STORY: "Heaven Can Wait" (23 pages)  Aboard Avalon, the Acolytes find and revive Holocaust - who gratefully sets about killing the lot of them.

What you need to know:
The Age of Apocalypse storyline is over, and X-Men resumes publication with issue #42.  However, the Age of Apocalypse storyline had some permanent consequences, because four of its characters survived and escaped into the mainstream Marvel Universe before their world was destroyed.  One of them, Holocaust, turns up here. 

Back in his own world, Holocaust was one of Apocalypse's lieutenants.  Basically, his routine was that he touched people and absorbed their life force.  After making his mainstream debut with much fanfare in issues #42-43, he drifted around the satellite books doing nothing very significant, before eventually being dredged up for the Age of Apocalypse sequel in 2005.

The idea here is that in the Age of Apocalypse timeline, Magneto ran the X-Men in place of the dead Professor X, and Exodus was a member of the team.  So when Holocaust wakes up and see Exodus, he attacks on sight.  Poor demented Exodus starts off assuming that Holocaust is a gift from god, and then just gets completely confused.  (As for Magneto, he's still comatose from that fight with the X-Men back in issue #25.)

Holocaust gets his killing spree off to a good start by bumping off Milan and Rusty Collins of the Acolytes.  Milan is a character of no real importance, but Rusty was a major supporting character in X-Factor and had a brief stint as a member of the New Mutants in the late 1980s - although he'd largely been marginalised for the last few years.

Amelia Voght, as a teleporter, is the only Acolyte to successfully flee the station (although you might have thought Scanner could do it too).  She teleports down to the X-Men's Mansion and inadvertantly ends up teleporting Scott and Jean up to Avalon to take her place.  A bit convenient, but the plot requires it.

Rogue kissed Gambit in issue #41 just before the world turned to crystal.  That didn't work out very well for them - Gambit's still in a coma, and Rogue has run away with Iceman.  In this issue, she's wandering around in a daze, apparently re-enacting Gambit's thefts.  Eventually, the idea of this plot turns out to be that when Rogue touched Gambit, she learned about his involvement with the Morlock massacre.  The memories have now faded, but she still knows there's something horribly wrong.

Comments:
Considering that it's the mainstream introduction of a decidedly C-list villain, this is a surprisingly good issue.  The Acolytes were such underdeveloped characters that Holocaust's slaughter of them could easily have seemed meaningless, but Nicieza manages to give them a bit of personality and give some more weight to the story.  Poor Milan finally gets a character, and Rusty Collins gets his first good scene in years, only for both of them to die almost immediately. 

Since all the regular art teams had been focussing their efforts on the Age of Apocalypse arcs, we're back to fill-in art here.  Fortunately, issues #42-43 are by the excellent Paul Smith, himself a former regular penciller on Uncanny, so the quality of storytelling is high.

Shame they had to do the story with Holocaust, though.  He's ended up as little more than a footnote in X-Men history.  I've always felt uncomfortable with the name, too.  It's not that there's anything wrong in invoking the holocaust, but it's just too much weight for an underdeveloped character like him to bear.  He was eventually renamed Nemesis, which might suggest that somebody at Marvel shares my discomfort.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X, the Beast, Cyclops and Phoenix III (all last - Professor X behind the scenes - in Uncanny X-Men #322)
Archangel (behind the scenes; last in Uncanny X-Men #322; next in Wolverine vol 2 #91, then in Uncanny X-Men #323, then in DC vs Marvel #1-2, then behind the scenes in DC vs Marvel #3-4, then in X-Men '95)
Gambit (behind the scenes; last in X-Men Prime; next in Uncanny X-Men #323-324, then in Wolverine/ Gambit: Victims #1-4, then in DC vs Marvel #1-2, then behind the scenes in DC vs Marvel #3-4, then in Uncanny X-Men #325, then in issue #45)
Iceman (last in X-Men Prime; next in Uncanny X-Men #323-324, then behind the scenes in DC vs Marvel #1, then in DC vs Marvel #2, then behind the scenes in DC vs Marvel #3-4, then in Uncanny X-Men #325, then in issue #45)
Rogue (last in X-Men Prime; next in Uncanny X-Men #323-325, then in issue #45)
Storm (last in Uncanny X-Men #322; next behind the scenes in Wolverine vol 2 #91, then behind the scenes in X-Force vol 1 #45, then in Uncanny X-Men #323-324, then in DC vs Marvel #1-4, then in Uncanny X-Men #325-326, then in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #8, then in Cable #23, then in Wolverine vol 2 #93, then in Exiles vs X-Men #0, then in Wolverine vol 2 #96, then in X-Men/ClanDestine #1-2, then in Uncanny X-Men '95, then in X-Force vol 1 #48, then in Sabretooth: In The Red Zone, then in X-Force vol 1 #51, then in issue #48)

VILLAINS
Exodus and Holocaust (both last in X-Men Prime)
Magneto (last in flashback in Uncanny X-Men #393)
The Acolytes: Joanna Cargill, Rusty Collins (dies), Colossus, Milan (dies), Carmella Unuscione, Amelia Voght (all last in X-Men Prime), Harlen Kleinstock, Sven Kleinstock, Skids (the latter three last in Uncanny X-Men #315), Scanner (last in Avengers vol 1 #381) and Javitz
The Juggernaut (last in Uncanny X-Men #322; next in DC vs Marvel #1)
Sabretooth (behind the scenes; last behind the scenes in X-Men Prime; next behind the scenes in Wolverine vol 2 #91)

Written: 26 March 2005

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