STORY: "A Hope Reborn, a Past Reclaimed" (22 pages)  Apocalypse restores Archangel's original wings, and Pyro loses control of his powers in a church.

What you need to know:
The key thing is that Archangel gets his original wings back. Ozymandias pops up to make it perfectly clear that this is something Apocalypse is doing, and to strongly hint that there's some kind of ulterior motive which we should all be desperately afraid of.  To date, no writer has picked up on this, and it seems safe to assume the creators never had any particularly clear idea in mind.

The X-Men start showing Joseph what he did when he was Magneto.  (Of course, he never was Magneto, but remember - the creators haven't decided that yet.)  Joseph is suitably horrified, although he shows vague glimmerings of being nasty when the X-Men try to subdue Pyro later in the story.

Psylocke suddenly develops the power to teleport through shadows, and acts as if this shouldn't come as a surprise to the X-Men.  Is this heading anywhere interesting?  Of course not.

Archangel feels drawn to a church where Pyro is speaking to the priest.  Is there any particular logic to this?  Of course not.

Pyro is trying to warn everyone about "her" and makes vague comments to the effect that he no longer wants to kill "him", and "they" are going to kill him as a result.  What all this is presumably meant to amount to is that his former teammates in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants are going to kill Graydon Creed, led by Mystique, but he's turned against the idea.  Unfortunately, this isn't what eventually saw print in X-Factor, the series responsible for that storyline.  Since X-Factor had a distinct habit at this time of changing plotlines midstream, this may not necessarily by the fault of this issue's creators.

Pyro's still suffering from the Legacy Virus, which is fair enough.  His appearance in this issue raised some eyebrows at the time, since he'd recently been killed off in Daredevil #355 and no attempt is made to explain it.  (The Marvel Chronology Project, which I'm taking as my main source for before-and-after appearances, gets round this by shoving Daredevil #355 way further down the line.)

There's more of the Daily Bugle investigating Graydon Creed.

Iceman and Cannonball have gone undercover in the Creed campaign team.  Obviously the now-departed Professor X had all the imagination in the team, since they're using the pseudonyms Drake Roberts and Samson Guthry.  (Yes, that's right, Sam Guthrie uses the pseudonym Sam Guthry.)  Plainly only a complete moron would fail to see through identities like that.  Fortunately, Creed is a complete moron.

Creed's volunteer co-ordinator Carly Alvarez makes her first appearance.  She'll hang around in the background for a while, make one comment suggesting that she may have a plot thread, and then do absolutely nothing.  Such is life at the tail-end of the Lobdell era.

Comments:
Welcome to the world of incoherent nonsense.  It's dropped plot central in this issue, as the two main plot threads both go absolutely nowhere.  So Archangel's got his wings back.  Is this heading anywhere?  No.  So Pyro's on the run from somebody.  Is this heading anywhere?  No.  So the Daily Bugle are investigating the Creed campaign.  Is this heading anywhere?  No.  This is, unfortunately, an example of all that's wrong with the X-books at this point - a load of vague hints and disconnected foreshadowing where the pay-off either never existed or never saw print.  And to the extent that this issue does fit into any actual storylines, they're X-Factor storylines.  Otherwise, since the issue is just lead-up to a story that never happens, it's hard to say much about it.  (But those pseudonyms are really stupid, aren't they?)

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Archangel (last behind the scenes in X-Men vol 2 #57; next in X-Men vol 2 #61, then in X-Men '97, then in X-Force #67, then in Psylocke & Archangel: Crimson Dawn #1-4, then in issue #348)
The Beast (last in Generation X #21)
Cannonball II (last in X-Men vol 2 #57; next in X-Men vol 2 #58-59, then in issue #340)
Cyclops (last in Sensational Spider-Man #10; next in the fifth story in Marvel Holiday Special 1996)
Gambit (next in X-Men vol 2 #58, then in issue #340)
Iceman (last in X-Men vol 2 #57; next in X-Men vol 2 #58, then in the X-Men story in Marvel Holiday Special 1996)
Joseph (between Magneto #4 and X-Men vol 2 #58)
Phoenix III (last in Sensational Spider-Man #10; next in the X-Men story in Marvel Holiday Special 1996)
Psylocke (last in X-Men vol 2 #57; next in X-Men '96, then in X-Men vol 2 #61, then in Psylocke & Archangel: Crimson Dawn #1-4, then in issue #348)
Storm (last in XSE #4; next in X-Men vol 2 #58, then in the X-Men story in Marvel Holiday Special 1996)
Wolverine (last in the second story in Wolverine '96; next in X-Men vol 2 #58, then in the X-Men story in Marvel Holiday Special 1996, then in Venom: Tooth & Claw #1-3)

GUEST STAR
Quicksilver (between X-Men vol 2 #57 and #59)

VILLAINS
Carly Alvarez (first appearance; next in X-Men vol 2 #58)
Avalanche (behind the scenes; between X-Factor #109 and Quicksilver #6)
Graydon Creed (between Sensational Spider-Man #10 and the fifth story in Marvel Holiday Special 1996)
The Creed Campaign Team (first appearance; all last, as members of the Friends of Humanity, in X-Factor #128)
Ozymandias (between Cable #34 and Incredible Hulk vol 2 #457)
Pyro (between Sleepwalker #17 and issue #351)

GUEST APPEARANCE
J Jonah Jameson (between X-Men vol 2 #57-58)

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