X-Factor (1986 series) #39

Continued from Uncanny X-Men #243.

With the rest of X-Factor and the X-Men defeated, Longshot stands alone against Mister Sinister! Still feeling doubts about himself, Longshot isn’t able to stand up to Sinister for long but he’s able to distract him long enough for Beast to land a surprise attack. Sinister blasts Beast away and when Polaris goes to kill Cyclops, he reveals he’s awake too and blasts her as well! Cyclops confronts Sinister, who still has Jean as his captive, but finds that he can’t fire his optic beam at him! Sinister taunts Scott, and something about it sounds familiar to Scott as Sinister toys with him. Just then, Rogue and Psylocke wake up, and Psylocke assaults Sinister telepathically. While Sinister deals with Psylocke, Rogue flies in close and grabs Sinister, and starts to drain and absorb him! However, Sinister’s personality proves too dominant and he reverses the scales, instead taking over Rogue! In Rogue’s body, Sinister attacks Cyclops once more which causes him to remember! Cyclops suddenly remembers when he was a young boy in the hospital shortly after landing from his parents’ plane. Sinister appeared to him and Cyclops ended up blowing the roof off the hospital! Sinister injected Scott with something, resulting in his year-long coma that he always thought was a result of the fall!

Sinister then reveals that Scott’s power first activated instinctively to lessen the impact of his and Alex’s fall. Afterward, Sinister had Scott sent to his orphanage and arranged for Alex to be adopted and separated from him, but Xavier ended up finding Scott instead. Years later, he created Madelyne from Jean’s cells in order to lure Scott away and obtain his offspring but now revels in the fact that he has the real Jean! He binds Cyclops with energy as Havok stands up to Sinister. He blasts Sinister with everything he has, which unfortunately has no effect! Sinister then has Polaris envelop Havok in metal debris and orders her to kill him! Colossus pops out of the rubble to stop her but Polaris ends up easily incapacitating him, twisting him in the air like a ragdoll! As Sinister continues to torture Scott, he remembers the headaches he used to have at the orphanage and realizes they were Sinister’s doing! While Scott did suffer brain damage from the fall, Sinister put additional blocks on his powers until he could learn to control them while purging his existence from Scott’s memory. Scott never did learn to control his power, so Sinister developed the ruby quartz glasses he still uses to keep them in check.

Not far away, Wolverine regains consciousness and quickly wakes up Storm. Storm then has Psylocke telepathically link everyone so that they can formulate a plan to stop Sinister. They realize that Sinister seems afraid of Scott’s power and theorize he may be vulnerable to something in his optic beam. They then put their plan into action, starting with Archangel swooping in on Sinister. He flies around and fires his wing spikes and Sinister retaliates, until Archangel hits his real target, Polaris! With Colossus now free, he, Rogue, and Wolverine pile on Sinister while Storm generates a wind to snatch Jean out of his grasp. Furious at his treatment of Jean, Storm generates a hurricane to batter at Sinister. With enough moisture now in the air from Storm’s weather, Iceman uses it to freeze Sinister solid, while Wolverine works on freeing Havok. Wolverine is then confronted by Sabretooth and he succinctly deals with him while Dazzler and Beast free Havok. With Havok free, he taunts Cyclops, firing his plasma blast at his brother, which only serves to power up the confused Cyclops!

Sinister breaks out of the ice and the long-range attackers continue to pour on the pressure. Longshot then tries a lucky shot, which Sinister easily deflects. He retaliates, hitting Jean instead, dropping her into his arms once more. With Longshot thinking he failed, Havok points out to Scott that Sinister has Jean once more! Powered up from his brother’s energy, and with the proper motivation, Cyclops pushes past Sinister’s conditioning and completely obliterates him with a full power optic blast, as Beast gets Jean out of harm’s way! With Sinister defeated, Cyclops and Havok embrace and Storm states that the two teams will continue to fight for Xavier’s dream, just with different roles to play. The X-Men get teleported away, while X-Factor are left to feel content with their victory. Cyclops feels a sense of understanding, now knowing more of what shaped the course of his life, and X-Factor aims to make the most of their victory!