Written by Matt Fraction
Penciled by Terry Dodson
Inked by Rachel Dodson
Colored by Justin Ponsor
Lettered by VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover Dated October 2009
Utopia Part Four of Six
Magik only shows up on the one page, but that’s all it takes for me to buy a comic.
Issue opens with Simon Trask in his robot form. He’s cold hearted and racist.
Scott Summers — Cyclops. Optic force blasts. Unbeatable plans. He’s watching the news coverage.
Graymalkin Industries Marin, CA : Cyclops is giving out some orders.
Dani Moonstar — Mirage. Depowered Mutant; deposed Valkyrie. That second part is a little hint of where she is going.
Neena Thurman — Domino. Luck-Warping Mercenary. Mild OCD Case. Is her name really, Neena? It sounds familiar and surprising.
Mindee — Stepford Cuckoo. One part f the Three-in-One Cuckoo Hivemind. First name actually, Irma. Which is what I like to call her.
Betsy Braddock — Psylocke. Telepathic, telekinetic ninja. Long Story. She is wearing a wetsuit, and Domno wants to know why. Betsy tells her it is because she was swimming. We’ll get to that.
Cyclops tells Dani that she can still pull out of her portion of the plan but she’s willing to go through with it.
This is during the time when Cyclops knew about X-Force, but X-Force is a secret. Cyclops is pulling X23 off of that team for a side mission. He tells Domino to go to the rendezvous point to wait for Wolverine. He is going to get pass the city’s barriers.
Dani is heading to Vegas. Betsy has two or three days to get her goal done. Cyclops wants her done already. He wants Mindee to get arrested.
Alcatraz. Dark Wolverine is fighting Bullshawkeye. I forget that Daken has two claws on the tops of his hands (like X23) but also has one that comes out from the bottom of his wrist. Which, once all are extracted, must keep his wrists pretty straight. Emma forces them to stop fighting. Today’s goal is to do as much good as possible as Norman’s personal X-Men team. I like how having Mimic on the roster means that Norman, essentially, has all five original X-Men on the roster.
Northern Park : Simon Trask’s version of Sentinels are being called, BioSentinels. Its all about branding. Emma detects that the people who are now BioSentinels are dead, so the team can use excessive force.
Cyclops is taking a field team to spy on the Dark X-Men. Pixie is worried about what happens if they are caught out there.
I do like Cloak and Dagger as team members of the X-Men, maybe one day they can join a real squad.
There is a double page ad for Ultimate Alliance 2. I believe it is the weakest of the four games – X-Men Legends & Ultimate Alliance. The X-Men Legends are superb games that I hope to be able to play again, especially the second one as it has New Game +, something that every RPG game should have. Ultimate Alliance 2 suffers from being an adaption of Civil War and that just hurts the replayablility, for me. Plus, the level cap is pretty low so the New Game + aspect isn’t as fun.
Vegas. Dani has made it!
Northeast. Cyclops’ field team is on top of a building that Angel owns. He doesn’t call it spying, he calls it homework. he has apparently told the team who they will end up fighting.
There is a page ad split in two. The top one is for Marvel hats. The bottom is for New Mutants 5, the return of Warlock. That must have burn Zeb Wells a little. Issue four got a full page and now he gets a half page. But it is Warlock.
Does Mimic ever use his telepathic powers? Or does he only have Jean’s telekinesis? I’ll have to pay attention to that. I guess with Emma on the team, they don’t need a C-Level telepath using his power.
The Dark X-Men have defeated all of the BioSentinels but they nearly destroyed that part of town.
Cyclops knows how to defeat the Dark X-Men. They may have the superior numbers and the two god-like power levels but they fight alone. Together, but alone. The X-Men fight as a unified force. That’s they advantage. Iceman worries not about defeating the Dark X-Men but what will surely come afterwards, the Dark Avengers. Cyclops hints that they are not the team that will deal with the Avengers.
Then we get to why I own this issue.
Bay of Oakland. Oh how I wish this was setting up Magik becoming a member of the sanctioned X-Force.
Wolverine bursts from the water, just like he did in Uncanny X-Men 132. An issue I really want to own. Next time I’m able slash allowed to buy back issues, I have to make sure that one makes the list.
Kitty will later do the same move in Astonishing X-Men 15.
I could be reading way too much into it but I’m sure that’s what Fraction and the Dodsons were hoping we will remember.
Just off of the Pacific Coast : We see Pyslocke and X-Club as they are underwater. They are coming up to one of the old Asteroid Ms that fell into the water, so many years ago.
Back cover ad is for the Honda Insight.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 