Synopsis & Review by Specter313:
Synopsis: Reporter Alex Roberts is in Niganda, Africa reporting on the bloody war zone the country is reporting, but stops when he hears something funny. All of a sudden, he screams and disappears after something like teeth surround him. The camera crew didn’t see anything, and it’s up to the crew back at the office to replay the feed. When they do, they see some giant beast attacking Roberts.

At Xavier’s school, Emma is going over some readings she’s picked up with Cerebra, when Havok comes in saying she needs to see something. After some cracks, she leaves with Alex and tells him she picked up some strange readings in Africa. “You’re telling me,” he says, as he presses a panel to open another room, and in it, the rest of the team is looking at the giant crocodile that attacked the reporter on a wall sized monitor. When Emma asks what it is, Iceman tries a lame attempt at a joke, but gets nothing. Emma easily figures out that this is the same thing Cerebra picked up; a mutant not based on homo sapien. She decides that the only way for them to know the full extent of the problem is to go to Niganda itself. As she tells Havok to have the team ready to leave in an hour, Storm enters and says that she’s coming along as well. Emma tries to brush this off, but Storm says it’s not up for discussion (Go Storm!). As the Blackbird gets ready to take off, Havok jokes with Emma what’s taking so long, but she says that she’s staying behind, and Storm informs him that she’s would like to get things started. He complies, and says that he hopes Niganda isn’t as bad as they say it is.

Cut straight to an angry African soldier yelling at another man that his lips and ears will be cut off and fed to wild dogs. Turns out, this man is a doctor, but he was caught treating a man who was a part of the Niganda Liberation Army, and the real army doesn’t take too kindly to anyone helping them out. The soldier welcomes the doctor to the new Africa and knocks him into a pit, where he is met by a giant mutated lion.

Flying just over head in the Blackbird, Gambit is still trying to tell Rogue that nothing happened between him and Mystique, and he’s not gonna keep apologizing for something he didn’t do, but Rogue just won’t hear any of it. Havok thinks that Storm growing up in Africa had to be pretty rough, but she shoots him down saying that they treated her like a goddess. As we get a flashback echoing Storm’s thoughts, she says that growing up there made her everything she is today, but why isn’t she happier to be going back?

After the ship lands, the team talks with the camera crew about what happened, but gives up when they try to film them. Emma reports in that she tried contacting the Black Panther, since his country, Wakanda, borders Niganda, but he disappeared. Logan tracks Roberts’ scent to a big hole beneath a large tree, and while the team heads in he wonders why Panther disappeared, as he thought he would be interested in his neighbor’s affairs. Storm, who’s in the back of the group and not in the hole yet, begins to say he should be, but she is suddenly snatched by something. As the team emerges to see what happened, we see that she was grabbed by the same kind of mutated crocodile that got Roberts, and pulled into the nearby water. Havok wants to go in after, but Logan tells him that Storm has it under control, just as a giant lightning bolt hits the water. Storm surfaces, with quite a few crocs, and tells the others to take them out while their senses. Rogue unleashes her flames, while Iceman wants to be cute and tells Polaris to use her powers with his. He ices several of the crocs, but she doesn’t move. He wonders what’s up, but she says she wasn’t ready, and starts blasting on her own. Havok comes over to stop a croc from getting Bobby, and when he and Polaris are back to back, with crocs coming in, they end up using their powers together, leaving Iceman feeling cold.

Afterward, Logan detects that some of them scampered off, and Havok suggest they head after them. Storm then informs him that she will be heading out to find out from locals what is happening. Alex tries to tell her that it would be better to stick together, but she kindly tells him she knows he’s doing what’s best, but she would greatly appreciate it if he never told her what to do again. When she’s gone, Logan tells him not to worry, she gets like this every other mission, but then he takes off as well.

The African general is again threatening people, this time, a woman and her young daughter are being hung over the pit. He wants to know where the woman’s husband is, but she says that his men took him away days ago. He says that’s no excuse and orders them dropped in the pit. Just as they start to fall, a powerful wind sweeps them out, and Storm descends into the area, with the general being very rude to her. She asks him to speak to her with more respect, but he says the only respect she’ll be getting is from his gun. Wolverine appears and slices the gun out of his hand before he hurts her, and causes him to stagger into the pit. Storm says she could have handled him, but forgives Logan, and says she needs a minute with the woman, as we hear a scream come from the pit.

The rest of the team has come across a pile of bones, and figure that this is where Roberts was brought until they were ready to eat him. Emma informs them that the problem is bigger than they thought, it goes beyond the angry soldier, M’butu, to the people who hired him. Logan and Storm are flying to meet the others when she asks why is she bothering with some animals when most of the continent is suffering. He says that it’s a big continent, more than one person, even her, can deal with.

They all enter a factory, which was simply, the Factory, by the locals, informs Storm, and people worked there until many started to disappear. Gambit pulls a tarp off a cage to find a strange creature within, and wonders what kind of factory it is. Iceman tries to make a lame Monster Factory joke, but Storm thinks he’s actually on to something. Logan then says he hears and smells something, something kinda familiar, and they take off towards the source. Havok blasts open a door in the way, but they all are shocked, especially Storm, to find the Black Panther sitting at a computer, with a man lying on the floor with blood coming from his head. “Not the nasty, dangerous monster you were looking for?” quips T’Challa to close the issue.

Review: First off, I’d like to apologize for this coming in a little late, but I think anyone who’s gone to college can understand how hectic moving and the first few days of college can be. Especially when the college has a few things screwed up for you when you arrive. Anyway, on with the review.

This arc got off to a little bit of a slow start, but does show quite a bit of potential. Going into this, I will admit that I was not very excited with the addition of mutated animals, but it seems that the story will focus on quite a bit else, and the animals may be a bit more of a dressing to the whole thing. Just what all is going on with the factory is something that is a lot more intriguing than just chasing around a bunch of super animals in my opinion.

I really did like how Milligan wrote Storm in this issue. She was a lot more like the strong confident goddess than what we’ve seen in a long time. However, I didn’t like the general guy. He just seemed a bit too much like a stereotype, and him trying to kill people just because he wanted to seemed way too contrived. I’m glad he didn’t stick around, and all that was missing was a picture of his leg hanging out of the lion’s mouth.

The art, I thought, was a bit better than what we’ve seen in recent issues. Again, I really like how Storm was done, and the rest of the characters were getting back to their glory. As far as the animals, not much seemed to have been done with them, but seeing as how not all mutants have such obvious physical mutations, it makes sense for the animals not to be so different looking as well.

Well, this story goes to the Black Panther team next, so I’ll see you there.