Synopsis & Review by CharleyX:
Synopsis: Beast and Jean are helping search for survivors in the charnel house that was Genosha. Jean senses someone and lifts off enough rubble for Hank to help Emma Frost emerge with one of her students, who is already dead. Emma is in shock, and also has a diamond-like covering on her skin. Jean reports that Cyclops and Wolverine have brought the person responsible for the massacre to the Mansion. There, Xavier watches the news in horror as the returning X-Men report they have placed Cassandra Nova in a grav bottle intended to hold Juggernaut. Xavier reports that Magneto is dead, and Scott says they've mobilized everyone available to help in SAR. The go to see Nova. Wolverine had severed her vocal cords in Ecuador to keep her from voice-activating the remaining Sentinels. However, she has amazing regenerative powers and is already recovering.

In the medlab, Beast talks to Emma about her new secondary mutation, which he doesn't fully understand. Emma is curt, then apologizes, citing the trauma she lived through as the reason. She wants Nova dead. Jean enters and tries to calm her down - Magneto is gone and Xavier's people don't kill. Emma calls a cab with her telepathy and prepares to leave to find her own way, which is not the X-Men's.

Beast goes to examine Nova, and find she is a completely new evolutionary being, far beyond mutants, whom she views as prey. Even more disturbing is why she doesn't prey on humans: they are dying out. Hank found an extinction gene in the human genome that has been activated, meaning there will be no humans left in a few generations. Wolverine wants to know why Nova looks like the Professor, but before Beast can respond Cassandra attacks with a telekinetic explosion. Jean tries to keep Nova from speaking, but her mind is too strange. Cyclops attacks, but Nova gets into his head and messes with it, so Scott starts trying to talk to Jean about the illusions he sees. Beast gets Scott to snap out of it as Logan attack Nova, who burns his arm down to the adamantium bones. Nova has somehow encased herself in armor, but Jean pushes her away from Logan, whose arm is starting to regenerate. Nova flees and makes her way to Cerebra.

Meanwhile, Emma's cab is moving towards the front gates when she has an idea and stops the car.

Inside, Logan attacks again, but Nova phases through the wall to Cerebra. She puts on the helmet and green psychic tendrils come out of her head to fill the chamber, when suddenly the helmet is grabbed and twisted, snapping her neck. Emma had returned and stopped Nova. Scott thatnks her but Emma says sarcastically she only came back for her purse. Nova's regenerating by now, and it about to get up when six gunshots send her down for the count, fired with unerring accuracy by Professor X. He says he had no choice, and the X-Men accept that fact, having seen the damage Nova did.

Later, Scott and Jean watch a talk show with the Professor as a guest from Jean's sick bed in the medlab. The world is changing their views on mutants in light of the tragedy that killed half the world's population. Jean thinks the Professor's in shock, and Scott wonders why he's doing the talk shows. Jean wants Scott to stop being so distant, but he can't, because Apocalypse messed with his head and tore down a lot of his ideals and principles. He just doesn't want to hurt anyone. Then they both look up in stunned disbelief as Xavier annouces to the world that he himself is a mutant!

Review: Pretty darn good. Not the strongest issue so far, but a solid effort. The scenes in Genosha were probably the best, especially Emma's reaction to what she saw, and to her students' death. (Q: if she was one of the X-Men already, why was she in Genosha to begin with? If Jean was just saying that because of her time with Gen X, why was Cyclops so untrusting in this year's Annual?) Anyway, the revelations about Nova were good, if a little vauge. She's apparently related to Chuck, though I think they're holding off on that revelation for a bit. But if so, how believeable is it that she's also a new life form, and totally different from him? Hmmm, given that their dad worked at a nuclear facility and was involved in the Weapon X idea, maybe it's not so far-fetched.

Anyway, Emma's character was pretty much the best one this time out. My only problem was her impossible wardrobe. And the cover is really bad. I shouldn't have to be emabarrased to read a comic on the train, but this issue made me feel like I had to block the cover to keep people from thinking I'm reading a porn book.

The "hardcore" nature of some of the violence was not really too disturbing this time out, especially given the nature of Nova's crimes. She deserved what she got (which probably isn't final, because of her healing factor. I wonder what they did with her afterwards). I was also very gratified to see Scott and Jean actually talking about instead of around their issues. That last scene was great. And of course, the Professor's announcement was stunning. The only problem was it was totally anti-climactic because I had read the Annual already. It would have been much better to have read this first. I've said it before, that Marvel should be aware of when major spoilers are coming out because another book is delayed and should delay the spoiler book first. Either way, I'm excited for next month, to see what happens next, which is always a good thing.