False Fronts

• Writer - Mark Waid
• Penciler - Andy Kubert
• Inker - Cam Smith
• Inker - John Dell
• Lettering - Richard Starkings
• Lettering - Comicraft
• Colorist - Joe Rosas
• Enhancement - Malibu
• Editor - Bob Harras

Summary

  Jean goes shopping in town and senses unspoken, prosaically hostile thoughts from the people she meets. She enters a dressing room and finds herself on the astral plane, facing Onslaught. He warns her that the human-mutant problem is about to come to a flash point. She mistrusts him; he reminds her of the hypocritical humans. He says he is frustration and pretends to destroy the dress shop.

  Hank is in Jersey (since X-Men Unlimited 10). As if that weren't bad enough, he is chained in a bricked-up room with nothing but some water, which he spills. It drains away, revealing a trap door.

  Joseph finds himself at a fair in South Carolina, where the locals offer him fried chicken.

  Onslaught takes Jean to Graydon's campaign headquarters. He has won the New Hampshire and Iowa primaries, with the help of Steven, who is in reality on nobody's side but his own.

  In Colorado, Betsy has been screaming at shadows for hours. Warren tries to calm her, but then the shadows gather and Juggernaut breaks through them. He doesn't know where he is, but he has a big secret to tell the X-Men. But he can't tell it: mental block. He breaks through the floor, falls to the bottom of the cliff, and starts walking to Westchester to find a psi who is more coherent than Betsy.

  Onslaught, still trying to make Jean cynical, takes her to the mansion to see Xavier's hidden thoughts. She says they're the two most powerful telepaths on earth and have shared secrets no one else has (most famously, his feigned death, UXM 42-65). Onslaught takes her deeper, and she sees that he once had romantic feelings for her. She is shocked; Onslaught says Xavier repressed it long ago. In fact, to live up to his image, he has repressed every negative thought he ever had. Onslaught throws Jean into the swamp of them.

  She demands to know who he is; he says he is power unleashed and wants her to go full-Phoenix again as his ally. She just blasts him. She already knew people were hypocrites, but that doesn't make them evil like him. He grabs the image of the Phoenix force and brands her forehead with it, saying he is a god. She falls back into the dress store, the word Onslaught glowing on her forehead.