God Loves, Man Kills II

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

Deliverance

Summary

  Note: this is God Loves, Man Kills 2: Part 5.

  Deathstrike stands perplexed; she's fulfilled her promise to her father by defeating Logan, but she was under another's control. She's about to behead him when Sam rockets in and sweeps her away. She twists around him and knocks him to the ground; Sam knows he's outclassed, but he only needs a moment, and he uses his power to charge a punch which knocks her across the valley. He goes back to cry over Logan's corpse and prays to God for a miracle.

  In Mt. Haven, Washington, Sage and Ororo hear Sam's scream; Ororo is confused and starts to resist mind-control; as lightning strikes, Sage calms her and sends her to bring Sam in while she leads the search for Lucas.

  Lucas is in the tower of a building, targeting random mutants with his rifle scope. He's seen this same smiling mind-control before, in another future. He hears a noise and checks the basement, where he finds the Garza family hiding. The boy's feverish, and Lucas uses an optical device to examine everyone. He hears thunder and leaves, handing the men weapons for self-defense.

  Kitty, still sick and in pain but not realizing there's a collar around her neck, phases into a storeroom looking for Stryker. While Paul prays, she arms herself and asks him about the complex, which is entirely self-contained, but he has few answers. She finds a Pankow's nameplate on a desk (cf. iss. 25), and then Stryker reveals himself.

  Ororo chases Sam, who goes as fast as he can and tries to get her to strain her powers. Suddenly, she's beyond the range of the mind-control and hesitates; Sam reverses quickly, smashes her unconscious, and lays her next to Logan. Deathstrike is there, and Sam now pretends he's on her side.

  Logan knocks out a few mutant kids at random and finds the same cybernetics in all of them. Sage puts a gun to the back of his head and says he's no match for her, but she's not quite herself, and Logan knocks her down.

  Stryker takes Paul and Kitty to where the bodies of all the adults are piled. Kitty says Stryker had planned a similar massacre, but Stryker says this one proves his point: it's a matter of survival. Paul wonders why she's debating the soulless monster; Kitty realizes he sees mutants as having a light and thinks that's their soul. Stryker says Paul is the one who killed all these non-mutants, and Kitty finds herself between two madmen. Stryker grabs her, activates her collar to cover her in armor, and shoves her through Paul; they land unconscious onto a heap of corpses. He quotes just enough of Jeremiah 5:7-9 to justify himself.