STORY: "Dark Horizon" (22 pages)  The Juggernaut comes to the X-Men's Mansion to enlist Phoenix's help in revealing the identity of Onslaught, which is locked in his mind. Meanwhile, Professor X acts increasingly eccentrically.

What you need to know:
More hints, and increasingly obvious ones, to the effect that Professor X is Onslaught.  Of course, strictly speaking he's only part of Onslaught.  But there you go.  One of the scenes is Xavier delivering a monologue to himself and thanking Nate Grey, star of X-Man, for what he's about to do.  The idea is supposed to be that by bringing Xavier's astral form onto the physical plane in the otherwise exceptionally dull and unimportant X-Man #10, Nate made it possible for Onslaught to emerge.  It doesn't come across very clearly.

The Dark Beast is having an increasingly difficult time maintaining his impersonation of the real Beast.  Not surprisingly.

Bastion takes Graydon Creed to task for his idiotic attempt to assassinate Robert Kelly in issue #333.  And quite right too.  Good to see at least one other character realises that Creed is a total halfwit.

In a curious subplot, Bishop comments that the technology used in Cerebro is almost identical to that used in his own timeline, and wonders what could have set back the development of technology. Of course, this is ludicrous.  Bishop's timeline includes a horrific civil war that bordered on global apocalypse.  Not surprisingly, it set society back a bit.  And the X-Men's technology is way in advance of the rest of the planet's.  So quite what Lobdell was thinking of here is beyond me.

The story continues in X-Men vol 2 #54 and Onslaught: X-Men, in which Professor X is revealed as Onslaught outright, and then turns against the X-Men.

Comments:
It's one month to go before the Onslaught storyline proper, and this is... not much of anything, really. Xavier's being nasty, the Juggernaut's once again being wheeled out to emphasise just how darned dangerous Onslaught is supposed to be, and it doesn't add up to anything much. It builds up the tension, it gets the job done, but looking back on it now there's not much of interest.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X, Phoenix III (both last in X-Men vol 2 #53), Cyclops (last in Excalibur #96), Iceman (last in Storm #4), Storm (last in Cable #33), Bishop, Cannonball II and Gambit (all next in X-Men vol 2 #54, then in Onslaught: X-Men)
Archangel and Psylocke (both last in X-Men vol 2 #53)
Wolverine (last in Storm #4; next in X-Men vol 2 #54, then in Onslaught: X-Men, then in Wolverine vol 2 #104-105,  

SUPPORTING CHARACTER
The Juggernaut (between X-Men vol 2 #53-54)

VILLAINS
Bastion (between X-Force #54 and X-Men Unlimited #11)
Graydon Creed (between X-Factor #123 and issue #337)
The Dark Beast (between Cable #33 and X-Men vol 2 #54)
The Friends of Humanity (between X-Force #56 and X-Factor #127)
Onslaught (behind the scenes; last in X-Man #15; next behind the scenes in Fantastic Four #414)

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