Synopsis & Review by Specter313:
Synopsis: Emma is recapping the events from her paralyzed position on the floor. Rogue has been shot, Karima possessed by Malice, and Mystique and Lady Mastermind have betrayed them. This only leaves Bobby, without his powers no less, Wolverine, Beast, Scott, and Sam, along with her as no help. Scott calls for Bobby to get Rogue out of there, and he reaches her with Sam covering him, who is taken down by Vertigo. He just reaches Rogue as Mystique pulls her gun on him, revealing that she’s the one who is blocking his powers through a neural inhibitor hidden in her lipstick and “elsewhere”. But to his credit, she hasn’t enjoyed an ambush as much as this one. As Logan nearly slices Riptide’s arm off, Emma manages to telepathically warn Sam that this is bigger than a simple ambush. She downloads everything she’s picked from the Marauders’ brains into his, then takes over his functions and forces him to grab Bobby and retreat, despite his protests. As they take off in the blackbird, the Marauders finish putting the others down and leave, taking Rogue with them, and then knocking the house down on the other X-Men. Regan wonders what they’ll do about the ones that got away, but Mystique says they didn’t get away, they just chose somewhere else to die.

In the jet, Bobby can’t believe that Sam ran, but Sam explains how Emma forced him to believe and this whole thing is bigger than just them. There was a list of targets among the info, and they have to warn the others, but when he tries to call the school, the jet is attacked by Sunfire.

It wouldn’t help to call either, because Kitty has found the communication lines are completely down. Colossus wonders if he should take the other jet and find the others, but she notes the horror movie cliché of splitting up, and reminds him that Scott wants them to stay with the kids, so they’ll just reset the alarms for now. In another part of the school, Blindfold makes her way to where several of the other kids are, specifically looking for Elixir. She goes on one of her usual almost incomprehensible rants, with none of the others having a clue what she means, when she suddenly grabs Josh’s arms, touching both the black and gold parts of his skin, and sets off some kind of reaction.

Sam turns control of the jet over to Bobby and blasts out to catch Sunfire off guard in mid villain monologue. Shiro tries to catch Sam off guard in return by mentioning Cable’s death, but this only fuels him, saying he needs to see a body to believe it, and knocks Sunfire out by crashing into the side of a mountain. Bobby goes to the open jet door, saying what he’s about to try is colossally stupid, and jumps. Thankfully, the wind chill from jumping so far up manages to jump start his powers again. He rejoins Sam, asking if they were at the top of the target list, but he says no, Rogue was number one, and number two is…

Blindfold lies still on the floor of the school with the other kids surrounding her, panicking. Josh is freaking out since she touched both the black and gold parts of his skin, something no ones done before, and he can’t revive her. Hellion finally tells Pixie to go and find Kitty, who is checking something in the walls with Colossus, talking about The Shining. Suddenly, Kitty notices a strange pressure drop when her ears pop and tries to warn Pete when some shadowy figures blow into the mansion. It is the Acolytes, and Exodus tells the others to deal with these X-Men and find the books. Leave the killing to him.

Review: Once again, a good issue that’s only really held back by one thing. Carey writes some great dialogue and some great scenarios, all highlighted by some nice comedic moments that can hearken to other great writers. Just the though of where “elsewhere” that Mystique hid her little power dampener stuff to use on Iceman is hysterical. It was nice to see the Acolytes again in the end, along with apparently adding a new/old member in Unuscione, whose powers I always liked. And from the way the pages were laid out, I’m guessing that were meant to infer that it is Blindfold who is next on the hit list, which, if going by the theory I brought up last issue, makes sense since she is a precog and can see the future. I’m guessing that whatever she did with Elixir was meant to stop it somehow.

Once again, the art is completely holding this book back. Ramos has no clue how to deal with depth is big scenes. Just look at the first splash page. Rogue is supposed to be down on the floor, yet since she is the same size as everyone else; it looks like she’s been glued to the ceiling or something in order to be where she is on that page. And for all those characters to be the size they are, they’d need to be standing on each other’s backs to be fighting like that. It’s terrible. And I don’t even think he can keep some of these designs straight. Pixie has the black stripes in her hair that she got in the Quest for Majik arc, yet Anole’s arm is still normal, which makes no sense. Just really bad planning on his side again. And why the heck does Colossus have to be armored up ALL THE TIME? Just makes no sense for why he does some of what he draws.