STORY: "Birds of a Feather" (23 pages)  X-Treme saves Cyclops's grandfather from dying of exposure in Alaska.

What you need to know:
Not much, to be honest, unless you have a passion for flashbacks to the wartime piloting career of Cyclops' grandfather.  This issue was presumably intended to further a subplot involving X-Treme, a character created by Fabian Nicieza, which was dropped after he left the book.

X-Treme is a half-human, half-Shi'ar who ended up on Earth.  His father was eventually revealed to be the Shi'ar emperor D'Ken, and it was at least implied that his mother was Katherine Anne Summers, Cyclops' mother, thus making him the "third Summers brother."  This was never confirmed, and since neither the storyline nor the character has been mentioned in years, it's fairly safe to assume that it'll never come up again.

Phoenix meets X-Treme at the end of the issue, but doesn't tell anyone about it.

The final two panels are thoroughly weird.  They show somebody with a red glove watching Scott and Jean on a video screen, and then a panel of a guy with a black glove watching a video screen with the guy with the red glove watching... and so forth.  It's meant to be a homage to the final panel of X-Men vol 1 #97, although the reference was so obscure that it flew over almost everyone's head.  [Thanks to Sean Curtin for pointing it out.] 

The black glove belongs to Mr Sinister - he's easy to identify because the streamers from his cape are also in shot.  The red glove is apparently meant to be late-70s Shi'ar villain Eric the Red; strictly speaking this has never been confirmed, but as Eric turns up briefly in issue #41, and his storyline with X-Treme eventually saw print in Captain Marvel, I've included him in the character listings.  More to the point, Eric was in the original panel, which makes the link a bit more explicit.

In Israel, Legion has another encounter with Destiny's ghost, setting up for the LegionQuest crossover.

Rogue and Gambit are off appearing in the first Rogue miniseries.  Bella Donna Boudreaux also turns up in a flashback scene swearing revenge against Gambit for the death of her father.  Again, this is just there to promote the miniseries.

Comments:
Another rather odd issue, since in retrospect it's hard to work out why somebody thought it was worth devoting an issue to an extremely minor character from another title, and Cyclops' grandfather.  Presumably there must have been a storyline in mind here, but we never got to see it.  As it is, we've got an unexceptional story based on a ludicrously improbable coincidence where X-Treme just happens to be passing when Philip's plane crashes. 

Art comes from Terry Dodson, unusually inked by Matt Ryan rather than his usual partner Rachel Dodson.  It's a little less curvy than usual, but still quite pleasant.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
The Beast (last in the second story in Force Works #10; next in Marvel Holiday Special 1994)
Phoenix III (next in Uncanny X-Men #320)
Cyclops

GUEST STAR
X-Treme (next in issue #41)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Philip Summers (last in issue #30; blinded; no further appearances; also in flashback which is his chronologically earliest appearance, preceding Uncanny X-Men #168, where he is behind the scenes)
Deborah Summers (last in issue #30; no further appearances)
Destiny II (as a ghost; next in Fantastic Four vol 3 #19)

VILLAINS
Legion (last behind the scenes in X-Factor vol 1 #110; next in Uncanny X-Men #320)
Bella Donna Boudreaux and the Assassins Guild of New Orleans (between Gambit vol 1 #4 and Rogue vol 1 #1)
Eric the Red (last in X-Men vol 1 #107; next in issue #41)
Mr Sinister (last in X-Factor vol 1 #105; next in X-Men '95)

OTHER CHARACTER
Mr Ridge (first and only appearance)

Revised: 10 December 2004

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