Firestorm

• Writer - Chris Claremont
• Penciler - Jim Lee
• Inker - Scott Williams
• Lettering - Tom Orzechowski
• Colorist - Joe Rosas
• Editor - Bob Harras
• Editor in Chief - Tom Defalco

Summary

  Magneto defends his Acolytes, even though they have just attacked a hospital, and Rogue says he's proving the anti-mutant bigots right. He uses steel beams to take down an assault helicopter, specially made from plastics, and pushes the X-Men into the basement to rescue the patients. Rogue flies at him, but he tosses her into the bay. Betsy tries to get Cortez, but he parries her blow, then uses his mutant power to greatly enhance hers.

  At the UN, Val and Fury observe. Alexyev is angry about a nuclear detonation over Russia, but the Chinese want to make peace with Magneto. Anderson calls from Genosha, furious. Russia demands they implement the Magneto Protocols.

  Betsy falls under the flood of anti-mutant thoughts; Hank rescues her from the mob. Remy cracks Cortez across the back of the skull with his quarterstaff.

  Magneto has Scott and Logan wrapped up and demands the mutants stop squabbling. He tries to get Rogue to trust him; meanwhile, Betsy sneaks up and plunges her enhanced psychic knife through his armor. Rogue is about to finish him off when Chrome encases the X-Men in metal. Magneto lifts everyone to Asteroid M, now guarded by Soviet nukes. He chides Cortez for starting this mess; Cortez says he found an anomaly: someone altered Magneto's DNA.

  The Soviets launch a plasma cannon.

  Xavier goes to Moira, crying in the boathouse, which Magneto enters and lifts into the stratosphere while Forge and Sean watch helplessly. Magneto wants answers: he was regressed to childhood by his own creation (Defenders 16), and cared for by Moira until an alien restored him (UXM 104). He demands to know what she did to him; she refuses to answer, so he pushes Xavier through the wall and into space until she confesses.

  On Asteroid M, in front of Acolytes and X-Men, she says his body was unable to handle its own power, resulting in a mental imbalance. She tried to stabilize his genetic matrix to save him, as she was unable to do for her son (Proteus, UXM 126-128). Magneto takes her by the throat, furious that she played God with him. Every decision he made since then is now suspect. He encases her in metal, to force her to perform the same process on the X-Men and make them his allies.

  In the Sakhalin Islands, Russian soldiers sell Omega Red's container to Matsu'o, who double-crosses and kills them.

  Scott tells Xavier his team has joined Magneto.

  In Westchester, Ororo's team uses Danger Room simulations but can't see how to defeat them, Magneto, and the Acolytes all at once. Fury informs them Stage 3 of the Magneto Protocols have been activated, so a de facto state of war exists. He suggests the X-Men move quickly.