X-MEN vol 7 #37
“Psi-War”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Kid Omega and Cassandra Nova fight in the mindscape.

This is a DNX tie-in issue.

PAGE 1. Kid Omega prepares to fight Cassandra.

This is technically a flashback to “three minutes ago” – i.e., immediately before Kid Omega attacks Cassandra during the scene in pages 11-13 of DNX #1. Page 16 of DNX #1 (where Kid Omega confronts Cassandra in the mindscape) takes place between pages 1-2 of this story, and the rest of the issue picks up from there.

He’s speaking telepathically with someone who isn’t identified at this stage, but since she goes on to say that “you’ve got backup” at the start of page 2, we can take it that this is the character he calls in as back-up later in the issue.

PAGES 2-4. Kid Omega and Cassandra Nova begin fighting.

The lettering in these scenes reflects the way that similar mindscapes were depicted in issues #5 and #32-33. As Quentin points out, the deluge of worms and insects is the same thing that Cassandra planted as traps in the minds of Ben Liu and Schwarzchild in those issues, and is now familiar to him.

Cassandra refers to being “abandoned two billion years in the past, in the middle of a war, by another stupid child.” This is footnoted to Marauders vol 2 #10 (2023), where Kate Pryde stranded Cassandra in the distant past, apparently to be kept in the custody of the Threshold. Cassandra talks about living through “horrors” in returning to the present era, though she doesn’t directly say whether she found a time travel route back to the present, or just had to wait it out as an immortal psychic entity.

The “X-Men” that Quentin conjures up to fight for him are Rogue, Cyclops, Colossus, Storm and Wolverine, in early 90s costumes. The line “To me, my X-Men” has been a standard Professor X catchphrase since the Morrison era. Quentin has his X-Men refer to him as “Professor Q”, obviously positioning himself as a future Professor X figure. We saw something like that in the Omega Kids miniseries during “Age of Revelation”, mind you, and it hadn’t turned out well.

PAGES 5-6. Cassandra makes her case.

Cassandra refers to killing Genosha; she sent “Wild Sentinels” to wipe the place out in New X-Men #115, killing millions. The multiple-headed Sentinel and ruined buildings seen on these pages are references to that story.

Cassandra claims, however, to have changed sides and joined the fight for mutant survival, through the supposedly necessary expedient of human extinction. Quentin seems to think that this is merely a pretext to carry out a different genocide. It’s not entirely clear when Cassandra considers herself to have changed, but it’s probably the end of X-Men: Red and the start of the Krakoan era, where Jean Grey gave her a capacity for empathy and she started being vaguely co-operative with the Krakoan authorities.

PAGES 7-9. Kid Omega makes his rebuttal.

Quentin claims to have been inspired by Magneto’s change of heart, and specifically endorses embrace of all oppressed people (not just mutants) in Resurrection of Magneto. Quentin is completely on side with this and claims to have changed in similar ways himself.

Quentin says that “Magneto’s not interested in collective punishment, and neither am I any more.” This references their argument about how to respond to Glob Herman’s shooting in the “Danger Room” arc (issues #26-30), so it’s a very recent change of position on Quentin’s part.

PAGES 10-14. Cassandra seemingly defeats Quentin.

Cassandra regards the Chairman as morally detached, focussing entirely on taking steps that will bring about what he regards as a better world, and convinced that the ends justify the means. Cassandra, in contrast, embraces the mass slaughter that 3K’s virus will cause as an end in itself – though she claims that this is more to do with the important symbolism of defeating mutantkind’s enemies.

Cassandra seems to have the upper hand, but it turns out the plan is not for Quentin to defeat her singlehandedly, but rather to distract her while he dismantles enough of her psychic defences to bring in his back-up.

PAGES 15-18. Phoenix defeats Cassandra Nova.

This is the first time we’ve seen Jean Grey in the X-books since her solo title ended. She’s still out in Shi’ar space, but at her power level that’s not a huge problem.

Jean refers to wanting to heal Cassandra and “show you my vision”; that’s X-Men: Red #11, where she tried to give Cassandra empathy. In Marauders, Cassandra essentially claimed that this had worked, but merely gave her a greater enjoyment of other people’s pain.

(One of these pages is a double page spread, but it appears as a single page in the digital edition.)

PAGE 19. Kid Omega wakes.

He says that he has huge memory gaps and worries that he might have perception changes, but seems clear enough about where he is and what he’s meant to be doing.

In his absence, things have been going badly for the X-Men, which is presumably going to be the plot of DNX #2.