“Mommy! Look!”

Jean Grey-Summers turned her head at the sound of the child’s voice, and she couldn’t help but smile upon seeing its owner, a young brown-haired girl around eight years-old, running towards her. She too had a wide smile on her face, showcasing the fact that she’d just lost one of her front teeth not long ago, and she had her hands cupped together to keep something inside.

“What is it, Rachel?” Jean asked as her daughter approached.

“Look what I found,” Rachel said, holding her arms up and opening her hands, revealing a large, multi-colored butterfly. “Isn’t it so pretty?”

“Absolutely,” Jean said. She rested a hand on the girl’s cheek and asked her, “You’re still going to catch me some lightning bugs when it gets darker, right?”

Rachel nodded several times, then a grossed-out look crossed the girl’s face as she saw a boy her same age with reddish-brown hair approach with something in his hands. “Ewwww, that’s gross!!!”

Jean turned around and her gaze found the boy at whom her daughter was looking, and she saw that in his hands he was holding a small, vibrantly-colored green frog. He held it up for Jean to see, and she made a mock-disgusted face. “John!”

“Can I keep it?” the boy asked, his eyes pleading more than his voice. “Please, Mom?”

“We’ll see,” Jean told her son, looking him in the eye then glancing at the frog; she had to admit, he was kind of cute.

“Yeah, I know what that means…” John pouted as he started walking away. Rachel gave her mother a goofy smile, then ran off in another direction. As her children left her, Jean just smiled and shook her head; her children were always up to something, and she knew she’d be seeing more bugs and critters before the day was over.

She looked up and started glancing all around; she was at her parents’ house, in their backyard at a family get-together. There were about thirty or so people present, so many that were very near and dear to Jean’s heart. She didn’t remember the last time that everyone had gotten together like this – it was more or less an impossible feat.

They’d done it, though, and how wonderful a time they were having. Across the yard, Jean saw her parents mingling with Scott’s grandparents; a few feet away, Scott’s father Chris was talking to Jean’s nephew Joe and giving him advice on his impending marriage; her niece Gailen, or Gabrielle as she liked to be called now, was sitting on one of the many lawn chairs, chatting on her cell phone; and on the patio, Jean saw her sister Sara cozying up to her brother-in-law Alex. They’d both had a bit much to drink, and were flirting even more than the last time they saw each other.

“Hey there, beautiful,” came a man’s voice from behind Jean. She smiled as her husband wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulled her close for an embrace. Scott kissed her cheek as she let her head fall back a bit to rest against his shoulder.

“Could this day be any more perfect?” Jean wondered aloud.

“Hmm, let me think…” A thoughtful look crossed Scott’s face for a brief moment, then he shook his head. “No, probably not.”

Husband and wife just stood still, watching their family members and enjoying being in each other’s arms. They’d been through so much in their lives, and at long last it seemed that their dreams had finally come true. No more pain, suffering, struggling, fighting… all that was in the past. They’d started a new chapter in their lives, and while it hadn’t been an easy journey, everything had worked out in the end.

“Just so you know, our son now wants a pet frog,” Jean informed her husband.

“What did you tell him?”

“We’ll see.”

“Poor kid,” Scott joked, and Jean playfully nudged him in the abdomen with her elbow.

Jean pulled away from her husband then turned around to face him. She stared into his brown eyes, something she could do for hours on end. She was so happy that both their children had inherited those eyes from their father, though thankfully neither of them had taken after him in the FIX THIS department.

“I love you, Scott,” Jean said, pressing her lips to his for a quick, gentle kiss.

Scott smiled. “I love you, too.” Jean moved to stand next to her husband, and they opted to lean against the large tree behind them while locking their hands together.

“This needs to happen more often, you know?” Scott said. “After all these years we’ve been together… and this is the first time some of our family members are meeting.”

“Well, considering how far away your father lives…” Jean started to say, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Her thoughts moved elsewhere, as a certain topic came to mind that she and Scott hadn’t discussed before, but the idea had come to her on and off for a while. They had an open, honest relationship, and she certainly knew it wouldn’t make him mad – but she just didn’t know if he was quite ready.

“I have a proposition for you, Mister Summers,” Jean said, not trying very hard to sound business-like.

