Children of the Atom

• Writer - Joe Kelly
• Penciler - Brandon Peterson
• Inker - Art Thibert
• Inker - Dan Panosian
• Colorist - Liquid!
• Lettering - Comicraft
• Lettering - Richard Starkings
• Editor - Mark Powers
• Editor in Chief - Bob Harras

Summary

  Note: this occurs after UXM 360.

  Kitty tries to escape, but Cerebro as Xavier orders his false X-Men to stop her.

  The real X-Men crash in the nearby swamp; the original Blackbird is wrecked, and Kurt is wounded. Rogue and Marrow are missing; Marrow saves Rogue from a gator.

  The Benassi rocket protest continues. Kitty finds Corbeau, who says Xavier isn't real and she has to stop the launch. Cerebro tells her to surrender, but she runs for it. She finds a computer terminal and sends a warning to SHIELD, but Cerebro intercepts it.

  Kurt is feverish. Marrow gets Piotr to help extract her broken bones; she says she knew his brother, then suggests they leave the wounded behind, including Rogue and Ororo, who have lost their powers. Logan just yells, but Ororo rallies them, and they start walking out of the swamp together.

  Kitty gets to the cape and starts hacking into the computers; the false X-Men attack and take over the control tower. Before they can tear into the rocket, the real X-Men attack. The crew starts an emergency launch, even though it will fry the mutants, so Cerebro halts the computer systems. It approaches the X-Men, saying it wants the tracking device in the rocket so it can catalog every mutant worldwide. Piotr looks in its eyes, and Logan gets a good whiff, and they know it's not Xavier.

  The Grey King opens the rocket and takes the device; Cerebro lets the rocket, with its nuclear reactor, launch out-of-control. Kitty quickly phases the whole team, and Ororo cools off the tarmac after the blast.

  Rogue has a bold plan: she absorbs the powers of Kurt, Piotr, and Logan, gets to the rocket, and aims it into the sea, while the rest go after the false X-Men. Logan and Piotr beat on Mercury, then do a fastball special to get to the Grey King. He drops the satellite on Kitty, who phases. It explodes. Cerebro disappears without revealing its true identity and plans the next move.

  The X-Men take the false X-Men's Blackbird, Aurora. They learn they were blamed for the launch fiasco. Corbeau reveals to the public that it had an anti-mutant device on it.

  Note: pin-ups follow: original X-Men, X-villains, A Vision of Things to Come.