Dark Avengers #7

This is the third part(or chapter if you prefer)of the Utopia x-over. This comic is written by Matt Fraction.

-Beast, who was put through the Omega Machine is falling apart(literally!)in his jail cell. Osborn bitches at Dark Beast over Beast's condition, and Dark Beast tells Osborn that the Machine isn't perfect yet and that there are still some kinks that need working out. Osborn tells DB that is unacceptable and storms away.

-Emma's Dark X-Men take down Hellion's troublemakers and arrest them for Osborn.

-Cyclops visits Osborn and demands that Osborn and his HAMMER cronies leave town by tomorrow. Osborn laughs in Scott's face and tells him to get lost.

-Bullseye bitches(a lot of bitching went on in this issue!)about Osborn sending out the Dark X-Men instead of the Dark Avengers to take Hellion down, and Moonstone tells Bullseye that it's better to let mutants police themselves.

-The Dark X-Men bring Hellion and his teammates in to HAMMER headquarters and Osborn has them all locked up. Emma still doesn't trust Dark Beast or his Omega Machine so she demands that Osborn allows her to have a look around his facilities. Osborn and Dark Beast reluctantly agree to show Emma around.

-Daken and Bullseye get into a pissing contest(well not literally)and before you know it the Dark Avengers and the Dark X-Men are brawling all over the HAMMER base.

-Emma checks out the prison cells containing Dark Beast's test subjects and everything seems apropos. However, Prof. X(one of the captives)begins to secretly speak to Emma mentally, and he tells her things aren't as they seem. X tells Emma to ask to see Beast, and when Emma does, she is told by Osborn that Beast isn't there. Emma now realizes something is definitely wrong with the whole situation surrounding Osborn, Dark Beast and the Omega Machine and she tells X that everything will work out in the long run.

-This issue ends with Simon Trask(who is actually a Sentinel)getting his army of Sentinels together in preparation for an attack on the X-Men.

This was a pretty good comic. Nothing spectacular, but entertaining enough. I'm still waiting to find out exactly what the purpose of the Omega Machine is. I guess it permanently removes mutant powers, but that just doesn't make any sense to me... Why would Dark Beast, who not all that long ago was helping Beast find a cure for the "No more mutants" spell, suddenly decide to remove mutant powers? That just doesn't make sense. Hopefully there is more to the Omega Machine than that, because if the Machine is simply a mutant power eraser, I'm going to be pretty disappointed.

Speaking of being disappointed, it looks like Emma is going to come out of this x-over smelling like a rose. Damn it! I was really hoping this x-over was going to spell the end of her days as an X-Man. It now looks like Emma is going turn on Osborn and free Prof. X. I was also a bit mystified by the way Emma was using her powers in this issue. I thought when Emma was in her diamond form she was not only unable to access her telepathy, but that she was also immune to outside telepaths as well. As far as I know, Prof. X shouldn't have been able to speak to Emma telepathically while she was in her diamond form...

And then there's Beast... PLEASE don't tell me Beast is going to(ONCE AGAIN!)be reverted back to his non-furry form. After going through the Omega Machine, we got a quick glimpse of Beast in his cell, where we were shown that his claws were falling out and his fur was shedding all over the place. I always HATED Beast's original look and thought his furry look was a much better fit for his moniker. Granted I'm not overly fond of Beast current cat-like look(I prefer Beast circa the 1990's), but practically any look is better than Beast's human appearance. I really hope Matt doesn't decide to use this x-over to radically alter Beast look again... For a score, I'll give this comic an 8 out of 10. This x-over continues to entertain as well as leaving me eagerly anticipating the next part.