God Loves, Man Kills II

• Writer - Chris Claremont
• Penciler - Igor Kordey
• Inker - Scott Hanna
• Colorist - Liquid!
• Lettering - Tom Orzechowski
• Ass't Editor - Stephannie Moore
• Editor - Mike Raicht
• Editor in Chief - Joe Quesada

600 Chariots

Summary

  Note: this is God Loves, Man Kills 2: Part 3.

  "And (Pharaoh) took six hundred chosen chariots…" (Exod. 14:7); "I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea" (Exod. 15:1).

  Stryker, holding Kitty, phases through Chicago as the earth turns on its axis, a football field a second, and then underground as the earth revolves around the sun. Ororo goes mad, and the weather with her: snow, heat, rain. Logan sends Lucas to take one for the team: he lets Ororo blast him with lightning while Logan sneaks up to take her down, but she senses him and says she has to restore the natural balance; Lucas continues to take power from her while she calms the storm. (Note: how siphoning power from her helps is unclear.) The Purifiers see the raw power and point out that's why mutants are dangerous; Lucas, still glowing, agrees.

  Ororo is nearly unconscious, having felt claws scrape across the earth's line of force; Sage guesses Kitty has phased adamantium through biological systems. Ororo's legs are out of commission again.

  Secretly by night, Jorge drives his family camper on Hwy. 20 through Okanogan National Forest, near Twisp, Washington. They run right through Kitty, standing in the road and no longer armored. They stop and rush to check on her, but their hands go through her, and she starts to sink into the road. They have a mutant boy, Dave, who thinks she's like him and insists on helping.

  Ororo hovers and has Logan check her out; he extends claws, and she tries to kick them away but falls. He says she needs time to heal (since iss. 11) and can't keep pushing herself, especially with lightning. Sage reports: Kitty's missing, and Stryker was in clandestine ops, which is how he could get high-tech weaponry. Plus his wife was tutor to the Oyama family, experts on adamantium, and he's known Deathstrike from a child. Ororo uses the glasses Sage designed and Kitty built to see Kitty's erratic trail across the landscape. The X-Men find skidmarks on the road where the trail ends; Logan has the scent and can track from there.

  Kitty pitches for the Cubs, with the X-Men as teammates, and strikes out Piotr to win the series, while her parents cheer from the stands. The fantasy dissolves, and Kitty loses them all again; Stryker claims to be the resurrection and the life (Jn 11:25), and then she wakes to find Paul sitting on her bed, saying she's among friends. She eagerly accepts his offer of a tour of Mt. Haven, an idyllic town for mutants. She's a bit confused, having been dressed modestly and not bothered by the electronic collar around her neck. She thinks she's seen Stryker across the street, but then Paul introduces her to the family who brought her there. They go to a soda shop, and Kitty chats with Dave while they eat ice cream; he's a Lila fan; she worked as her roadie a couple of times; he feels all alone; she remembers what it was like and remembers Ororo sitting in a soda shop with her (X-Men I:138). She sees Stryker in the mirror, and he runs, so he must be real. She chases him into the men's room, but he's disappeared.

  Paul explains his purpose: to build a community, where mutants can learn; Kitty thinks he sounds like Xavier. The hospital is boarded up: there was a fire, but they have healers now. Kitty's suspicious and realizes she's only seen children in town, but when she thinks on these things, she gets a splitting headache and collapses. Paul picks her up and promises to find a way to save her.