Some points of interest from this issue:
- Betsy's altered memories continue to play merry hell with her sense of here and now; we get a couple of spots where she's not sure if the memories in her head are actually hers or those she's picked up from elsewhere.
- Betsy does remember her time in Kwannon's body, and how she had fewer body image issues during that time because it wasn't her body. Just a tad creepy there.
- Nezumi's situation is still a nightmare - no hospital that Jubilee contacts is willing to take a pregnant woman. And they can't process (read as: mindwipe) her for admittance to the Danger Room because forgetting that she's pregnant isn't going to make the situation better in any way.
- The team hits fracture point: Moneta scans the offender we saw in the preview, despite the fact that it potentially endangers him, then accuses Betsy of failing to mindwipe him. Then she doubles down by accusing Betsy of being in the resistance. Unsurprisingly, her theories don't get a lot of traction with the team, and Fred tells her to take a walk before she says something she'll regret.
- Turns out that an anonymous tip allegedly about the location of the kids partying in an abandoned building was actually Moneta calling the team in on what she suspected to be actual resistance meetings of a "retrograde cult". When Dept. X raids the place, they wind up fighting a bunch of terrified, untrained mutants who'd just been sitting around talking about En Sabah Nur's philosophy of love, not actually breaking any laws.
- Fred isn't having it and tells Moneta she's off the team.
-This is Fred's POV spotlight, for the most part, and in keeping with his new literary bent, a line from TS Eliot keeps going through his head throughout this issue: "Do I dare disturb the universe?" The answer appears to be "yes" - both in his connection to Betsy, and in his willingness to aid Nezumi while denouncing Moneta.
-While I'm still not a fan of some of Jeanty's facial expressions, I outright cackled at Moneta's face the moment Fred told her she was being kicked to the curb. Yeah, that is the face of someone who is only just realizing how badly they've fucked themselves. But I do expect she'll be moving to repay the team in-kind next issue, so... yikes.
I have a couple of quibbles here, mainly that I think Fred's realization that he's leading a team of monsters comes late enough that it stretches belief a bit. But then, Fred's also been the one who's been trying his hardest to come off as a good guy while performing a despicable job. This just might have been the moment when he couldn't delude himself any longer, hence Moneta getting unceremoniously booted this time, as opposed to lectured.
Overall, I enjoyed this one. And, of course, I am intensely curious about what next month's issue will bring.