The Cyttorak powered Colossus batters the Serpent of Fear powered Juggernaut into submission, thus ending the Fear Itself threat to the X-Men’s San Francisco home. Namor prevents Emma Frost from making a horrible mistake under the Serpent’s influence, and once again offers romantic advances. Kitty and Peter Rasputin/Colossus seem to break up, once again as well, and Cyclops becomes more and more like the Magneto of old (and soon present it seems).

So this must month must be “portray Cyclops as the (insert blank)” he appears destined to continue to evolve into. He’s a total jerk to Logan/Wolverine in SCHISM #4, and his treatment of Mayor Sadie of San Francisco in response to her contingent plan to destroy Utopia, which we have to believe that she never would have gone through with, is deplorable. The fact that Magneto accompanies Scott to his meeting with the Mayor excellently serves to remind one that Scott’s actions are too dangerously reminiscent of actions that Magneto has taken in the past when he was a villain. Sure he wants to protect his people. That is a noble goal in any light, but it is beneath Scott to sink to the level of the Mayor’s advisors, and in actuality even lower. Cyclops is completely embracing the survivalist philosophy in opposition to Wolverine’s integrationist philosophy.

Greg Land and company continue to bring the X-Men’s adventures to life beautifully though their photo realistic approach. Their work continues to be clean, crisp and excellently proportioned. I can’t find a single flaw in the artwork. Everyone is beautiful. I wonder though how Land would do if he was given a mass of everyday and commonplace people to draw? His characters are unique and highly polished, but they are impeccable. If the X-Men ever run into common folk, it would be interesting to see if Land can pull off a convincing looking “average Joe,” or Jane. Everyone isn’t a supermodel.

Now that we’ve gotten past the required Fear Itself event tie in, Gillen and company can get back to focusing on the required X-Men event. The X-Men event looks to much more engaging, and is full of interesting things for Gillen to play with. Gillen steered the X-Men through Fear Itself quite handily, turning a rather boring summer event crossover into something uniquely X-Men in tone. For that alone Gillen deserves fit praise. Fear Itself was one of the weakest Marvel Comics crossover events in some time regardless of its thematic merit.