I’m always wary when I see one story and two artists (Duncan Rouleau subs in for Paco Medina for two issues of this arc). For me, it breaks up the continuity to have two competing artistic styles. Let’s see how this one goes…
Apparently, despite his death, Reverend Stryker’s church of hating mutants has continued on without him. Three bodies are found at the site, cut up and all the computers have a virus causing the words “Terminate. Terminate. Terminate.” to appear on screen. One of the victims is Jay Guthrie, aka Icarus. While dying, he wrote, “Nimro…” before his life ended.
Iron Man and Ms. Marvel look into it and Carol goes to the mansion to tell the X-Men in person.
Emma Frost reacts negatively to Carol’s appearance, asking her why she didn’t show up after a busload of students were murdered by Stryker’s forces (in the last arc).
While that is going on, Nimrod, injured, finds Forge and forces him to help Nimrod heal…But Forge also secretly summons the X-Men.
The New X-Men receive the distress call and go to help Forge. Nimrod takes down their X-Jet (yay! a crash! I get to use my tag, below!)
Nimrod attacks, but quickly learns that Forge has reprogrammed him to help the X-Men instead of kill them. Nimrod’s original programming is able to overcome Forge’s sabotage, and we get the inevitable big fight. During it, Nimrod drops a building on the team and Rockslide does his best Hulk imitation…
…Which is a Secret Wars tribute…
Cool.
It’s a solid final heroic moment for the character, who is later blown apart by Nimrod.
The team fights Nimrod off, but he time-jumps away.
But he’s not dead because, apparently, he is like Dust–he has the power to reform.
In addition, X-23 is severely wounded, but Elixir heals her.
In the aftermath, Nimrod ends up at the beginning of Uncanny X-Men #191–so I guess he’s in a loop? Also, SHIELD arrests the New X-Men for escaping the mansion despite their Sentinel O*N*E babysitters.
So…How did it go with two artists? Very well. The writing here is so good it overcame any distraction.