Release: February 2026 | Writer: Jed McKay | Artist: Augustin Alessio & Tony S. Daniel | Colorists: Fernando Sifuentes | Letterer: Clayton Cowles
It’s the 25th Issue anniversary of this run of X-Men already! It happened so fast, but here we are! What could possibly be in store for our mainline X-Team?
*SPOILER WARNING AHEAD!*
NAZI BEATDOWN
Cyclops meets with the team a week ago and he's seemingly back to normal? He says they have the same goal though, fix the presentation and save the future.
In Arizona a group of men are driving large pickup trucks while watching a video of 2 people on their phones. These two people are Andrea and Andreas Von Strucker. They preach that both humans and mutants have "gene trash" on both sides and what people should be doing are working together to get rid of both. Starting with the Morlocks in Rio Verde. While this racist Nazi propaganda is being spread the men in the trucks receive a very large surprise.
JUGGERNAUT pays them a visit, charging at them and destroying their trucks.
Back to a week ago where Cyclops is meeting with his team. They are trying to devise a way to prevent the Age of Revelation while still ensuring that Revelation knows he's safe and they don't want to kill him.
Beast must have read my review of Issue #23 because he says that Cyclops' former self may have accelerated this result due to trying to kill Revelation in cold blood, causing him to run away. The team is trying to come up with a plan that can have the best benefit not just for the present but for the future.
Back in current day Juggernaut is going to town destroying these new age Nazis, now with the help with Cyclops and the rest of the team.
Psylocke and Magik are excited about this action the most as they immediately begin destroying more attack vehicles.
Back to a week ago again, the team realizes that because that timeline's Cyclops didn't know of Magneto's R-LDS disease, that must mean that that the disease was actually caused from something in the future. Which Beast calls a retrocasuality. Which now opens a whole new can of worms. Not sure why Magneto was surprised here, Cyclops' evil persona said it to his face how he wasn't supposed to be wheelchair-bound. So not sure why this is news to him all of a sudden.
In the present, the Von Struckers show up to defend their Nazi soldiers. Quentin jumps into the minds of the soldiers and makes them turn their guns to the Von Struckers, causing them to break apart from each other. The team learns that without each other, their powers don't work.
So the team takes advantage of this, keeping them apart from each other and handling them swiftly before they're met by a returning Crimson Commando.
Crimson Commando talks to the media saying that in order to protect the United States, as a veteran he is announcing a partnership between O*N*E and the X-Men. To use the mutants abilities to keep the world safe from terrorism. Cyclops slaps him away and asks him what he's doing. Commando reminds Cyclops that not too long ago he threatened the US Government, and he will make sure he NEVER does that again.
Cyclops threatens to put him in the grave one more time if he tries to get in his way. Because he has larger issues at hand. Issues like ensuring that our future isn't completely doomed.
EPILOGUE
Beast stands in his office at the factory, Jen meets with him. She says that the memories that were shown to them from Cyclops' mind of the future actually made her a little happy. Seeing herself become such a strong and fearless hero made her inspired. She felt like an actual X-Man and not like just some scared newbie. Even keeping the name Anamalia.
She asks what Beast is doing with the 3K invitation that he received recently. Upon opening the comms and talking to 3K he deciphers that the name 3K is all just some joke using a play on words. He knows this because this is the same thing he would do if he was in this person's position. Before revealing that he now knows who the Chairman really is that was revealed to us last month.
CONCLUSION
This issue just sort of fell flat for me. The X-Men destroying Nazis is awesome, but I can't ignore how the entire evil Cyclops story was wrapped up in a singular page. For some reason it felt like I missed an issue or two when I really didn't. It's always good in comics to move the plot forward, but this felt very sudden for something that could've made for a good 4-5 issue story arc if they wanted.
I've been a huge fan of this series since issue #1 so I'm hoping it gets back on track going forward, but the whiplash past few issues has me feeling like I’m missing information from this story when I’m really not. Despite the negatives I stated, I think the story GOING FORWARD has a lot of potential and I'm still heavily committed to this book! Shout out to the epilogue art. I loved how it looked, was very detailed and cinematic. Felt like a proper end credit scene for a movie.
Nonetheless, Crimson Commando showing up and ruining the X-Men's day and Beast discovering who the Chairman is were all well executed and, like I said previously, provides a form of excitement for what's to come in the near future.