[Dr Kain]

Finshed the final confrontation between X-Factor and Apocalypse. I found it quite fitting that Apocalypse used the base on the moon where Phoenix died for his last stand. I do feel like the time traveller plot came out of nowhere, but given I'm missing 19 issues of context, it's possible the thing started before X-Tinction Agenda. I was also amazed to learn Ship is a male as I could have sworn early on they referred to Ship as being a female. Well, it matters not as Ship is gone now. The Dark Riders were kind of lame and a poor replacement for the Four Horsemen. THey also weren't developed all that well. I'm also not sure how I feel about Nathan contracting some random virus and needing to be taken to the future. It seems like this was some cheapass way of resetting Cyclops back to status quo as if they didn't already screw him over enough.

Oh, and there was some random back-up story with Shaw being "killed" by his son that came out of nowhere.

I aldo did kick off the Shadow King arc with the next X-Men issue that had Rogue and Guido not at Muir Island with extensive exposition explaining to us the went there because I guess there wasn't any time to show it to us. Then again, they pulled the same stunt with Colossus. Last we saw him, he was living his life happy without a memory and now he's under the Shadow King's influence too. Shadow King being the final boss of this era of X-Men seems appropos considering how much he has been hiding in the... well... shadows. I feel like he's been around since Claremont's beginning and has just been a festering parasite this entire time.

I actually would not mind a figure of Shadow King in his cloak.