“I’m intrigued. Go on.”

“What would you say to another nine months of my crankyness and midnight taco cravings?”

Scott was silent at first, prompting Jean to turn her head and look at him. He returned the look, and his lips slowly started to curl into a smile. This in turn caused Jean to smile, as she realized that he just might love the idea.

“Baby number three?” Scott asked her.

“Or number seven, depending on who you ask,” Jean quipped with a shrug of her shoulders. “But yes… another baby. I’m so ready, Scott.” She paused for a moment before finishing, “What do you think?”

Scott squeezed her hand as he told her, “Let’s do it.”

EDGE OF HEAVEN

By Ryan Krupienski

“Oh, Scott…”

The room was dark, and lying in bed next to the half-naked form of Scott Summers was Jean Grey, herself scantily-clad in only a bra and panties. Her eyes were closed, and she smiled as she gently stirred under the silk covers. Contrasting that, her husband was dead asleep and not moving an inch; he was a deep sleeper, and sometimes she wondered if even an atom bomb could wake him.

“Love you…” Jean mumbled again, inhaling deeply then letting the air escape a few seconds later. Also unlike her husband, Jean had dreams all the time, and was prone to act parts of them out during her slumber.

After shifting in the bed a few more times, Jean’s eyes started to slowly flutter open, and for a few split seconds, the world she’d created in her dreams was real. It was a beautiful feeling, but one that wasn’t meant to last; a sense of dread washed over Jean as reality set in, and it was at that point that she knew she wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep and recapture that magic.

Jean pulled the covers off of her and sat up in the bed, letting out a soft sigh. She glanced down at her husband, who had his back to her, then she moved her eyes to the wall straight ahead. Embedded in it was a small monitor that showed a video feed from Rachel’s room; like her father, she was sleeping very quietly and very still in her own bed. A quick psi-scan let Jean know that all was well with her infant daughter.

Jean swung her legs over the side of the bed then stood up, and as she did so a soft yawn escaped from her mouth. It wasn’t even six o’clock yet, and the sun had yet to rise, but Jean wasn’t tired anymore, at least not physically. Emotionally, though, she was still rather exhausted.

The last few days had been a whirlwind, though they’d been preceded by some of the happiest she’d had in a long time. A little less than two weeks ago, Scott and Rachel had come to stay with her in Genosha; she and Scott had been estranged for some time, but all that seemed to fade away so quickly. They reconnected, almost to a point where they were closer than ever, and it had been wonderful.

However, as Jean learned long ago, ‘wonderful’ ususally doesn’t last very long for her.

Upon becoming President of Genosha, Jean had taken on a huge responsibility – leading the world’s first sovereign mutant nation, being entrusted with millions of innocent lives. With her former nemesis Magneto by her side, she’d done her best; it had been a bumpy first few months in office, and things still weren’t perfect, but Genosha was so much better than it’d ever been. It wasn’t just a safe haven for mutants looking to escape persecution in their homeland, it was a veritable land of opportunities. The economy was booming, and the people were truly taking control of their lives. Going to Genosha wasn’t just about being ‘safe’; it was about building a better future rife with possibilities.

Of course, all the work she’d done in her close to a year as President was done under the watchful eye of the United Nations Security Council, who had many times dictated an agenda or certain restrictions to Jean. In that regard, Genosha wasn’t truly a free nation quite yet, but Jean knew it was building towards that. There would be bumps along the way, such as the most recent – the U.N. requesting… no, demanding that approximately fifteen thousand mutants be deported from the island nation.

A very miniscule part of Jean could understand their fear – having so much raw, unpredictable power concentrated on one small island. The mutants that the U.N. wanted gone were mostly alpha-level and a good number were near omega-level as well; and compared to the many millions of people now residing in Genosha, fifteen thousand didn’t sound like a lot in comparison. Although for Jean, casting even one person out of the country for such a reason was something she knew she wouldn’t be able to do. How could she force someone to give up the new life they’d built for themselves in Genosha, all because of something that was out of their control?

She knew that Magneto was using some stalling tactics to give them time to formulate a plan, an alternative that might appease the U.N.; what that was, though, Jean didn’t know yet. And even in the midst of that debacle, even more trouble had reared its head…

Cassandra Nova.

