"Rescue Mission"
We are back in space, and, as the cover says, on a rescue mission. And the cover shows a scarred and shocked Kitty Pryde menaced by a Brood alien. Twenty issues ago, when I begin this review series, it was a story about Kitty Pryde fleeing from a Xenomorph substitute, at that time a supernatural menace, and here it is a science-fiction menace, but certain stories and themes to really repeat here.
This story is also perhaps the most linear story I have reviewed so far. Other than a two page interlude where we see Corsair and Havoc back on earth, it just follows Wolverine as he frees Binary and then the X-Men, who apparently still are being mind controlled to believe they are back in a luxurious Shi'ar base, and not on the Brood homeworld. Actually, for all of Chris Claremont's habit of overexplaining interpersonal and ideological conflicts, sometimes the immediate plot is glossed over. While they escape and fight the Brood, two other things are going on: Wolverine knows that the X-Men have been infected by Brood parasites and that the Brood are developing inside of them--- and Wolverine faces the fact he might have to kill his friends. Kitty Pryde, as a counterpoint, is in a situation where she might have to blow a Brood out an airlock, and doesn't believe in killing even malignant parasites like the Brood. Kitty is saved by chance, but the issue ends with the X-Men saved and on a Shi'ar ship, but with Wolverine alone knowing that they were still in great danger. It is, for the time, a relatively simple story.
And one that we won't resolve directly, because I don't own the next two issues. I will come to a conclusion soon, but with some missing information. In Marvel comics (and this is still Marvel, despite Chris Claremont's singular stamp on its feeling), the gaps in the story are sometimes where the real focus is.