The X-Men’s “Second Coming” event was where Hope finally stops time-traveling with Cable and arrives in present-day, 616 Universe to be with the X-Men. It competed with Siege, explains why the mutants didn’t appear in that event, and occurred while most mutants were making a go of it living on the Utopia island. It didn’t incorporate all of the ongoing X-Books, but did run across the following series/issues, in addition to having one-shots and a two supporting miniseries. It also served as the jump-on point for the next era of Marvel Books, the “Heroic Age.”
- Deadpool & Cable #25 (marks the end of Cable’s solo series)
- New Mutants #12-14
- Uncanny X-Men #524-525
- X-Factor #204-206
- X-Force #26-28 (series ends)
- X-Men: Hope One Shot
- X-Men: Legacy #235-237
- X-Men: Second Coming #1-2
- X-Men: Second Coming: Phoenix Force One-Shot
- X-Men: Second Coming: Prepare One-Shot
- X-Men: Second Coming: Revelations: Blind Science One Shot
- X-Men: Second Coming: Revelations Hellbound #…
The story begins with the X-Men recovering from a big battle with Selene, believing Onyxx, Meld, and Diamond Lil to have been killed. Meanwhile, Cable is ready to make his final move back to Earth 616 (and Deadpool helps him do it). Cable’s solo book ends with him ready to return
Cerebra alerts the X-Men that Cable and Hope have returned to their timeline. They rush out to find them, but the pair have already been attacked by the militant Right. They escaped, and killed several Right soldiers in the process. And they’re not the only one who are fighting these anti-mutant militia to the death…
X-23’s actions happen in front of Nightcrawler who, to this point, was unaware of the existence of the X-Force team. It shocks his conscience that Cyclops has a black-ops team with orders to kill, and a major subplot of this story has Nightcrawler needing to decide whether he is willing to continue to be an X-Men under Scott’s leadership if it means he’s allied with a kill team.
The anti-mutant forces are led by Bastion and his team of undead mutant haters, which includes Stephen Lang, Bolivar Trask, William Stryker, Graydon Creed and Cameron Hodge.
Several of these issues have useful “files” to help the reader track who all the player are in this story, which has a cast of over 50 major players. There’s also a full one-shot of character files called X-Men: Phoenix Force.
Bastion’s armies main goal: Find and kill Hope.
Many “minor” characters get nice moments, like Cypher, above.
So, we have teams of mutants fighting off various anti-mutant forces while Cable and Hope continue to flee pursuers. This provides lots of opportunities for big action pieces as everyone comes together around Hope. Each of these battles has its own complications. Magik gets trapped back in Limbo. Angel takes on his Archanger personality and kills a whole bunch of Purifiers (who really deserved it, frankly). Cameron Hodge cuts off Karma’s leg.
And in return, Warlock kills (or re-kills) him…
Eventually, Bastion catches up with Hope and moves to kill her, but Nightcrawler teleports himself between them–taking the fatal blow intended for her.
As a result of his sacrifice, Hope meets her grandfather–Cyclops–for the first time.
She thinks of him what pretty much everyone else does. She’s a good judge of character.
As the teams all regroup, the X-Men send a contingent to retrieve Magik from Limbo, which takes place in the “Hellbound” offshoot miniseries. It’s largely a standalone–not much significant happens, but if you like Limbo stories and want to see Gambit in the role of villain, check it out.
Having failed in his first attempt, Bastion regroups and goes after all mutant teleporters–to cripple Cyclops’ ability to move his troops around. Ariel was already killed in a battle, as was Nightcrawler, and Vanisher is a casualty of the second wave of murders.
After the team mourns Nightcrawler, the Avengers and Fantastic Four show up to help them. This leads to the second big battle, involving a dome over San Francisco that is full of Nimrod Sentinels.
It also involves time-travel and yet-another tribute to the Days of Future Past story…
At this point, I have to admit to having battle fatigue as a reader. I understand that this is portraying a “war” but it’s a lot of battles, one after the other, and while the death of a character like Nightcrawler is a real consequence I am finding myself a bit numbed to it all.
Throughout, Cable continues to mentor Hope. She wants to leave this reality because, hey, it kinda sucks right now. But Cable instills in her his own code of ethics that includes not backing down when things seem hopeless.
So let’s get to the end: The final showdown has Hope “killing” Bastion after he “kills” Cable.
In the aftermath, a whole bunch of characters are dead (or “dead” because many come back), or damaged:
- Angel’s wings are damaged
- Ariel is “dead”
- Bastion is dead
- Beast is kicked out of the X-Men by Cyclops for being a pacifist
- Bolivar Trask is dead (again–since he was restored by Bastion)
- Cable is “dead”
- Cameron Hodge is dead (again–since he was restored by Bastion)
- Colossus has a broken arm
- Donald Pierce is dead (again–since he was restored by Bastion)
- Graydon Creed is dead (again–since he was restored by Bastion)
- Hellion lost his hands
- Karma lost a leg and gets a bionic one
- Nightcrawler is “dead”
- Sack is dead
- Stephen Lang is dead (again–since he was restored by Bastion)
- Vanisher is “dead”
- William Stryker is dead (again–since he was restored by Bastion)
- Utopia is no more, but the X-Men saved San Francisco so they’re now hailed as heroes. That won’t last.
Seeding the next phase of X-books, the X-Force team has to become top-secret, since Beast, Storm and others are against a mutant kill team.
It re-forms under Wolverine’s leadership with Psylocke, Phantomex, Archangel, and Deadpool(!). Hope appears to be touched by the Phoenix Force.
That’s the final page of the X-Force series, which gets a relaunch as “Uncanny X-Force.”
And Cerebra detects five new mutants on Earth–they will be called the Five Lights. They’ll be the focus of the first big story in the Heroic Age era.