Better than in a museum like dinosaurs
Deadeye takes the lead in Salvation by David Lapham and Renato Arlem as the lady Penance arrives - but will she be an ally or an enemy to the X-Terminated? Can Prophet be trusted? And has The Overlord met his match?
Zora Risman (aka Deadeye) is at work when suddenly the mutant M shows up in public proclaiming salvation for all and dubbing herself Penance. Zora is not the only one who pays attention to Penance's display and both Overlord and Prophet also are intrigued by the sudden appearance of the suddenly dead mutant. Deadeye and Prophet spy on a meeting between Penance and some of Overlord's ministers, in which Penance frees Colossus from The Overlord's hold. A fight breaks out when she tries to do the same for Prelate Summers and the villains ultimately retreat leaving the newly aware Colossus behind. Prophet makes himself known and reveals he was responsible for Penance's sudden rebirth (back in Age of Apocalypse #4, when the team were sabotaging Beast's lab) and tries to make an ally of her by offering the captive Sugar Man much to the annoyance of Deadeye. The two argue about Prophet's plans and duplicity and we get a quick origin for Deadeye before she later delivers the prisoner to Penance reluctantly.
Yeah, as you can probably tell, quite a lot actually went down in this issue. Despite only featuring two members of the X-Terminated, I felt that Deadeye received a lot of character work and backstory in this piece. She feels a lot more like a real character now, rather than just a cool chick with guns. Ironically, Deadeye was probably the least characterized of the 5 X-Terminated before this issue, now she's easily the one with the most character!
It's also nice to see Colossus back and potentially set to become one of the only heroic mutants left in the Age of Apocalypse. As far as character choices go, Colossus is a pretty good choice for this sort of role. He's a likeable enough character without quite being a big name hero screaming for the spotlight at all times. Plus, he's one of those characters who doesn't really feel right being a villain.
This was a very good issue. There's a lot of manipulation and stare-downs going on throughout the issue, most of which are aptly tense, and it's really great to have a nice chunk of backstory for one of these new characters this book has given us. While I hope the next batch of issues don't succumb to a similar predictable pattern of devoting themselves solely to individual characters, it was really a welcome refreshment here.