STORY: "Lost and Found" (21 pages)  Cyclops gets the Acolytes to safety after they crash in the Australian desert, while on the other side of the planet, Colossus is found by Callisto.

What you need to know:
Callisto turns up after a three year absence.  She's hanging around in the Antarctic and wearing battle armour because... well, look, she just is, okay?  Anyhow, Colossus crashes to earth nearby, and she takes him in.

Magneto has disappeared, apparently having been separated from Colossus in the fall from Avalon.  The original idea was that he had somehow been de-aged in the crash, and that he turned up as Joseph.  That idea was later dumped, and Joseph was written off as a copy created by Astra.  In the revised version, Magneto regains consciousness at this point, has a fight with Joseph, and wanders off to resume villainous plotting.  He eventually resurfaces a couple of years down the line, in the run-up to Uncanny X-Men #350.  (For most of the intervening period, Joseph was meant to be Magneto, so the "real" character didn't appear.  Joseph even got to star in a Magneto miniseries.)

Colossus and Skids never return to the Acolytes after this point.  Colossus goes on to appear in Uncanny X-Men #325 alongside Callisto, and eventually joins Excalibur.  Skids retires from all things superhuman-related, and goes back to university.  The remaining Acolytes - Voght, Cargill, Scanner, Unuscione and the Kleinstocks - remained together, and were soon joined by even more generic Acolytes to pad out the numbers again.

The psionic plane has been disrupted, which is interfering with all telepathic powers.  This was supposed to be the result of Nate Grey, a powerful psi, turning up in the mainstream universe.

In a cumbersome infodump, we're told that Amelia Voght's body is actually mist, and that she has to concentrate to hold it together.  Xavier enlists Voght to help out with finding Scott, largely by guilt-tripping her.

Cyclops and the Acolytes eventually find their way to the Australian ghost town where the X-Men were based in the late 1980s.  Cyclops reports that somebody has been using the base lately - a storyline which was never followed up.

Comments:
Andy Kubert returns for the last chapter of this storyline.  Two things immediately strike me.  One, the editors did a really bad job of achieving consistency, since Amelia Voght's costume has changed entirely, and Colossus is inexplicably back in his X-Men costume.  (He was dressed as an Acolyte in the last two issues.)  Two, Kubert's art just doesn't have the subtlety of Paul Smith's - particularly at this point in his career, his characters pose and overact when they ought to be showing emotion, and the story is less human for it.

The issue is mainly about Cyclops leading the Acolytes across the desert, and it's a good issue for his character - he's the ultimate, uber-competent field leader, and even the Acolytes fall in behind him in a crisis (though some of them complain mightily about it).  The Acolytes get to display a lot more individual personality than usual, too.  There's also a neat twist where Xavier risks his life to try and contact Scott, only to find that Scott's actually perfectly safe and it was a waste of time.  On the down side, the Callisto scenes are awkward, and the Voght subplot is clunky.  But the issue has a lot going for it.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (next in X-Man #5, then in X-Force vol 1 #44, then in Wolverine vol 2 #91, then in Wolverine '95, then in X-Force vol 1 #45, then in X-Force vol 1 #47, then in Generation X #6, then in Wolverine vol 2 #92, then in DC vs Marvel #1, then behind the scenes in DC vs Marvel #2-4, then in Uncanny X-Men #326, then in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #8, then in Excalibur vol 1 #88, then in Cable #23, then in X-Man #10, then in Wolverine: Knight of Terra, then in Wolverine vol 2 #93, then in Exiles vs X-Men #0, then in X-Men / ClanDestine #1-2, then in X-Man #11-12, then in issue #47)
Bishop (next in Wolverine vol 2 #91, then in Wolverine '95, then behind the scenes in Generation X #6, then in Uncanny X-Men #325, then in Wolverine: Knight of Terra, then in Wolverine vol 2 #93, then in Uncanny X-Men '95, then in issue #46)
Cyclops (next in X-Force vol 1 #44, then in Wolverine vol 2 #91, then in DC vs Marvel #1-2, then behind the scenes in DC vs Marvel #3-4, then in X-Men '95)
Phoenix III (next in Cable #21, then in Wolverine vol 2 #91, then in DC vs Marvel #1, then behind the scenes in DC vs Marvel #2-4, then in X-Men '95)
Psylocke (last in Uncanny X-Men #322; next in Wolverine vol 2 #91, then in Wolverine '95, then behind the scenes in Generation X #6, then in Uncanny X-Men #323-324, then in DC vs Marvel #1, then behind the scenes in DC vs Marvel #2-4, then in flashback in the second story in X-Men '95)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Callisto (last in flashback in Uncanny X-Men #374; next in Uncanny X-Men #325)
Colossus (leaves the Acolytes; next in Uncanny X-Men #325)

VILLAINS
The Acolytes: Joanna Cargill, Harlan Kleinstock, Sven Kleinstock, Scanner, Amelia Voght (all next in Magneto #1) and Carmella Unuscione (next in Excalibur vol 1 #106)

GUEST APPEARANCE
Skids (leaves the Acolytes; next in X-Force vol 1 #78)
 

Written: 10 December 2004

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