Cable and Storm get intelligence that Callisto and Marrow plan to blow up a nightclub where Lila Cheney is headlining, and frame the Friends of Humanity for it. Terrorism? I don’t see how that fits with Callisto’s prior character.
The heroes stop the mutant terrorists, Lila’s concert goes off well, and Thornn turns the bomb over to Cable so that Lila can teleport it somewhere where its explosion won’t hurt anyone.
In #42, there’s a bunch of Madame Sanctity/Askani stuff that becomes the main plot in #43 and #44, as Sebastian Shaw strikes a deal with these refugees from the future to help bring Cable’s apocalyptic future into being.
These stories just don’t interest me.
But it all builds to #44, where Cable finally meets his resurrected mother, Madelyn Pryor.
He meets her on the astral plane, where she puts him in a go-go cage.
She’s all mean and anti-X-Men now, and wants her son to join her in a plot to kill all mutants, but Cable talks her into realizing that the X-Men are good people. It’s not clear if she’s swayed by this.
#44 is also the first issue by new writer James Robinson. It’s definitely an improvement, but overall this is still a frustratingly paced book with way, way, way too many characters who I just don’t care about.
Next comes another big event: Operation Zero Tolerance.