The title of #17 is so gross it’s dumb: “A Skinning of Souls…Part One: Waiting for the Ripening.” Yuck.
It starts in Russia, with Darkstar and Blind Faith in a town that has been taken over by The Presence. Only it’s not The Presence. It’s a psychic illusion created by an unseen assailant. Yeah, it’s Skinner of Souls.
Meanwhile, the X-Men arrive in Russia with Colossus. Remember when they introduced Colossus’ brother two years ago and then killed him? Well, in these issues Colossus (along with some fellow X-Men) goes back to Russia to visit his family and tell them what happened.
The stories weave together, and we see that Omega Red is under Skinner’s psychic control.
I mean, Omega Red was a serial killer so he was already nasty. This just makes him worse. The Skinner has taken over Omega Red’s body. He’s got mental powers, and so, through Omega Red, he attacks the X-Men—at the same time that the KGB kills Colossus’ parents and kidnaps Illyana (who is a child again, remember?). They intentionally bring out her Magik powers, and force her to teleport Skinner of Souls out of our dimension.
Skinner of Souls, it turns out, caused all of this.
It feels really important to have this new demon introduced, but near as I can tell we never see it again. Vazhin kills him in the end. The demon is just a device to begin reviving Magik. And honestly, it seems like that could have been accomplished in a lot of much better (and less confusing) ways.
Yeah, there’s a LOT of stuff going on here. In addition to all that, the rest of the X-Men are home and dealing with Rogue being blind, conflicts with the X-Force team, etc. Oh and this:
Psylocke is mad crushing on Cyclops, and he’s fantasizing about her. He sees her nekkid.
I can’t blame Scott for being flustered. Sure, he’s got Jean Grey, but Psylocke is younger and…Yeah. He doesn’t do anything with her, but I can’t blame his hormones for making him consider it.
And a new character is introduced, in Tokyo—a powerful assassin called who wants to kill the X-Men.
She says that she’s finally prepared to find the X-Men. She then goes to a guy that sure looks a heck of a lot like the Mandarin when he wore business clothes circa Uncanny X-Men #256-258, but he’s identified as Lord Nyoirin. He’s just a random Japanese crimelord.
We’ll learn later that Kwannon’s code name is Revanche. And then the character will get a very, very complicated story.