The mutants are chatted up by various politicos and celebs. Finally, Xavier meets Sebastian Shaw, current grandmaster of the Hellfire CLub. Charles is very appreciative of all the support that Shaw and his friends have given him. Meanwhile, Mr. Seville, a chamberlain at the Club, retreats to a back room and confers with a guard poised to attack. Seville assures the guard that Xavier's telepathy won't pick up on the betrayal until it's too late.

Shaw tells Xavier that he has another surprise for him. Charles is almost gidd with anticipation, until the guards enter and fire plasma blasts at Colossus and Storm. Xavier is shocked - he can't believe Shaw would attack him, much less on national TV. Shaw assures him that no one is seeing the attack, thanks to Jean. Charles barely has time to register his pupil's betrayal before he is also fired upon.

When Charles awakes, he, Colossus and Storm are suspended on a stone monument of sorts, with Hellfire Club members arrayed around a phoenix seal on the floor. Shaw is at the center with Jean, who is wearing a loose hooded robe. Shaw explains that the Club intends to release the Phoenix God from its metaphysical prison and allow it to possess Jean. Charles ridicules Shaw for believing in the "standard" delusions that Jean's mind created to deal with her emerging powers. Shaw counters that the Phoenix God cult is much older than Jean, dating back to ancient Egypt. He claims that the United States itself was founded on the cult's tenets, going so far as to proclaim the eagle on the US seal to be, in fact, a phoenix. One of the X-Men's communicators squawks, and Shaw hears Beast asking for help, as he's in big trouble. Too bad.

Xavier still believes Shaw is crazy, until the grandmaster completes his rhyming spell and a giant firebird descends from the sky. Shaw entreats the Phoenix to awaken, but the new god is angry with him for some reason. Quickly back-pedaling, Shaw restates his will to serve, not dominate the Phoenix, reminding the god that it is a universal force, not a moral one. Jean spits his words back to him, asking him how he thought he could get the wielder of an amoral force to support the man who betrayed her friends? She blasts mindfire through all the Club members, disintegrating everyone except Shaw. Shaw, however, she keeps alive long enough to pick his brain about all his assets and telepathically and telekinetically transfer them to Charles Xavier. Then she blows him apart.

Next Jean turns to the outside world, using her power to right wrongs, keep depressed people from suicide, and nearly raising the dead. Xavier is stunned by Jean's "transformation," but tells her she is not a god, just a powerful mutant girl who is afraid of being happy with Cyclops. Jean doesn't want to listen, and warns Charles to back off. Xavier refuses and pits his will against Jean's. The Hellfire Club explodes.

Inside, the X-Men are free, Charles is unconscious and Jean is back to normal, except for a Phoenix mark now emblazoned on her sternum. As the X-Men run out of the building, Beast comms again. He tells Storm that the Brotherhood ambushed him and now they know everything about Magneto's faked death, thanks to their telepaths. Suddenly, metal items all over the place uproot themselves and fly into the air, spelling out "Thank you Charles" in the sky. Storm officially dumps Hank for his stupidity.

Magneto surveys the world again from his own mind, still adjusting to the deprogramming he underwent. He asks which of the Brotherhood had the initiative and wit to free him. Prosimian takes all of the credit, obviously hoping for a giant reward. Instead, Magneto stabs him with a candlestick, claiming that he represents everything that's gone wrong with the Brotherhood in his absence. He instructs the remaining mutants to contact their former comrades and order them to return to the group. As for the twins, Magneto will deal with them himself...

Review: All right! Kubert's back! Yay! Now, if only the cover had the slightest bit to do with the actual content of this issue, that would be great.

The wrap to the Phoenix story was pretty cool, especially the cult parts and the relation to the Founding Fathers. Taking a page from the Freemasons, I think. And the Phoenix mosaic tiles were great, but were they real? I mean, was that just Kubert's way of showing the old "ghost in the mirror" or was the floor actually made with that pattern? Be strange if no one noticed it.

The way Millar laid the Phoenix story out was very intriguing. On the one hand, Xavier says Jean's just having normal delusions. On the other is a five thousand year old cult whose focus matches the delusions. Shaw's cult history would seem to prove him correct, but it makes you wonder if Xavier's also correct. Is this a "standard" delusion? Did he have it himself? Could a mutant born thousands of years ago have seen the same thing, spawning the Phoenix Cult out of his own mind? But then why a Phoenix? Or to flip it around, is there a Phoenix God who has been searching for a human telepath to host it for five millennia?

Now, a lot of people probably feel that this arc was rushed and that too little time was spent on Jean as the Phoenix before the crashing conclusion. True, true. Certainly the Hellfire Club was dispatched with alacrity. However, I think that Millar is probably pulling a Magneto here with the Phoenix, making it "dormant" until he decides to pull it out again in a future story. There is no way that he's done with this idea - the Phoenix tattoo/scar makes that pretty darn clear.

Speaking of Magneto, a lot about his actions this issue confused me. Why write "Thank you Charles?" Is he just being gracious all of a sudden? Why kill Prosimian? Is Magneto himself prejudiced against non-humaniform mutants? Kinda hypocritical, if so. Or was he just removing a potential threat to his power base? Prosimian was nothing except self-serving, not a quality Magneto needs to deal with. Anyway, I can see now why the Ultimates are getting involved. First off, because the twins will look for asylum, and second, because the President will be pooping his pants over Magneto's return! Here's where the fecal matter impacts on the air rotating device! Yay.