STORY: "Payback" (22 pages)
Fitzroy uses his mutant powers to kill the Hellions and use their "life energy" to open portals to his own time. He brings an army of friendly superhuman criminals to the present, but unfortunately for him, he accidentally brings back his archenemy Bishop as well.

What you need to know:
It's the first appearance of Bishop, not to mention his hapless and doomed sidekicks Malcolm and Randall. Mind you, they're only on the last page.

The Hellions all get killed, though Tarot comes back from the dead later on. Oddly, the art shows far more Hellions than ever depicted before - almost certainly a mistake.

If anybody cares, this is also the first appearance of Fitzroy's sidekick Bantam, who keeps cropping up in origin flashbacks of Bishop and his sister Shard. He's not very interesting, though.

Bishop doesn't come from the same timeline as Rachel Summers. Although both their timelines involve the Sentinels taking over America for a while and then being overthrown, in Bishop's timeline the overthrow was the Summers Rebellion, led by Forge. In Rachel's timeline, the Sentinels were defeated by the time-travelling Excalibur and a rather motley selection of Marvel UK heroes.  Mind you, this didn't become apparent for a while.

Comments:
The Hellions bite the dust in another gratuitous slaughter, and the story really starts to degenerate into chaos towards the end. A pretty missable episode of a pretty missable storyline, let's face it, but it does have the first appearance of Bishop. I've always had a soft spot for Bishop's original costume, which combined the classic X-Men "school uniform" costume with both paramilitary and religious overtones to sum up the original conception of the character as a disturbingly violent zealot. And his appearance at the end of this story is certainly an image that sticks with you.
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FEATURE CHARACTERS
The X-Men: Professor X, Forge (both last in X-Men vol 2 #5), Archangel, Colossus, Jean Grey, Iceman and Storm

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Bishop (Lucas Bishop; his first name is given for the first time in X-Treme X-Men #1; a mutant from a dystopian future timeline where he is a member of the "Xavier's Security Enforcers" mutant paramilitary police force; possesses the power to absorb and redirect energy; chronologically last in flashback in issue #287)
Malcolm and Randall (Bishop's colleagues in the XSE; first appearance for both; both chronologically last in flashback in issue #287)
The White Queen II (comatose)

VILLAINS
The Upstarts: Shinobi Shaw and Trevor Fitzroy
Bantam I (real name unrevealed; Fitzroy's assistant; a mutant who assists him in using his powers; last behind the scenes in flashback in issue #287; next in the fifth story in Uncanny X-Men Annual #17; not to be confused with Bantam II, the Puerto Rican superhero dressed as a chicken)
Donald Pierce (does not die in this story, but appears next in Domino vol 1 #1)
The Hellions I: Tarot (she is somehow revived from her apparent death in this story and appears next, as a member of the Hellions II, in X-Force vol 1 #87), Bevatron, Catseye and Roulette II (all die)
Kroeger (dies), Burke, Stylles, Styglut, Eye-Beam and Mountjoy (the latter three behind the scenes, as revealed by subsequent stories establishing how they came to this time; all last in flashback in issue #287, where all but Styglut are behind the scenes; all of these characters are criminals from Bishop's home timeline)

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