Picking right up from last issue, Mr. Sinister, now
face to face with the Goblin Queen, tells her that he is her father! She denies
the declaration, reasoning that he was the one who sent the Marauders to kill
her. She attacks Sinister, and as N’Astirh watches her considerable power, he
begins to question just what he’s helped unleash! However, Sinister is not
stunned for long and uses his base’s defensive systems to bind Madelyne in
chains, reflecting her power back at her, as N’Astirh teleports away, leaving
her at Sinister’s mercy! Meanwhile, in Manhattan, the X-Men continue their
fierce battle with the Marauders as the city warps into a demonic hellscape! As
the two sides face off, demon-possessed inanimate objects attack civilians.
Colossus is especially shocked to discover Riptide there alive, considering he
killed Riptide when last they faced each other! The battle is then
interrupted by the police, their vehicles morphed into demonic creatures as
they attack X-Men and Marauders alike!
Malice uses Polaris’s powers to rip the demonic
vehicles apart and send the shrapnel flying at the X-Men while at the same time
Vertigo disorients them. Longshot is able to throw a knife blindly, knocking a
sign onto her, as Rogue shields the team from Scalphunter’s shots. Storm
commands Psylocke to try and take all of the Marauders out at once with a
single telepathic blow but she quickly gets overwhelmed by the thoughts of the
civilians in danger nearby! The Marauders try and gang up on the stunned Psylocke,
but the rest of the X-Men intervene, all the while their battle is watched by
some demons with glee! Back in Nebraska, the captive Madelyne tries to convince
herself that Sinister has nothing to do with her. He tells her to prove it by
sharing a memory only she would know, knowing she can’t. She tells him
about when she was a child, playing with her friend Annie Richardson. Annie
accidentally ran into the street chasing a frisbee and got hit by a car.
Sinister then begins to recite the account as well, how as Annie faded,
Madelyne’s mind seemed to connect to hers, sharing her thoughts until Annie
finally died. Sinister then reveals that Annie Richardson was Jean Grey’s childhood
friend, and that memory was the account of how her telepathic abilities first
started! N’Astirh watches all of this from the shadows and decides the time is
right for one final element!
Back in Manhattan, Wolverine attempts to rescue
someone from getting eaten by a possessed mailbox but is too late. Havok blasts
the mailbox apart, while the X-Men try to reconcile all of the absurd things
they’ve been seeing. In Nebraska, Sinister continues his account, describing
how he had planned to get his hands on the young Jean Grey but Charles Xavier
had gotten to her first. However, Sinister had decided to use some of Jean’s
DNA he’d procured to create his own “Jean Grey”, cloning her to produce Madelyne!
As Madelyne laid and grew in stasis, her powers had failed to manifest until a
fragment of the Phoenix Force flew down and awakened her latent abilities, at
precisely the same moment that Jean Grey sacrificed herself on the moon! Back
in Manhattan, several of S’ym’s mechanical underlings begin to swarm the area
and attack the X-Men. Colossus interrogates one and learns that S’ym has taken
over control of limbo from his sister Magik. He’s told of a spell S’ym’s
planning to cast at the Empire State Building to make the whole earth just like
limbo! As the X-Men start to become affected by the inferno, becoming more
demonic themselves, Colossus realizes he must go alone to try and rescue his
sister, and hopes he’s not too late!
In Nebraska, Sinister reveals that purpose of his
plan, to obtain the offspring of Scott Summers and Jean Grey. With his own
“Jean” in Madelyne, he set up a fake life for her and placed her where he knew
Scott would be, letting nature take its course. However, when Jean came back to
life, he knew the truth would be revealed instantly if they ever met, so he
sent the Marauders to kidnap Madelyne’s baby and kill her in order to cover his
tracks. In Manhattan, N’Astirh appears to feed briefly on the X-Men’s souls as
they defeat the Marauders, becoming more and more demonic by the moment! As
N’Astirh teleports away, Wolverine senses an unseen trouble! Back in Nebraska,
the Goblin Queen’s pet demons pounce on Sinister as she exerts an immense
amount of power, finally breaking free of her chains, to his utter shock! As
the two face each other down, N’Astirh returns, now transformed, with the final
piece of the puzzle. He presents Madelyne with her baby and she renounces her
humanity, giving in fully to her darkest impulses! An inferno, set to consume
them all! To be continued!
Story continued in X-Factor #37.
Excelsioring your collection