At that point it’d been well over a year since Jean had first met Cassandra, the long-lost twin sister of Jean’s former teacher Charles Xavier. Jean had fallen under Cassandra’s spell – literally – in the beginning, and while Jean thought she could be trusted, she ended up learning the hard way that Cassandra wasn’t what she seemed. She’d violated and exposed the X-Men in so many ways, and to a degree they were still recovering from all she’d done.

Stealing Charles’ identity; mind-controlling the X-Men; almost killing the Avengers… Cassandra’s list of crimes wasn’t limited to those few items, certainly, but they stood out most prominently in Jean’s mind. With the help of her teammates and their allies, Cassandra was defeated and for a long time it seemed like the woman might never recover. All that changed just days ago.

Cassandra woke up, and it sent everything into a tailspin. Magneto ran off after her, out for blood, and Jean had to stop him; then the mansion was attacked, and it wasn’t exactly an easy fight against the enemy. Whoever, or whatever, they were, they were targeting Cassandra, and while Jean and her former teammates had no love for the woman, their valiant sides had surfaced once again and they’d protected her.

Cassandra had done so much to Jean and her friends and family that was more or less unforgivable, and part of Jean feared that the woman’s surrender was just an act. She knew that she had to be biding her time, waiting for another weak moment to attack… it unnerved Jean to even think about what Cassandra would do next. And as much as she wanted to be able to focus on just one crisis at a time, there was still the situation in Genosha to be tended to. Very soon she’d have to return and deal with it, potentially leaving her former teammates suceptible to another attack.

{Don’t forget about me.}

Jean was shaken from her thoughts by the sudden intrusion into her mind, or rather, from within her mind. The Phoenix entity that had resurfaced days ago had been silent for a while; Jean had come to think that it had just been a brief, random manifestation of all of her stress, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

{All that reminiscing, and not a single thought regarded to me. I’d be offended, Jean, if I wasn’t already a part of you.}

{Leave. Me. Alone,} Jean demanded, projecting the words into her mind with enough force to send reverberations throughout the Astral Plane.

As Jean strolled towards the large windows on the other side of the room, the entity continued to speak. {I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your dream. What imagination you have; even your son and your sister were in there. I liked that touch. We should never forget those we’ve lost…}

{If you don’t get out of my head, so help me I’ll burn you out!} Jean snapped, a slight grimace forming on her face while on the inside she was filled with rage.

{You’re still fighting me, still using all of that energy to keep me at bay. It won’t last, Jean – sooner or later, we’ll be one again. You’re only delaying the inevitable! I really wish you’d stop this – we have so much work to do, but none of it can start until we’re fully reunited.}

{There will be no ‘reuniting’, no ‘becoming one’. You’re just a stupid figment of my imagination and you’ll be gone soon enough.}

The Phoenix sighed inside Jean’s mind. {Believe what you want for now, Jean. But there really is no denying this – like it or not, this is destiny. I’ll be back, and when I return… you best be prepared to move ahead.}

The presence was suddenly gone, and as the last words of the Phoenix echoed inside her head, Jean sunk down into the chair next to the window. What to do? Charles wasn’t around anymore to help her, and while she knew there were some very capable telepaths amongst the X-Men, none of them had ever faced something like this before.

Maybe if she just ignored it… ‘it’ would go away.

Or perhaps she was strong enough to fight it herself? Considering the power she’d displayed over the past couple years…

Worst case scenario, maybe that growing power was because of the entity – maybe ‘it’ was right. Maybe it was a part of her. Maybe she wouldn’t be whole again until she let it back in.

The thought of being taken over… moreso, the thought of losing control all over again… it scared Jean more than anything. She would take her own life before she ever let that happen. She wanted a safe, secure future for the people she loved – that was one of the reasons she left the X-Men in the first place.

So many thoughts, possibilities, and nightmares began racing through Jean’s mind at such a pace that even she couldn’t keep up with them all. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she started to silently sob as she wondered what the future had in store for her…

The Xavier Masoleum

Below the grounds of the Xavier Estate, a small-but-just-big-enough room had been constructed in memory of a man who had meant so much to so many people. To those closest to him, it was an outrage that he had to be hidden away from the world, that his very existence had to be kept a secret. Unfortunately, it had to be done; however, it was made absolutely certain that the man and his memory were still treated with the utmost respect.

