Saturday, October 14, 2006

UXP # 65: Age of Apocalypse # 4: "Resistance"

Astonishing X-Men # 2, Amazing X-Men # 2, Astonishing X-Men # 3, Amazing X-Men # 3, Weapon X # 2

The AoA gets better, thank goodness.

As Rogue's team of X-Men head to Chicago and Indianapolis to stop Holocaust's cullings, Quicksilver's team continues to handle the situation developing with the Maine evacuation. Meanwhile, there's trouble England.

Rogue's team attempt to help evacuate citizens of Chicago from the on-coming force of Holocaust and his forces. At one point, Sunfire becomes overwhelmed and goes a little pyscho on some probes. Rogue powers him down with her touch and we get a fantastic glimpse at the history of Age of Apocalypse, featuring part of the downfall of Japan and the near death of Sunfire. After this, Sabretooth decides to take out Holocaust. Blink reluctantly sends him to Indianapolis (as he is her mentor and rescuer) and a battle follows. Holocaust wins after a great sequence.

Meanwhile, Quicksilver must take down Abyss to save a child and help the evacuees. He managest to do with a punch to the face. Not kidding. As this is taking place, the X-Men have to deal with the Brotherhood of Mutants (which is a hodgepodge of Copycat, Cyber, Box, Arclight, and Spyne) and reprogram the Setinels to help the humans. The X-Men succeed in doing so and the evacuation goes off without a hitch.

Back in Chicago, the cullings continue and its revealed that Holocaust has an Infinite (genetic/cyber soldiers of Apocalypse) processing plant in the area and will be taking the survivors of the cullings there. The X-Men learn of this and head off stop him, and find soon find Sabretooth's torn up body waiting for them.

As we go through all this, we're also following a subplot that involves Apocalypse tracking down Mangeto's base thanks to Blink's teleport. They find it, then use Karma (who works for Angel, who met with Gambit) to find out if there are any surprises waiting for them. Apocalypse then heads off to the Xavier Estate and a battle with Bishop and Magneto follows with Apocalypse coming out the victor. As this battle ensues, Magneto's son Charles is spirited aware by the robot Nanny (good this time) and disappears.

The Shadow King and Apocalypse's monks the Madri then uncover what the deal is with Bishop. When Quicksilver's team learns of this, he, Banshee, and Storm head off to free Bishop.

Now, across the pond, the evacuees arrive in England and with them come to members of the Brotherhood that Weapon X slices up. In London, a nuclear weapons fleet is prepared to strike North America. It's attacked by Donald Pierce, who is working with Apocalypse. Weapon X takes him out, but not before the navigational charts are destroyed. Afterwards, Jean leaves for America to warn people of the impending nuke attack.

Each entry into the Age of Apocalypse is an improvement over the previous one, which is good. The writing is well done, adding more drama and some nice twists to this dark world. Some nice character moments too for Magneto, Storm, Quicksilver, Rogue, Blink, Sabretooth, and Sunfire. The art is some of the best, especially from Joe Mad and Adam Kubert.

~W~

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