“Eve of Destruction” is an arc that TRULY transforms the X-Men. Not because it’s so good, but because it makes way for something truly extraordinary: Grant Morrison’s New X-Men begins at #114, picking up the numbering of the X-Men series.
But that’s later. For now, it’s Eve of Destruction. And actually, it doesn’t do any transforming. It just kills Magneto. (Who of course isn’t dead.)
Magneto, now the ruler of his own nation, sends Genosha’s ambassador, Cargill, to speak at the United Nations and tell the world that if mutant hate doesn’t stop–immediately–Genosha will take over the entire planet and kill all the humans.
He also kidnaps Professor X. For a powerful mutant, he certainly gets taken a lot.
For some reason, Magneto puts him on a cross. That’s a bit much.
Jean gets Dazzler, Northstar and a bunch of mutants few people have heard of to help save the Professor, while Cyclops and Wolverine sneak onto the island nation of Genosha and start smuggling refugees out to Wakanda.
There’s a ton of them, living in sewers beneath Genosha.
As they battle their way through the sewer, there’s a lot of “buddy” stuff with Cyke and Logan.
It all feels odd. These two have never had this kind of a relationship before, and Scott has never had a sense of humor.
Anyway, back to the Jean Grey team: The three new mutants joining with Jean are not around for long, but it’s worth mentioning them. First: Wraith, whose power seems to be making peoples’ skin invisible–including his own.
Next, a strong and invulnerable mob enforcer called Omerta.
He’s quite the Italian goombah stereotype.
It’s not just the cannoli reference. He also assumes Northstar–who gives him CPR to save his life–is hitting on him.
Remember: This is the swansong for the X-Men series before it becomes New X-Men and goes down in history as one of the greatest X-Men books of all time. So bear with all this crap.
Finally, the third new mutant is Sunpyre.
Sister of Sunfire.
Big fight vs. Magneto.
With very heavy-handed scripting.
He seems to kill Dazzler. But we all know better, right? Wanna know how they get out of this one? We will learn later that NONE OF THIS IS HAPPENING. It’s actually all on the astral plane. Or as I like to call it, the Astral Lame, amiright?
Magneto takes quite a beating.
His powerset doesn’t enable him to survive punishment like this, but I’m sure there’s some kind of No-Prize worthy explanation.
Wolverine kills him.
The end.