The room was dimly-lit, but its elegance shined through in spades. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of brown and black marble, and on the wall opposite the entrance into the masoleum was a wide stream of water that flowed down into a small reflecting pool on the floor. Pictures were hung on the walls at evenly-spaced intervals, each one depicting a different group and a different place in time, but all shared in common an appearance by a bald-headed man in a wheelchair.

Cassandra Nova’s hand was pressed against the plaque emblazoned with her brother’s name where it had been for almost ten minutes, or so it seemed. She had no intention of removing it any time soon. The shock from seeing his final resting place still hadn’t settled in; she’d been told of his death earlier, but even so, she hadn’t believed it. There was no way he was dead – he couldn’t be. The X-Men, in all their rage against her, had made it up as a way to get revenge. That was all. That was what she’d tried telling herself.

Except they hadn’t made it up… and upon entering the underground masoleum that served as her brother’s grave site, it had finally hit her. As much as she’d fought the notion initially, she couldn’t anymore. Charles Xavier was dead – and he wasn’t coming back.

She didn’t know what hurt her more – the fact that she never got to know the man, or the fact that she tried to kill him herself not long before he died. She was given the chance to connect with the man she’d been denied the chance to grow up with, and what did she do with that opportunity? She aimed a gun at Charles and almost blew his head off.

Looking back at the time before she was in the coma, she still couldn’t believe the things she’d done; the way she’d manipulated her brother’s former students, and all the people she’d hurt so badly. None of it seemed real to her, and the person doing all of those things couldn’t possibly have been her. Except… it was real. And she was guilty of every last crime.

There’d been a tight, sickening feeling in her stomache since the smoke had cleared and her memories of her past crimes set in. That feeling was amplified upon seeing her brother’s grave – it was so horrible, so unbearable now, that she didn’t know if she would ever recover. Part of her felt she didn’t deserve to.

“Charles…” Cassandra managed to say, her voice scratchy and trembling. She kept her hand on the plaque with his name, and proceeded to slowly clench it into a fist. Tears started to stream down her cheeks, and she pounded her fist on the plaque.

“Why did you…?!” she started to say, but her sobbing prevented any other words from coming out. She hung her head and closed her eyes, as pangs of guilt wrecked havoc on her insides. She was never one to show such emotion, but she couldn’t keep her cool anymore – it was all too much.

Cassandra did her very best to keep her sobbing to a minimum, refusing to completely fall apart. It took all her strength not to crumple to the floor in a heaping mess, though in a way she wondered if she even had a right. Did she have a right to cry for this man? Did she even have a right to be there?

Not bothering to wipe her tears away, Cassandra looked up and again stared at the name emblazoned on the plaque. Charles Francis Xavier. The name she’d stolen and twisted into her own. Even before his death, she had more or less taken away his very existence.

“Charles… I’m so sorry,” Cassandra managed to whisper. “I’m so, so sorry, my brother.”

Cassandra finally was able to compose herself somewhat, and stood up tall again. She took a step back from Charles’ final resting place, and wiped away the tears that had soaked her cheeks. “It should be me in there instead of you. Why did you do it, Charles?”

More shocking than finding out that Charles had died was finding out how he died – Charles Xavier had taken his own life. The letter he’d left behind alluded to many things, the overall theme being that he viewed himself as a failure and couldn’t take the shame and guilt any longer. Part of the failure, in his eyes, was not being able to stop his sister from harming his students.

Cassandra hadn’t actually read the letter yet, but had been told about it; she didn’t know if she would ever want to lay eyes on it. The thought that Charles was so distraught, so ashamed, in such turmoil that he saw ending his life as the only way out – it broke her heart that she wasn’t able to help him. It broke her heart even more that she had contributed to that grief.

“I wish you were here. At the very least, I wish I could feel you here. But I don’t,” Cassandra said, stepping back a little ways more before taking a seat on the marble bench that lied across from Charles’ grave. “I have so much to say. So much to apologize for. So much to explain.”

“I don’t know why I did those awful things. I don’t even feel like it was me doing them. But… it was. I was the one who came to your school, manipulated your students, attacked the Aveng–well, I suppose I don’t have to recite my list of crimes yet again. You already know full well what I’ve done.”

