Somewhere in Canada, Cable is being chased by Lady Deathstrike and her armed soldiers. He has the baby strapped to his chest and tries to shoot his pursuers, but Deathstrike simply cuts the gun in half and tells Cable that both he and the baby will die.

In upstate New York, the mutant known as Peepers is driving like a bat out of hell because he thinks he's being followed. He calls X-Factor for help and Siryn answers. He's able to tell her his location, but that's when a deer carcass is thrown into his windshield. Peepers crashed off the side of the road, and is still conscious, but then Predator X shows up and eats him.

In the future, 80 years to be precise, Layla and Madrox stage an ambush to stop a couple of patrolling guards. A new wrinkle is added to the mystery of Layla Miller because she seems to have an X-gene on and off, and it confuses the guards. She says it comes and it goes, and a group of Madroxes attack and beat up the guards. They take one aside to interrogate him about why mutants are being held in a concentration camp. Layla stops Jamie from beating the guard to death. Jamie says he's just angry that even after they somehow reverse M-Day, the future looks pretty crappy for mutants.

In Cooperstown, Alaska, X-Force has managed to sneak into the hospital where the new mutant baby manifested her powers at birth. They all manage to sneak past a guard, except Warpath, who punches the guard. Warpath says that he doesn't do stealthy, and Wolverine chews him out for not obeying orders. Warpath reveals that he knocked out the guard to steal his walkie talkie, which Wolverine grumbly accepts and passes off to Hepzibah. X-Force is composed of Wolverine, Warpath, Hepzibah, Wolfsbane, X-23 and Caliban. Wolverine says that the hospital was trashed when they first visited, but now they have time to search and they know who they're looking for: Cable. Wolverine splits them up, and Warpath tries to get his partner switched to Hepzibah. He's stuck with Wolfsbane, and Wolverine tells Rahne to keep an eye on Warpath to see if he's capable of doing what will eventually be needed of him.

When Wolfsbane catches up to Warpath, he instantly knows that Wolverine doesn't trust him because of his history with Cable. Wolfsbane asks why Warpath accepted the assignment, considering that very history. Warpath knows that Cable used to be his friend and mentor, but the baby is the future of their race and the mission comes first. Warpath just wishes there was a way to save both Cable and the baby.

Back in the snowy Canadian wilderness, however, Cable doesn't seem to need saving as he soundly dispatches Lady Deathstrike and her team.

In the future, Madrox interrogates their prisoner but has to get past the fact that the guard assumes they're from that time period and should already know who caused the camps. The guard says that the government monitors all communications, both written and spoken, and clamps down on anyone talking about mutants. The guard reveals that a mutant caused the camps.

In Upstate New York, Siryn finds Peepers' crashed car and his remains. Predator X, meanwhile, is back on its hunt for the baby.

In Alaska, Caliban sets off the guards and he and Hepzibah have to take down a few of them. Whatever was keeping him from sensing Cable and the baby is gone, but X-Force has to retreat through some sewer tunnels. Wolfsbane pulls Wolverine aside and tells him that he doesn't have to worry about Warpath, or at least they should hope that his daddy issues don't keep him from getting the job done.

That last line about daddy issues appears over a silent scene where Xavier walks away from Cyclops in the ruins of the mansion. As he walks, Xavier steps over a broken old picture of Cable and his X-Force from back in the day.

In Canada, Cable is losing the fight and Lady Deathstrike moves in for the kill.

Back to the future, and Jamie Madrox and Layla are arrested. The guard was telling the truth when he said all spoken conversations are monitored, and his asking the guard about mutants tipped off the authorities. Madrox is hit with a power-dampening ray and he's placed in the back of a police van. Since Layla isn't registering as a mutant, the guards believe she was a human hostage and are ready to let her go. But then Layla reveals that she is a mutant and is Jamie's accomplice, so the guards throw her in the back of the van too. Jamie tells her that was a stupid move, but Layla says it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Review: This issue fails to provide any good reason for X-Force to exist, let alone why Wolfsbane is on the team. I'm in the group of fans who don't really get the point of a team of similar characters. Sure, the idea of a black ops X-Men sounds cool, but I think they could have picked better characters. The Messiah CompleX part before this issue ended on the cliffhanger of Cyclops telling Wolverine to gather the X-Force. Marvel just seems to think that this team is the coolest thing ever, but in their first outing, they just haven't proved that to me. There's no team-building, just a short little spurt of a mission. At the very least, I would like to see why Rahne would join this team of killers. Why would she leave X-Factor to join X-Force? But, alas, that part is left out and X-Force has to rest on the idea that they're a team of cool characters doing badass things. That doesn't interest me, at least not as much as the interpersonal dynamics of X-Factor. So those parts of the story, while important enough for Messiah CompleX, don't make for a compelling issue of X-Factor.

Madrox's scene is equally as boring, spiced up only by the quirkiness of Layla Miller. Jamie spends an unfortunate amount of time interrogating a guard who has nothing interesting to add, and then he gets captured, which is probably something we should have seen coming since we first saw the concentration camp. At least Layla continues to provide very curious actions. She's definitely building to something big and I can't wait to see what it is. Siryn has an odd little scene. In the midst of Messiah CompleX, she's just sitting back at the office taking business calls? Sorry to see Peepers go though, just as fodder to poof up the 'menace' of Predator X. I didn't read the issues, but didn't the New X-Men kill a bunch of those things when they first appeared? Predator X isn't going to win and he isn't going to succeed, not unless some X-Man takes a dive in order to provide some cheap death, so its segments are the least interesting.

The meat of this issue, of course, is the showdown between Cyclops and Professor Xavier. The last several years have been very bad for the Prof, and it finally comes to a head with this issue. Despite all the times he's stepped down from the X-Men and come back, this scene definitely feels like a huge turning point for both Cyclops and the X-Men. Maybe they will finally grow beyond Xavier. Peter David once again shines with the dialogue and their argument snaps, crackles and pops. Cyclops really stands his ground and takes charge (though he's not as cool as Whedon's Astonishing Cyclops) and Xavier is forced to shuffle off into shame. Hopefully that's not the last we see of him, but I definitely enjoyed the face-off.