X-Men #18: Night of the Sentinels

 

The young man walks through the city for the first time, alone. He’s afraid and doesn’t know where to begin. He’s got a journey ahead of him in this world that wants to eat him alive.

The kid on the corner is selling newspapers. “Get yer paper! Yankees Beat Cleveland Indians 8 to 3! Bronx Bombers nab their 5^th Consecutive American League Pendant! Get yer paper!”

The young man tosses the kid a dime and catches the rolled up news the boy throws to him. Forget the Yankees winning the Pendant, the front page headline reads “Mutant Attack on Church Could Mean Robot Police!” Anti-Mutant sentiment is growing in the country. The American people are bringing an end to the fight for civil rights and uniting on a mistrust of homo-superior. A mutant himself, the young man shivers at the thought. Just a day before, he felt someone in his head. Jean Grey was looking for someone and she touched the mind of every mutant within three hundred miles. He shakes his head with that thought. She didn’t even bother to say hi, much less offer him any help. So he sits on the steps of a brownstone apartment to read this scathing report of a supposed mutant massacre.

It was the X-Men, of course. He could just imagine how it went down. Danger took the appearance of a sentinel and walked in like he belonged there. Jean and Mystique entered the church as unassuming spectators. Professor Charles Xavier was there, likely to debate the need for Sentinels, and their engineer, a man named Trask was there as well. But what of Wolverine? Most likely, he waited outside, hoping to sneak around the building in search of some real dirt, as he’d call it. According to the paper, the mutants drove a truck into the building and proceeded to start a fight with the robots who were there as an exhibition. That truck struck down 42 year old Thomas Barberry and an agent of the FBI, Jacob Farber. As it appeared that the sentinels would lose, the robots grabbed their maker and flew off. New York City Police Captain George Stacy and Newspaper man, J. Jonah Jameson were among the audience members traumatized by the chaos. How this will affect the campaign to mass produce these Sentinels, seems pretty obvious after the debacle..

The young man throws the paper in a nearby trash can. What was he doing? He should be there with them. Helping them. Instead he’s chasing ghosts with no idea of where to start. But then there’s a voice in his head.

“Scott, can you hear me?”

“Professor?”

“Scott, I think we should set our differences aside for right now and work together. I want to help you find your brother. We are going to need him.”

Meanwhile, at the X-Mansion, the X-Men adjust to some changes. Norton McCoy has returned to the school. He feels he might be needed but also, the school he was working at, The Massachusetts Academy has been feeling a bit off. Much worse than the Xavier’s School ever did. And the Headmistress and Headmaster always appear to be scheming. Xavier’s took him back and welcomed Hank back with open arms.

The X-Men are running a school after all, but with the coming Apocalypse, they’ll need the McCoys. They might also need help from some unlikely allys, Magneto and Juggernaut.

If the Days of Future’s Future is at all accurate, they may need more than that.