Summary:

The issue opens with the Lost Club (Gabby and company) coming across the New Mutants and Amahl passed out within the Wild Hunt. Combining the abilities of Rain Boy, Cosmar and No Girl, the team manages to enter into Amahl's Astral Plane in search of the New Mutants.

At the same time, the new Mutants remain in the constant death battle loop that Amahl put them in last issue, however as Magik, Rahne and Proudstar get prepared to fight Brood for yet another time, Dani and Xian notice a psychic ripple that the Lost Club has created and using their powers manages to warp the new Mutants to the impossible maze that the Lost Club is trapped within.

At the same time, via data page, we discover that the Shadow King does in fact still exist, however not as a true entity, but as a suggestion in Amahl's psyche, a tug of war of his consciousness that he is losing to.

The new Mutants and the lost club begin arguing back and forth about what should be done about the Shadow King until Gabby manages to defuse the situation and gets them to focus on the most immediate issue, escaping the impossible maze. This eventually leads to magik pulling rank as she's the one who is most adept at dealing with such realms.

However, before Magik can make a move to break them out of the maze, Rahne turns on the group, the Shadow King's influence having not actually been completely removed earlier and she forces the group back before escaping.

Magik with the help of Dani and Cosmar manages to create a new Mutant circuit known as Astral fusion which transforms the trio into a literal Seraphim that can oerfectly break through all of Amahl's Astral Plane until they find him specifically being guarded by Rahne.

The infighting returns as Magik prepares to kill Amahl and in that short time Amahl manages to transform himself, turn Rahne into a giant werewolf and trap the New mutants in solo duels with what he perceives to be their greatest fears.

While the Lost Club are transformed into Kaiju to fight the new Giant Rahne, the new Mutants manage to easily defeat the fear manifestations.

Whilst the Lost Club continues to fight Rahne's Wolf Pack mutations, No Girl manages to help turn one of the Rahnes but before she can do much, she goes to Amahl's defense as the new Mutants surround him, however Dani finally manages to break Rahne of Amahl's control and with the help of Cosmar, the Magik pushes through Amahl's final psyhic defense and destroys the Shadow King once and for all.


The issue ends with Thew New Mutants standing over a crying broken Amahl, trying to come to terms with all the pain he's caused.



Final Personal thoughts:

This issue is GORGEOUS, there are several absolutely gorgeous pages and panel transitions.

Also Astral Fusion is EASILY the best looking Mutant Circuit.

Art aside, i also think it's a wonderful conclusion to this arc and does a lot of reflection on several of the characters including Farouk as it reaches the climax.