When it comes to X-Men, I am probably the last person who would want to talk to about them. Yes, I can name most, if not all of the X-men Characters, but if you want to know about the continuity and the ins/outs of relationships of the characters, I may kill you. Serious.

XMF #23 is the second to final issue of this run (they are doing volumes, Vol 2 starts in June) and not a single answer gets answered, but thankfully no new questions are raised as the X-Men conclude their confrontation with the Neo-Sentinels, The Consortium, and try to stop the Plaque -X Cannon that would wipe out every mutant on Earth.

Some rather big things happen in the issue, as you can probably tell from the cover image. Everyone’s favourite blue-furred mutant genius, sadly, dies. I still think there could have been someway to have save him, Jean Grey could have put a TK shield around and protect, but he gave himself up for the greater good of mutant kind.

Also, a shocker of shockers, Mister Metal Pants Tony Stark, dies as well. I think this is something that may have shocked a lot of people, I know it shocked me when I read it because I was wondering why he didn’t have his Iron Man suit with him. I am hoping Claremont will allude to this in his second volume of X-Men Forever, as I am sure Tony never went anywhere with out one.

At the end of the issue there is a preview for the upcoming X-Men Forever Special, which reunites X-Men with the Shi’Ar. It could be a good read as the Shi’Ar are not all too pleased with Chuck, who accidently allowed the Skrulls to circumvent the Shi’Ar defense and destroy some of the outer colonies.

I really enjoyed this issue. Out of the 24 that have been released, there’s also an annual out, I enjoyed this one the most. Fantastic story-telling accompanied by tremendous artwork. Well worth picking up.