Ultimate X-Men: New Mutants Pt. II
Issue: #41
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: David Finch
Inker: Art Thibert
Colors: Dave Stewart

A young boy wakes up in his bed. He prepares to leave for school, but while reaching for a piece of fruit, he notices that a regularly full bowl of bananas is empty. He calls for his mother to no avail, but passes a pair of pants and a shirt lying on the ground, presumably his mother’s. He leaves a note for his absent mom and heads for school.

On his way to school, the boy passes a dog collar laying on the sidewalk, but there is no dog nearby. The boy continues on his way, oblivious to the fact that the people that were just behind him have been replaced by smoldering flame and smoke.

At school, the boy is confronted by his girlfriend. Before she can continue yelling at him for not calling her the night before, she is shocked into silence as she witnesses all the students around her seemingly burn to death from the inside out. In the next horrifying few minutes, everyone is laying dead around the boy, including his girlfriend. The boy can only stand there, unable to help any of his classmates.

Later that night, Wolverine enters a cave where the young boy has gone to hide out. The boy recognizes Wolverine as an X-man. Logan tells the boy that he is a mutant, and responsible for the series of deaths in the town. More specifically, the boy’s mutant power is that a series of toxins and acid-like poisons radiate out from his body, effectively killing organic tissue, vaporizing it. Wolverine isn’t affected by it because of his healing factor. When the boy finds out that his power has killed over 250 people, he breaks down in tears, exclaiming that he “can’t live like this.” When Logan agrees with this statement, the boy realizes that Wolverine has come to make sure he never makes it out of the cave alive.

Wolverine leaves the cave in the early morning, his job presumably done.

Submitted By: thebluemccoy