I was just reading the new Ult. X-Men TPB that came out last week (#8), and I think this series is really getting very good. (I only read the trades, so I’m not sure what the current arc is like.) I’m about half way through it, so it appears that issue 41 is a stand-alone (though there’s a bit of a mention of it in a later issue.
Regardless, in arc, out of arc, one shot or not, this is an excellent issue. To refresh your memory, a teenage boy wakes up, goes downstairs, and his mother’s clothes are lying on the ground. She’s not around. The food is gone. He goes to school, the town is empty. At school, he strikes up a conversation with a girl, and then everyone around him bursts into flames.
We then find Wolverine enter into a cave where the boy is hiding out. He explains who he is. Logan then explains to the boy who the boy is - a mutant. And his power is to kill. (Logan is constantly trying to give the kid a beer to drink - which really weirded me out, but not after I saw what was going to happen.) The kid goes a little crazy, once he realizes that it was him who was responsible for killing his parents, his friends, his town (about 350 in total). Logan explains that no one will ever know it was the boy who was responsible, as it would destroy all mutant-human relations.
The final few panels:
Logan: Drink your beer.
Kid: No, just do it.
<Logan leaves the cave, alone.>
I have a feeling more will come of this encounter - who Logan was working for (certainly not Xavier), what the repurcussions will be, etc. But alone, I think it holds a great deal of merit. Anyone else catch this issue?