Last issue, we were lead in to the X-Termination crossover and now that we’re a couple titles in we can take a look at how things are all coming together. As this is going to be the closing chapter of two of the series that are involved in the current events they are going to have to balance the character involved in all three.

I won’t lie – Marjorie Liu has done an amazing issue at touching on the continuing plots from all three titles and wrapping them together. I’m not sure how the book would look to someone who hasn’t been following all three titles as of late but fans of the mutants will not only be able to follow what’s going on but love that everything is actually getting the attention that it deserves.

The first half of this issue focuses purely on Wolverine deciding to take the enemy head on. We see Wolverine, Howlett and XX’s Hercules instantly jump into the fray. While using powers against the newly found enemy that the Celestials had to trap, they hope that brute force might be able to put a dent into their enemy.

While they seem to be able to scratch the new enemy, they have a built in healing factor that put’s Logan’s to shame. Next up Northstar tries to fly straight through them! As effective as you might think it is, that built in healing factor is able to quickly heal through it.

The fighting finally comes to a close, if briefly, when Iceman goes overboard with his power and freezes them in place. The Age of Apocalypse team at this point tries to strategize a defense and tempers flare on each side. Very quickly it’s obvious that all three of these teams are going to have issues getting along.

Also it’s very obvious at this point on the different artists on the various books. During the fight scene in the introduction you might be too busy with the action to notice, but when things came to a stand still there was a lack of detail in the characters that I felt make the three books not mesh properly.

In the middle of the teams not getting along, the creatures that the Celestials themselves had to imprison escape and some of them break through into the 616 Earth. It should speak volumes though that three teams of X-Men were even able to slow them down. Have our heroes truly grown this much? Or are we to believe that these creatures are weak enough from their imprisonment to let this happen?

I think it’s going to prove to be a mix of both of these factors.

The X-teams split up at this point with some staying in this dimension to either fight or study the enemy while the rest return to the Earth that we follow with the ominous warning that there is no guarantee that they’ll ever return home. Interestingly enough though is that so many of the various X-men from the regular continuity stay behind to try to make things right on this side.

Writer: Marjorie Liu
Artist: Matteo Buffagni