Uncanny X-Men, The (1981 series) #210

In Los Angeles, a Hellfire Club henchman named Richard is traveling with a young Morlock girl named Tommy when he’s hit by an energy spear! As the energy tears through his body, he reaches out to Tommy, saying they have a better chance of surviving together, but she can only run in fear. Richard’s mysterious assailants then catch up with him and finish the job. Tommy hears the gunshot and, terrified, slips into a train car as it’s leaving, hopefully to safety. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a disguised Dazzler finishes up a show with her new band and heads back to their tour bus. As she contemplates the way her life has gone, she’s surprised by a face that’s not hers staring back out of her mirror. The being called Malice jumps out of her mirror and grabs her while Dazzler tries to blast her away. Sometime later, Dazzler wakes up, seemingly alone, chalking the whole thing up to a hallucination, though now sporting a choker she didn’t have before…

Back in New York, Rogue flies all throughout the city, looking for any sign of Rachel with her mini wrist-sensor. While looking for Rachel, she saves two window washers from falling to their deaths, to the amazement and whispering of the crowd. After hours of fruitless searching, Rogue decides to take some time for herself and heads to Bloomingdales for some new clothes and makeup. Rogue’s splurging is cut short by one customer who recognizes her as a mutant and demands she leave. One of the men Rogue saved earlier comes to her defense, saying she has just as much right to be there as anyone else! Rogue decides to use the opportunity to slip out and catches an ad for X-Factor Investigations on the side of a bus, deciding to tell Storm about it later. Back at Xavier’s School, Colossus is surprised by his sister Magik who tells him she’s concerned about Kitty. She claims Kitty’s quite worried about the disappearances of both Rachel and Nightcrawler, and feels that everything is falling apart around her. Meanwhile, Kitty fixes up Cerebro so that they can use it to help find their friends, while wondering if everything the X-Men do is really worth it. Just then, Cerebro’s sensors go off, indicating it’s found one of their missing comrades.

Meanwhile, in Manhattan, Magneto touches down in front of the entrance to the Hellfire Club, after receiving a summons from them. Magneto spots the new, mysterious X-Factor in the crowd that’s gathered because of his arrival and recognizes them as the five original X-Men! He wonders how they could have betrayed Xavier’s dream by hunting down their own kind, as he heads in for his meeting with the Hellfire Club. Though they were enemies mere hours before, Sebastian Shaw invites Magneto to become the new White King of the Hellfire Club. Though Magneto is wary, Shaw posits it’s the best course of action for mutual survival and that mutants need to stick together now more than ever, as public opinion of them worsens with every day. Magneto says that he and the X-Men shall consider the offer.

Elsewhere, Cerebro’s sensors have led Colossus, Kitty, and Magik to a warehouse on the Hudson River, where they find Nightcrawler being chased by a mob. Colossus jumps down to defend Kurt, and tries to appeal to the mob. Kitty jumps in, and points out the mob are acting just like the nazis, and scalp hunters of the old west, blindly attacking anyone they deem not human. This eventually drives the mob off and they tend to Nightcrawler, who reveals that he’s seemingly lost his powers! Meanwhile, Storm and Wolverine have tracked Rachel’s scent to where she disappeared from the Delacorte Theater. Wolverine confirms she’s gone somewhere they can’t follow and feels a bit responsible. Storm admits that she wished the whole team had confronted Rachel but confirms that she needs Logan with the team, now more than ever! In the Morlock tunnels, Tommy finally makes it nearly home, when she’s hit by one of the same energy spears that killed Richard. Her assailants, the Marauders, reveal they let her go so she could lead them back to the rest of the Morlocks, and they’re going to kill a whole lot more before they’re through! To be continued!