Synopsis: The X-Men are playing a game of football. Silver Samurai grabs the ball in a scrimmage only to be tripped by a mysterious boot and the ball is caught by a newly appeared X-23. Everyone piles on her and Nightcrawler grabs the ball and calls a first down. Silver Samurai gets up to discover much to his chagrin that he has been bought down by Logan. This prompts a flurry of activity as Nightcrawler draws a knife on Logan and X-23 draws her claws on Nightcrawler. Rogue and Ororo defuse the situation and X-23’s name is revealed as Kirika. Silver Samurai draws his sword on Logan and Logan gets ready to tear him a new one but the intervention of X-23 and a mutant alert means that the battle has to be put aside for now.
After a Danger Room briefing the X-Men head to the famous Washington Monument where the Guthries (Elizabeth, Jay and Sam) are tearing the place up. A few barbs later Cannonball takes off with Logan in his grip and Amazon changes sizes and lays a smack down on X-23. The Guthries have the upper hand but some teamwork brings Amazon down pretty quickly. Rogue is monitoring the battle on a monitor at X-Men headquarters when Xorn attacks her. Xorn takes off her mask and Rogue is surprised to see who her assailant is. Wolverine gets the better of Cannonball and dunks him in a lake. Cannonball is angry and threatens Wolverine but the Guthries are made to retreat with Amazon hurt badly. The X-Men return to find their headquarters’ in taters. The mystery assailant turns out to be Paige Guthrie and she has Charles as her prisoner and the rest of the Guthries as back up.
Review: An excellent issue. The fight scene and the opening football scene were some really good set pieces and the entire twist in the tail was brilliantly executed. I didn’t think of it but it makes perfect sense that Husk could have survived and would be pissed off at the X-Men.
I have to say the art work isn’t really doing it for me. It’s really hard to follow the panels sometimes.