STORY: "Growing Pains" (44 pages)  Cannonball's younger sister Joelle falls in with a survivalist anti-mutant group called Humanity's Last Stand, and runs off to join them together with Preacher, a disturbed artist plagued by hallucinatory visions of the Age of Apocalypse.  Cannonball, his younger sister Husk (from Generation X) and the other X-Men investigate Humanity's Last Stand and discover that it is a paramilitary organisation armed with Sentinel robots, causing Joelle and Preacher to leave the movement.

What you need to know:
This story introduces Preacher, a character who crops up in next year's Annual as well before being totally forgotten about. Perhaps understandably, as he's really a one idea character (the one idea being that the Age of Apocalypse is so over the top that he writes all his genuine visions off as inspiration for particularly grim paintings). There are a couple of passing references to Bishop's equally confused memories of the Age of Apocalypse storyline (which were given to him by his Age of Apocalypse counterpart in X-Men Omega).

So far as I'm aware, this is the only story where Joelle Guthrie gets a major part.

And it's also the first appearance of Humanity's Last Stand.  They're a rather strange group, who seem to be the Friends of Humanity's survivalist counterparts.  Subsequent stories reveal that both groups have connections with the Operation: Zero Tolerance conspiracy.  Humanity's Last Stand are really just a footnote in continuity - they go on to appear in one mildly significant X-Men story, and then wander off to bother the Punisher for a few issues of his series.

The HLS leader shown in shadow and referred to as "Trask" is identified in the Punisher stories as Simon Trask.  Although he's a relative of Bolivar and Larry Trask (characters previously associated with the Sentinels and now dead), he's not somebody we've seen before.

Bizarrely, the rather generic robots that HLS send against the X-Men are referred to as Nimrods. Actual Nimrods are far, far more powerful than this bunch, and this really just has to be written off as an error.

Comments:
Writer Terry Kavanagh is best known to X-books fans as the writer of many rather mediocre X-Man stories and the scripter on Alan Davis's later X-Men stories.  He also edited Excalibur for a while. He's not a particularly highly regarded writer, but this issue is actually rather good.  Although Preacher is nowhere near as interesting a character as Kavanagh seems to think (he used him in the next year's annual as well), the story has many other things to recommend it, including some excellent use of Husk and some wonderful pieces of dialogue - "I am Ms Frost to you, young lady. Or sir."  Husk's inexperience is dealt with well, and the whole thing is helped enormously by some excellent artwork from Bryan Hitch. And it's one of the few X-Men stories where Cannonball is used correctly.  All told, pretty good.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Bishop (last in Wolverine vol 2 #93; next in X-Men vol 2 #46-47, then in Uncanny X-Men #328)
Cannonball (last in X-Men/ClanDestine #1; next in X-Force vol 1 #48, then in X-Force & Cable '95, then in X-Force vol 1 #51, then in X-Men vol 2 #48, then in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #10, then in X-Men vol 2 #50, then in Wolverine vol 2 #99-100, then in Uncanny X-Men #332)
Storm (last in X-Men/ClanDestine #2; next in X-Force vol 1 #48, then in Sabretooth: In the Red Zone, then in X-Force vol 1 #51, then in X-Men vol 2 #48, then in Cable #29, then in X-Men Versus Brood #1-2, then in X-Men vol 2 #50, then in Uncanny X-Men #332)
Wolverine (last in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #9; next in Uncanny X-Men #329)

GUEST STAR
Husk (between Wolverine vol 2 #94 and Generation X '95)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Lucinda Guthrie (next in flashback in Generation X #24), Josh Guthrie (next in Uncanny X-Men #437), Jedediah Guthrie (all last in X-Men vol 2 #36) and Joelle Guthrie (last in New Mutants vol 1 #42; the latter two appear next in Uncanny X-Men #437)

VILLAINS
Humanity's Last Stand (first appearance; next in X-Men vol 2 #53)
The Shepherds (first and only appearance)
Garibaldi (real name unrevealed; first and only appearance)
Simon Trask (first appearance; referred to by his surname only; first name revealed in Punisher vol 3 #15; next in X-Men Unlimited #11)

GUEST APPEARANCES
Emma Frost, Chamber, Jubilee, Synch (all next in Generation X '95), M I and Skin (both next in the second story in Generation X '95; the latter five teamed with Husk as Generation X; all last in Wolverine vol 2 #94)

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