Shadow and Flame with Magik

Writer Joss Whedon

Artist John Cassaday

Colorist Laura Martin

Letterer Chris Eliopoulos

Cover Dated July 2008

Unstoppable Part Seven of Seven

Inside Front Cover ad is for the Iron Man the movie game.

This is the final issue of the Whedon / Cassaday / Martin / Eliopoulos era!

Issue opens with Spider-Man swinging around New York City.  I really like how Whedon takes this opportunity to let Cassaday draw as many Marvel characters as possible.

Nightcrawler bamfs in front of Spider-Man, startling him and he falls on Iceman’s slide.  If only Firestar had shown up!

Storm is also there, they are recruiting Spider-Man for the big adventure.  The Giant Sentinel, from the Danger arc, has returned to Earth in order to bring the four heroes to the SWORD Peak station.  At the Peak Station is – The Fantastic Four, Angel, Sentry, Pixie, Gentle, Warpath, Doctor Strange, Cannonball and Iron Man.

Spider-Man quips about the Civil War.

Angel tells Storm that Xavier was not invited and no one is explaining why.  Spider-Man is our introductory character here.  Warpath complains about how, once again, the mutants are left in the dark.

Storm is angry and chills the room, forcing Spider-Man to have some shrinkage.

Poor Kitty, is in the bullet on the way to Earth.

Colossus is confronting Aghanne.  She wants him to remove the core of Breakworld, destroying it.  Colossus doesn’t want to do it, naturally.  The two start fighting.

On the surface, Emma and Scott are fighting fools.  Powerlord Kruun confronts Scott and Emma.

Agent Brand is about to be attacked by two Breakworlders.  They are going to enjoy themselves with her but she has a rule, never get gang raped on a a first date.  Pretty good policy!  She also reveals that, Brand, is not her given name.  Which is something that still hasn’t been touched on.

Beast arrives, too late to help Brand.  They regroup with Wolverine, Armor and Danger.  Wolverine wants to go after Kitty.  Danger states that their spaceship is too slow to catch up.  Beast reveals the plan, Scott and Emma are after Kitty in the fastest ship.  These five are to support Colossus.  Wolverine mutters that Colossus should do his job and move on.  Beast hears this, and is shocked as Wolverine just suggested genocide.  Which this is Post-House of M, where Scarlet Witch essentially caused the genocide of the mutant race, so that is an option in the Marvel Universe.  She also gets to be an Avenger and gets a convenient mind controlled by Doctor Doom to excuse her.

Brand tells Cyclops’ side of the plan, to catch up to the bullet, and radio Earth to see if the Fantastic Four and the Avengers can do anything to help.  So is the first part of the issue happening post this scene?

Armor asks the question no one wants to think about.  Colossus doesn’t know that Kitty is heading to Earth in an unstoppable bullet.  He probably should be told.

Over with Team Earth, Doctor Strange is attempting a spell and goes into a coma.  The magical protection on the bullet is to prevent any magic from being used against it.  This was revealed in issue 24, pretty fantastic of Whedon to keep building from issue to issue and how it all gets tied up in this giant size issue.

It is now up to Reed Richards to come up with a plan.

Back in the core, Colossus is still having to fight against Aghanne (a name I can’t remember), and she is winning. She is in a protective suit as the flames would burn her alive.  She needs his metal, as only his metal can touch the core without harm.

Beast and Brand are having a moment.  He senses that Brand is keeping something from him.  This conversation is so great, I miss Brand and Beast together, she’s the best part of modern Beast.  She’s keeping back a secret, she is strongly attracted to him.  Which leaves him speechless.

Aghanne is getting the upper hand, Colossus starts to unshift from his armor form.  As he is about to do that, Ord appears, on fire and rips apart her containment suit.  Colossus finishes her off as Ord is too badly burn to continue the fight.

Reed Richards reveals the plan, which uses each member of the Fantastic Four.  Thing is piloting the ship.  Human Torch controls the thrusters.  Sue is going to protect them with a force field.  The plan works and Reed smiles.  Then the panel is repeated but with Reed drooling.  We pan out to see that all of the heroes are stupidly smiling and drooling.

The bullet continues as Scott and Emma try to catch up it.  They are close enough where Emma and Kitty can telepathically communicate.  Scott realizes how there isn’t anything they can do.

Emma takes the time to try to assure Kitty.

We get a page of Sentry punching the bullet.  Iron Man lifting the bullet and Spider-Man webbing the bullet.  This doesn’t ring true to Spider-Man.

Kitty tells Emma that she can’t stop holding onto the bullet.  The two have become linked, to the point where Kitty is suffering some sort of poisoning from it.  Kitty isn’t able to disconnect to it so she won’t be able to escape from it.

