A few hours earlier, Xavier and Beast are in Cerebra, looking over the mutant population left, when suddenly a light emanates from Alaska, causing Xavier to scream in pain and send a shock through the school. Cerebra is fried and Charles tells Beast to get back up power running as he telepathically calls for Scott and Emma.

Back in Coopertown, Alaska, the X-Men are rescuing survivors while they wonder if this was an accident from the mutant’s powers manifesting, but that is shot down as they discover the bodies of two Marauders, Blockbuster and Prism, and of several Purifiers and realize they fought. They wonder if this was a trap the Marauders triggered instead, when Emma realizes she’s not reading the minds of any children, as a woman carrying the charred body of her daughter walks up to them in hysterics. Emma puts her to sleep and reads her mind to see a vision of the Purifiers storming the town, destroying everything and targeting children, as the woman’s daughter is shot with a flamethrower. One of them says the reading is coming from the south when the Marauders show up and kill several of the Purifiers. Malice senses their target, but that it’s not alone and the Marauders take off heading for a hospital. Emma comes out and telepathically calls for Warren to head for the hospital, as she tells him and the others that it wasn’t a teenage mutant manifestation, it was a mutant birth. He comes across the nursery where he sees the Purifiers killed the babies as well. The others arrive right behind him, but Logan can’t get a scent, while Emma finds a record of the births that day, and says the mutant baby isn’t there. There were three births but only two bodies, and this is definitely where both the Marauders and Purifiers were heading which caused their fight.

As they’re taking off, Logan notes that the disaster is almost as big as Stamford, and leaving the Marauder bodies will only cause them to blame mutants. Scott says the survivors will remember them saving and helping out, and even though Logan say he knows that’s not how it usually works out, Scott says that finding the first new mutant to be born in years is more important. If Sinister has the baby, the government will be the least of their worries. As their jet disappears, Predator X arrives, having used all its energy to track the baby there, but realizes the baby is no longer there. But before it goes to find the child, it must satisfy its hunger, and begins to sniff Blockbuster’s body.

Review: What a very intriguing way to start off this event. It showed right away that the bad guys are really not holding back their punches, especially the Purifiers, which have always been almost a bit too violent for my liking. I mean seriously, murdering a bunch of kids AND newborns? That’s incredibly dark. But, I will give them the fact that this is a very do or die situation for the X-Men right now, with the future of their species on the line, so having them being met with just as big opposition would fit in this situation. The story itself was a great way to kick things off in that it showed the basic plot, introduced all of the major parties involved and enough of their motivations behind their actions to keep readers interested, and left with enough information that will keep readers coming back. All in all, a very good start.

The art too was very good. Usually the rather angled and hash-marked style of art is not a favorite choice of many fans, sometimes myself included, but it really works quite well here. Silvestri usually has a way of making this style of art work, but I think a lot of it also has to do with his inkers and colorists, who really help the art to jump off the page with their vibrant colors.