The Young X-Men attack the New Mutants, who are watching Magnum PI.
This is terrific because Magnum PI was frequently referenced in old New Mutants and X-Men comics. Love this.
Oh, and it’s not real. It’s a “danger cave” training session. The Young X-Men have a cave instead of a room.
It’s also great because the New Mutants are now the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. If you’re saying, “Huh? When did that happen?!?” Don’t worry. All will be clear at the end.
Cyclops directs a “blue” and “gold” team on separate missions to track down and capture two of the renegades: Magma and Mirage, who grace the cover of issue #2 in a highly sexualized format that really goes against their character histories.
Blindfold and Ink go after Dani Moonstar, but turns out that Ink is a traitor. He delivers Blindfold to Donald Pierce, and then returns to base to Cyclops what happened.
The rest of the Young X-Men go after Magma.
This leads to another classic X-Men trope: Crashing planes. Magma takes down their craft and a battle ensues.
The Young X-Men get the edge at first but eventually lose. Ink decides he needs a power-up and gets a tattoo based on X-Men #19.
Back at the base, Graymalkin breaks out of his cell, attacks Cyclops, and we learn that Scott is really Donald Pierce–the Young X-Men were really formed by the bad guy, who was trying to train them to be killers.
The gang then goes back after the New Mutants for a rematch.
The fight is well done.
Wolf Cub dies in the final battle, killed by Donald Pierce. When his teammates go for the revenge kill, Wolf Cub uses his last breath to remind his team-mates that X-Men don’t kill.
Okay, that ending is a nice touch. It means the good guys were the bad guys and vice-versa, which makes a lot of this book so far make sense.
There’s also a “prison break” interlude introducing Julio Rodriguez who appears to have the same tattoo-based powers as Ink.
#6 OF YOUNG X-MEN IS NOVEMBER