The Gist of It: This issue opens with some crap about young Rogue being chased by a truck drivin' hick lynch mob, and she's rescued by Cable. It's badly drawn and I don't have any other issues of the Dream's End arc, so I dunno the point of it at all. Anyway, after that, we cut to present day Boston, where the STUPID STUPID new version of the Brotherhood is attacking Senator Kelly YET again. This is kinda parallel to the original attack on Kelly by the much cooler BoEM, I suppose, except this time it's Cable, Beast, Colossus, and Gambit to the rescue instead of... the other X-Men. And so, lots of fighting ensues. Really, this whole issue's just one big fight scene between Blob, Avalanche, Post, and the X-Men, every once in a while mentioning the guy in the back who's just standing there and hacking his lungs out.

Finally, the battle's going the good guys' way, and Cable has this eeerie feeling of foreboding. The sickly guy who was just standing around coughing finally steps forward and takes his hat off, revealing a seriously emaciated looking Pyro who seems to have gone crazy with a pair of scissors. I mean, he's always had flowy crazy blonde hair and now it's all... all... spikey in some parts, then uhh I guess totally burnt off in others O.o; Well, at least he doesn't have the sideburns from hell XD Anyway, rather than concentrate further on his hair, I'll go on with the issue... So, he's in the last stages of the Legacy Virus and looking like he could be knocked over by a gentle breeze... He's also wearing his Pyro outfit under his trench coat and pants, which I didn't realize until... like just now! It looked like he threw it in a bunch of bleach, though, since it's not... any color anymore.

Okay! Enough about Pyro! Well, not enough. He, now hatless :P, steps out of the shadows and says to Cable, the man who kicked the crap outta him on multiple occassions, "Mastermind", leading Cable to the realization that the whole fight was an illusion and the REAL Post has already made his way to Senator Kelly as Illusion Post was getting his ass kicked by Colossus. So, ever heroically, Cable flings a psimitar through that stupid ho bitch Femme Mastermind's chest, ending the illusion. Anywho, Post grabs Kelly, and Pyro's like "Wait, stop, you bloody stupid idiot!" Okay, he doesn't say that, but that's the gist of it. Anywho, Cable's holding him for some reason... uh... I guess because the gentle breeze knocked him over O.o; Since Post is like "Blah, I'm an idiot who's not going to listen to you." Pyro decides to just waste the sucker :P So, he sets himself and Post on fire, producing it on his own for the first time in his canon career. :P

The result is Post dead (YAAAAYY!!!) and Pyro very very close to dead. Uh, so Senator Kelly holds him and:

Pyro: Please... Senator... Make it end. The hatred, the death. There's a war coming... stop it! You're the only one who can.
Kelly: I will. I promise. As long as I live... I promise.
Pyro: Thank... you... mate...

And then he dies. WHY?! Why Johnny?! *cries* Why is stupid Avalanche unconscious?! Anyway, the issue ends with Senator Kelly holding Pyro's dead body (and the pic can be seen at Edward Kelly's bio on the Evo Bios page) and everyone standing around. And then I get mopey and write many Pyro fics. >.<

BH Moments: Well, the Brotherhood's present throughout the whole issue, though they're really just thugs. Pyro's around for the second half, where he kills Post then dies. >.>

Characterization: Pyro characterization!! XD As far as Avalanche and Blob go, they get no characterization, though Av's personality seems a little warped in this issue, since previously he'd been showing signs of remorse and... well, everyone knows Av is really a good person. He can't hide that from meeee! Uh. Yeah. Mostly, this issue's set up for Pyro's big hero act. The whole battle's just a buildup for his big sacrifice, and as such, you get a lot of his character. He'd always been pretty good, as far as bad guys go, and now he does the same thing so many X-Folk did before him. Of course, unlike the X-Men who keep on killing themselves, he's not coming back. Nope. At least, I hope not, because how lame would that be? Yep. Okay.

My Opinion: It's a good issue, but the Rogue section was completely pointless, in my opinion. >.< Also, I don't like how they handled Avalanche's character. Blob, I was fine with, and I hated Mastermind II and Post to begin with, so I didn't give a shit about what happened to them, but AVALANCHE?! Come on! You'd think the second St. John took off his hat and was all "Hi! I'm dying!", he'd run over to his side and be all "AAGH! I'm sorry, buddy! Don't strain yourself! Lemme get you a glass of water!" or something, but nooo he's all... uh... I dunno O.o I can't tell if he's unconscious by that point, or if he's just in the background and the artist decided not to draw him, or if his presence there was totally an illusion and only Post, Mastermind II, and Blob were there! *cries* Well, he had to have been there, because his helmet was lying around at the end... so what the hell happened to him?! Other than the Avalanche factor, it was a good issue-- but I do have another qualm with it. When St. John toasts Post, there're some captions around the page about his life as a criminal. One of the captions says: "Using his pyrotechnic ability, he killed ruthlessly in the name of mutantkind's salvation."

Killed ruthlessly. Uh huh. As far as I know, here's the list of what St. John's killed during his canon career: a dinosaur that was going to kill some civilians, probably some guys in Kuwait, Veil (Kuwait), and Dr. Kurtzmann (also in Kuwait). Okay. So, he killed ruthlessly for mutants, huh? The only real casualties he'd caused were in Kuwait, when he was working for the American government and was ORDERED to kill Kurtzmann if all else failed. When he killed Veil, it was... uh... kinda self defense, considering that Desert Sword was trying to kill Freedom Force, and had already killed one member and wounded two others. Sure, his killing Veil was a little extreme (and mean and he looked insano scary!) but it wasn't "ruthlessly for mutantkind"! The caption made him out to sound like a worse villain than he really was! I mean, he could've slaughtered people if he wanted to, but he never did until Kuwait!

But that's the end of my rant. :D

Rating (out of 5): Uhh... 4, because I didn't like how Avalanche was treated :\

Art Rating (out of 5): 3.5 They probably could've done better... but at least the penciller didn't make Pyro look the way Joe Mad made him look! *shudder*

BH Babble:

: *cries* Why me?! Whymewhymewhyme?!
: Uh, because you're expendable?
: ...do you want me to hurt you? And you, Lance! How dare you... you... not help me to not-die!
: How many times to I have to tell you that I'm NOT the same Avalanche?! I'm not!! *cries*
: There, there, Lancey *comforts* Ignore the mean dead guy.
: Hey! Ohh, if I had an angry face, I'd SO glare at you right now!