X-Men Gold #5: Techno Superior Part 2

Writer: Marc Guggenheim

Artist: R.B. Silva

Inker: Adriana Di Benedeto

Colorist: Frank Martin

Letterer: Cory Petit

Cover Artists: Adrian Syaf, Jay Leisten and Frank Martin

Editors: Mark Paniccia, Daniel Ketchum,  and Chris Robinson

Editor-In-Chief: Axel Alonso

Recap and Thoughts: We start this issue with the cliffhanger from last issue. Gambit is hanging on a ledge with the new style Sentinel looming over him. Gambit falls off the ledge to a most certain doom but Storm comes in for the rescue; as if the reader was not already expecting that. She lets him know the team is on the way. The X-Men land at the epicenter of the explosion where they find the unconscious Olivia Trask, who they then teleport to the X-Jet.

From there, it looks like Logan goes out to help the firefighters putting out the raging flames. They are quick to dismiss him as a distraction, but he saves two civilians trapped under rubble without their help. The Sentinel confronts the team and starts speaking in binary which Kitty miraculously understands (maybe hanging with Cypher has its benefits). She deciphers that it wants to eliminate genetic mutations. She has Peter perform a fastball special with her which involves some cute wordplay between the two. She phases through the Sentinel and it explodes yet also makes Rachel have some sort of psychic attack which lays her out.

The team returns to the jet to track the Sentinel nanites. Rachel and Kitty have a conversation on what it felt like to get her psychic attack where Rachel lets Kitty know the Sentinel is self aware. Now we  get our obligatory Lydia Nance appearance where she calls out the team for the destruction caused by the attack which gets the students at the mansion riled up. The action switches back to the X-Jet where Miss Trask finally wakes up and they question her on how to track and possibly beat the Sentinel. She has no clue and blames Gambit for the creation of this thing.

They find the sentinel and Kitty goes outside to phase through it once more, but Miss Trask lets her know that it is a Sentinel, which means it learns from its mistakes. Phasing will not work this time. Kitty finds it odd that the Sentinel decided to reform so close to a hair restoration clinic. The team comes to aid her, but during the attack they figure out that the Sentinel is smaller and Rachel lets them know the swarm is spread out all over the city. Rachel is able to overpower the Sentinel, although both are in a weakened state. Rachel loses consciousness once more and the team starts tracking the rest of the swarm. It seems to be killing at random across the city, but Trask figures out the pattern; the sentient Sentinel is targeting all genetic mutations, humans included. Cue the cliffhanger.

Conclusion: This issue was big on action as we got a lot of fighting with the sentient Sentinel. It is a brilliant idea to have it target all mutations, even simple genetic ones in humans. The art is still not doing it for me though and I hope we get a new artist for the next arc. Guggenheim keeps the Lydia Nance threat growing and I wonder if this is like one of those seeds that Claremont used to plant that pays off way down the line. Overall, an action packed decent issue with a helluva cliffhanger.