had been together for a while and then he had disappeared. She had assumed he died when he disappeared and she'd mourned him and gotten on with her life. She had feared nothing when she was with him and dared almost anything and she realized that it had helped to get her where she was today.

It is at that moment in reflection that the Crazy Gang shows up and tells her that she is to come with them. What they don't expect is for Courtney to start kicking some major butt. She takes out the executioner with some martial arts moves and then spritzes the Queen in the eye with Chanel. She then grabs the queen and hits the other two with her by hip rolling her into them, where they are discussing that Courtney winning isn't fair. Courtney runs from the room only to meet up with Tweedle Dum. She runs right over the top of him, happy that she got through it all unscathed and she dives into the back of a police car, telling them to use their radio to call Captain Britain, only to find the police in the car are Arcade and Ms. Locke. She just has enough time to look shocked before they zap her into unconciousness.

Kitty and Rachel are shopping. Kitty takes some money out of the ATM, thinking about how weird all of the different colored currency is and stuff. Rachel meanwhile comes out wearing a very conservative looking outfit to match the one almost exactly to the one Kitty is wearing and Rachel is NOT happy about it. Kitty tells Rachel she looks great and tells her that Brian did have a point to send them on their shopping trip in that the outfits Rachel normally wore did not lead to a low profile. Rachel gets irritated with Kitty's "more conservative than thou" attitude and has a great time messing with Kitty's conservative outfit and making it into a knockout dress. Kitty then knows what it feels like to have everyone stare at her in a good way for one and how embarrassing Rachel felt at that moment for two.

They go up to pay for Rachel's outfit and the lady asks if there is some sort of joke here. Kitty tells her there shouldn't be anything wrong with the money because she just got it out of the bank machine and the lady shows it to Kitty. On the bill is the Crazy Gang, not what is supposed to be there.

Kurt is putting his jungle gym up slowly but surely and Meggan shows up in a black nothing bakini to see how he's doing and he decides to play with her a bit. It ends in with Kurt tickle torturing Meggan until she can't take it anymore. They end up on the floor and Kurt is super happy he was able to make Meggan laugh and Meggan slowly bends toward him, unconsciously turning into the woman Kurt would want her to be when Brian breaks the spell saying Kitty and Rachel were back and there was trouble. Meggan flies off feeling guilty. Kurt also feels guilty and is beating himself up mentally after she leaves for being a stupid idiot.

Kitty explains to everyone that she thinks Arcade has kidnapped Courtney and Brian immediately flies off the handle, making Meggan realize right away that Brian still has feelings for Courtney. He's half out the window, ready to rip Arcade to shreds when Kurt has Rachel grab him. Kurt tells Brian not to fly off half-cocked if he doesn't want to get Courtney killed and Kitty breaks the code on the bills, figuring out where they are holding Courtney or at least where Arcade wants them to look. Kurt knows that they'll have to defeat Arcade at his own game.

Courtney awakens dressed in a Playboy-bunny-like-suit and as Arcade's captive. She's strapped in a chair and Arcade tells her that it's almost a shame he'll have to kill her. He then throws Courtney into Murderworld where she tries to survive.

We switch to a train where Callisto and Moira are zooming along in. Moira is trying to track down Excalibur to do some follow up mediscans of Rachel and they are talking about that when they enter a tunnel and go to another dimension because we find out that Widget IS the tunnel they just went through.

Back to Murderworld where Arcade is appalled that not only has Excalibur not arrived yet to rescue Courtney but that Courtney, who has been thrown into a situation where she has to tell jokes to survive, is not only doing well SHE's FUNNY! He's more than a little ticked, although Ms. Locke is laughing her butt off.

Excalbur arrives on the scene and seeing the Crazy Gang, Brian flies off the handle and zooms right into a trap. Tweedle Dum has created devices that allow the Crazy Gang to switch bodies with Excalibur. Brian is first to get it and then before the others can react he gets Kurt and Meggan. He then tries to get Rachel, but something in the transfer goes wrong and Rachel becomes "possessed" by the executioner instead of them switching places, mainly because her powers completely destroy the executioners body in the process (so Rachel spends this entire story walking around in executioner gear trying to kill everyone. Neat huh?). Kitty is the only one that is still loose when the issue ends.

My Opinion: This issue and the one to follow (which you will have to wait for until the next chronology page) are great, especially watching Kitty match wits with Arcade and nailing him AGAIN! Ahhh...the great days of Shadowcat. I'd buy this issue and the next in a heartbeat (it being a two part series) and really you can see why Kitty and Courtney hit it off with Courtney's scrapping in this issue.