EPIC!

So yesterday I sat down and read in a binge the entirety of Second Coming. Continuing where Cable ended, Second Coming begins with the pair’s return to the present, only to be imeediately met with gunfire and a cross-country chase. So off the bat my expectations were met as all the X teams mobilized to get this girl home.
Bastion as a villain worked nicely, since his whole purpose was to wipe out all mutants, and as a result stop Hope at all costs, but the two have never actually met. The story itself never let up the dire circumstances of keeping Hope safe, stating that only 181 mutants were left and several of those number fall before the battle is over.
Naturally, as in most crossover stories like this, people die and relationships change. For starters, Cyclops order for X-Force to finally use lethal force and to keep their existence secret finally comes to a head as the mutant community is divided on the decision. Nightcrawler especially opposes this shortly before his death, one that firmly stated the gloves were off.
Cable and Hope finally separate for the final time as Cable sacrifices himself to save X-Force and bring them home from their successful plan to sabotage Bastion’s plan to bring advanced Nimrod Sentinels from the future to wipe out the mutants. I really appreciated that the Avengers and Fantastic Four show up for this one to assist, giving the X-Men more relation to the Marvel universe that they typically get (except for maybe Wolverine).
But naturally what everyone wanted to know finally gets answered: What exactly is Hope’s power? Well that sort of gets answered in we actually see her use her abilities, but it is never clear what the full extent of her abilities are. For starters, she can mimic mutant powers (which was kind of funny to see Bastion and his lackeys get shredded with as a result), use telepathy to some extent, activate mutant powers in others, and so on. Literally I feel this character is going to replace Jean Grey as the swiss army knife of the X-men team in that she is left open to do just about anything.
I was disappointed in how easily the villains fell in this story though. All the main enemies were killed with almost no difficulty (Ok there was some difficulty but not as much as expected). Typically one person would get wounded or killed then he would just get stabbed or shot and that was that. Even Bastion, the big bad, arrived only to have Hope rip him apart with her bare hands (again, literally).
But overall, Second Coming fulfilled my expectations. People died, especially main characters. Seeing Bastion’s plan come together after years of reading felt satisfying, along with watching Hope develop as a character. Cable and Nightcrawler definitely got the send off they deserved, and the others just got blown away like cannon fodder, intensifying the storyline. It was good to see the X-Men develop as they went to Hell and back (literally again, they actually went to Hell at one point) and satisfying till the end.