Wrapping Up Second Coming

Marvel's "Second Coming" storyline in the X-Men books wrapped up this week in X-Men: Second Coming #2. 

Here's the recap: Bastion's sentinel army trapped the X-Men and the citizens of San Francisco within a giant energy barrier. Every few minutes, a team of five powerful sentinels travels through a time portal from the future and begins laying waste to the area. The X-Men desperately fought against the horde of ever-adapting killer machines. Cable, Wolverine, and the rest of X-Force embarked on a time-traveling suicide mission to destroy the sentinels at their source. Mutant messiah Hope Summers is pissed that her father (Cable) has been sent to his death and she directs every ounce of anger towards X-Men leader Cyclops. Fortunately, X-Force took out Master Mold and the sentinel menace was vanquished. Well, except for Bastion who is still back in the present with the X-Men. The time portal began collapsing in upon itself, but not before Cable bursts back into the present, much to Hope's excitement.  Cable used his body to prop open the time portal, sacrificing his life so that X-Force could survive.  In a fit of rage, Hope's latent mutant powers became... unlatent.  She began displaying a wide assortment of mutant abilities and managed to single-handedly destroy Bastion and destroy the giant energy barrier.

X-Men: Second Coming #2 is two things.  It wraps up the prior storyline and it gives us an idea of where the X-books will be heading in the coming months.  Here are a few of the notable events in this issue.

Cable was buried in this issue.  Cyclops, the general of the X-Men, saved the day, but at the expense of his elderly son's life.  Meanwhile, Hope is now rudderless.  She grew up in the distant future with Cable as her constant protector and companion.  Now he's dead and she finds herself without no family and surrounded by people who alternately believe that she's their savior or the devil incarnate. 

Now that Bastion's threat has been eliminated, Cyclops has abandoned his secret assassin team, X-Force.  It's a brand new day and the world celebrates the X-Men as the heroes who saved millions of San Fran residents.  There is no more need for covert execution squads.  Wolverine disagrees.  Not content to limit his activities to the X-Men, Avengers, and New Avengers, Wolvie recruits Phantomex, Archangel, Psychocke, and Deadpool for a new, even-more-secret assassin team, the Uncanny X-Force.

During a celebratory party, Emma Frost notices a familiar flash surrounding Hope.  Has the Phoenix decided to nest within our new mutant messiah?

Before she can warn Cyclops about Phoenix's possible return, she and he witness one of the most welcome sights in recent mutant history: five new mutant x-genes have activated.  Ever since Scarlet Witch whispered "No more mutants", the mutant race has flatlined.  Most lost their powers and no new mutant births have materialized outside of Hope.  Meanwhile, one by one, the remaining 198 mutants are slowly dying off or being killed off.  The five new mutants are the first real sign of hope in a long, long time.  It will be interesting to see how this "new generation of hope" turns out.