STORY: "Onslaught, Phase 2: A Voice as Deep as Thunder" (22 pages)  Onslaught continues to cause havoc in New York, while inside him Professor X is trapped with Franklin Richards.  Ultimately Thor rescues Professor X, but this only makes Onslaught stronger.

What you need to know:
We're still in the Onslaught crossover here, so the answer is not a great deal. However, there are a couple of things in here that are genuinely important - principally Xavier's loss of his telepathic powers. (Don't worry, he gets them back in thirty issues or so.)

Apocalypse and Uatu the Watcher hover around commenting on everything, which is mainly to build up Apocalypse's role in Cable #35.  As always, the script spends an awful lot of time telling us how enormously impressive Apocalypse is while the plot manages to avoid giving him anything remotely impressive to do.

There's a vaguely interesting subplot scene in which Gambit tries to offer Joseph moral support despite the fact that he doesn't like him much.  Ain't Gambit nice?  Joseph's angst, of course, derives from the fact that lots of people have picked up on Onslaught's connection with Magneto, and at this point everybody thinks Joseph is Magneto (because at this point, so did the writers).

Onslaught's getting more powerful, first by merging Xavier and Franklin's powers and then by getting rid of Xavier.  Not quite sure I follow the logic of this bit, and I'm not quite sure the writers do either.

Comments:
Yeah, well, it's more Onslaught.  It's actually not a badly put together issue, but there's not much to be said about it.  Big nasty villain smashes things up, forming part of a godforsaken crossover with no plot.  What more can you say?

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X, Joseph, Phoenix III and Rogue (all last in X-Men vol 2 #55; all next in X-Men vol 2 #56, then in flashback in Onslaught: Marvel Universe)
Bishop (last in X-Men vol 2 #55; next in Fantastic Four #416, then in flashback in Onslaught: Marvel Universe)
Cyclops (last in X-Men vol 2 #55; next in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #445, then in X-Men vol 2 #56, then in flashback in Onslaught: Marvel Universe)
Gambit (last in X-Men vol 2 #55; next in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #445, then in flashback in Onslaught: Marvel Universe)
Iceman (last in X-Men vol 2 #55; next in Fantastic Four #416, then in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #445, then in flashback in Onslaught: Marvel Universe, then in flashback in Avengers '99)
Psylocke (last in X-Men vol 2 #55)
Storm (last in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #444; next in flashback in Onslaught: Marvel Universe, then in Cable #36, then in X-Men vol 2 #57, then in Uncanny X-Men '96)

GUEST STAR
Franklin Richards (between X-Man #19 and Cable #35)

VILLAINS
Apocalypse (between Cable #34-35)
Onslaught (between X-Man #19 and Cable #35)
The Sentinels (between X-Men vol 2 #55 and Punisher vol 3 #11)

GUEST APPEARANCES
The Avengers: Giant-Man, Hawkeye I, Iron Man III, the Vision (all next in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #445) and Thor (next in Thor vol 1 #502; all last in X-Men vol 2 #55)
The Fantastic Four: The Human Torch II (next in Wolverine #105), the Invisible Woman (next in Cable #35), Mr Fantastic (next in Incredible Hulk vol 2 #445) and the Thing (next in Fantastic Four vol 1 #416; all last in X-Men vol 2 #55)
Ant-Man II (last behind the scenes in Fantastic Four #416; next in Fantastic Four #416)
Cable (between Incredible Hulk #444 and Cable #35)
Uatu the Watcher (between Fantastic Four #415 and Cable #35)
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