Emma, I think, tries to use reverse psychology and get Kitty to try harder.  Kitty isn’t weak, she’s sick.  Kitty isn’t feeling pain from it though, she feels expanded.  She references issue four, of how there was an abyss of darkness (are there other types?) then she found a room where Colossus was being kept.  Which is exactly how she got into this current mess.

Emma hints to Kitty that, if they had any luck of stopping the bullet, it should have happened by now.  Kitty knows.

Spider-Man punches Storm, to get her to wake up.  She was also having a moment where she saved Earth on her own.  So we have two heroes who are not in dream states.

All of the heroes are drooling as they are deep into their visions of ultimate heroism.

We get Lockheed’s sole appearance in the issue!

Colossus confronts Kruun, he wants answers about the bullet.  Any type of weakness or way to slow its velocity.

I like how he goes in to shake his hand, Krunn is confused by the gesture.

Then Wolverine straight up slices his arm off!  Was that planned ahead of time!?!

Colossus is in the perfect position to rule Breakworld.  Krunn now only has the one arm, so that is a physical weakness and Breakworld is a planet that hates all forms of weakness.

Brand tells Krunn that if Earth is destroyed, these X-Men are going to make Breakworld their new home and no one will like that.  They want to know what the weakness is.

Scott is talking to Storm, the more powerful heroes are being more deeply controlled.  Spider-Man is trying to punch everyone awake.  Scott suggest that if they can get something big in front of the bullet, that might slow it down or divert it.  The Giant Sentinel hears this and races off.

Kitty suspects that she will die when Earth is destroyed, like the bullet shouldn’t continue after the impact, so her time is almost up.

Spider-Man is all types of concern!

Emma offers to put Kitty in a mental safe zone, like how she did for Beast, Brand, Scott and herself in issue 20.

Kitty wants to be awake for this, so she turns down the offer.  Kitty wants Emma to pass along a message to Colossus but changes her mind as it would be redundant.

That is such a great bottom two panel sequence!  Disappointed, Ms. Frost?  Astonished, Ms. Pryde.  Astonish, is a hard word to work into a conversation.

The poor baby Sentinel does its part but the bullet just smashes on through.

The bullet has entered Earth’s atmosphere.  Kitty has a plan.  Spider-Man is freaking the heck out!  He really wants someone to magically fix the situation before we all lose our favorite planet.  Which is odd as he knows that magic is useless against the bullet, as he is standing next to a comatose Doctor Strange.  Silly Spider-Man.

Kitty gathers all of her might.

AND SINGLE-HANDEDLY SAVES EARTH!!!  How amazing is that of Shadowcat?

Not many heroes can say that they, on their own, saved the entire planet.  Also, she saved the entire planet, not just like Marvel’s New York and everyone just refers to it as saving the world.  Earth would be a tiny dust cloud right now if it wasn’t for Katherine Anne Pryde.  In yo faces, doubters!

Everyone on Earth totally freaks out as they see a giant space bullet ghost right on through.

Later, back on Earth, Scott and Emma are meeting with Colossus.  Doctor Strange, Reed Richards and Iron Man are all working on ways to save Kitty – but they really are not, as they are stupid jerks.  Kitty is one with the bullet, so there might not be a way to save her.  If they do get her out, the bullet will still hit another planet, killing all of those folks.  So Kitty is saving planet after planet.  We’ll learn more in the first issue of SWORD, an amazingly good miniseries.

Emma is sad over the entire situation, me too!

There is an ad for Wolverine 66, the beginning of Mark Millar / Steve McNiven Old Man Logan arc.  I own issue 72.

Wolverine is not happy that there is no way to save Kitty.  She saved them all but no one is going to be able to get to her.

Armor starts fighting him, so that he can snap out of it.  She could have at least given him a few more days of grieving.

Beast and Brand.  I like how the final pages are about pairs.  Beast believes he hates Brand.  She wants him to join her in SWORD, to keep her honest professionally and sexually satisfied personally.  Brand reveals that her father was a blue furry monster, so she has some daddy issues.  Her green hair is natural.  Her father is an alien, so she is half alien.

Scott and Emma.  Scott wants Emma to hand him is visor, his control over his optic blasts is about to end.  They love each other.

The issue ends with Kitty’s speech to Colossus about why she pursued this second relationship, that she told him on Breakworld in Astonishing X-Men 22.

So we get three pairs and the fourth pair is torn apart and it is the relationship that started in this run.  Well, Wolverine is paired with Armor and Beast with Brand.

The title of the issue is really, Gone, but it is essentially Unstoppable Seven of Six.

The comic ends with various variant textless covers.

This is by far my favorite Kitty and Lockheed image!

So this issue came out May 29, 2008 and Kitty will not be back until Matt Fraction brings her back in Uncanny X-Men 521, which came out in February 17, 2010, which was 22 months later.  Just under two years.

Inside back cover ad is for Edward Norton’s Incredible Hulk film.