“What I did…” Cassandra’s words trailed off into silence for a moment before she continued, “I’m still trying to figure everything out. I’m still trying to figure out what happened to me, why I felt compelled to act out the way I did. I remember doing it all, crystal clear, but I can’t wrap my head around what I was truly thinking.”

“Perhaps if you were still here, you would be able to help me figure everything out. We could do it… together.” Cassandra let out a sigh. “My God, I will never understand why I pushed you away. And after everything, you still tried to extend your hand to me. And instead of doing the smart thing and taking it, I just slapped it away.”

Cassandra felt the next of wave of tears coming on, so she closed her eyes and swallowed back the lump in her throat; it was all she could do to stop them. She took a slow, deep breath, and when she exhaled a shudder went through her body. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes again and continued talking to the man who wasn’t there. “I wish I could go back. I wish we could start over… I could do things right.”

The elderly woman stood up, and started walking around looking at the different pictures on the wall of Charles with his myriad of students. “I can only imagine what your life was like… to have done and seen all the things you did… to have touched all those lives.” As she stopped and stared at a picture of her brother with the original New Mutants squad, she continued, “I just wanted to be a part of all that. To feel like I belonged somewhere again.”

“After my husband died… I…” Cassandra became silent as her mind briefly flashed back to those dark days, but she didn’t let herself linger there. “Hiresh was my world. And we had a bright future ahead of us. Everything we’d ever wanted was finally ours – but just as fast as it arrived, it was taken away. The cancer ravaged him for months, but he may as well have been ripped from me in an instant.”

“I think you two would have gotten along very well. At the very least, I could have told you all about the brother-in-law you never knew, had circumstances been… different. Had I made better choices.”

Cassandra continued to walk, albeit very slowly, and admire the various portraits. She then stifled a laugh, and shook her head in disbelief. “Good God, what am I doing? Talking to a someone who can’t hear me… not that he would necessarily care to listen, and understandably so…”

“I believe he would have.”

The voice startled Cassandra slightly, and she looked up and turned her head to see Henry McCoy standing at the door to the masoleum. He still had his lab coat on, and while Cassandra was certain he’d been at work in his labortary and had to be a bit on the tired side, he showed no signs on exhaustion. And unlike his teammates, Henry didn’t have an expression of complete and utter disgust on his face when looking at her.

“I apologize, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop… I arrived a few moments ago,” Henry explained as he stepped into the room and started towards Cassandra. “It’s been a bit more than thirty minutes, so…”

“Yes, I know, my time for now is up,” Cassandra said with a nod. “Perhaps Scott will give me forty-five next time?”

Henry came to a stop next to Cassandra as she told him, “It took me ten minutes just to step inside the room.”

“I’ve no doubt that this was difficult,” Henry said. “I also understand that it was something you had to do.”

Cassandra looked at Henry, curious. “Not to seem ungrateful, but…”

“But I’ve been nothing short of civil towards you?” Henry asked rhetorically.

“Yes. And while I appreciate it immensely, what I can’t seem to figure out is why.”

“Make no mistake – I abhor everything you did. As with my teammates, I’m nowhere near forgiving or forgetting. I simply find it unnecessary to remind you of your misdeeds every moment I’m in your presence. In fact – something tells me you’re having no problem beating yourself up.”

“Yes, of course you heard me,” Cassandra sighed. “Talking to a dead man. How silly of me.”

“Not at all. We all deal with our grief in different ways, this happens to be yours,” Henry said. “And as I said before, I do think Charles would listen to you. Regardless of everything, I also think he would have accepted your apologies and eventually forgiven you.”

“Charles had a big heart, but there are some lines you just don’t cross. I crossed them all.”

“We’ve all made mistakes, Cassandra. And unless what I witnessed a few moments ago was all an act, I know that yours are torturing you. That in and of itself is probably the greatest punishment one can endure.”

Cassandra was rendered speechless for a moment; Henry’s kindness and understanding – on the surface at least – amazed her. She knew the man still felt contempt for her, but either he was just very good at hiding it or was making a real attempt to move past it. Regardless, his attitude was in stark contrast to those of the rest of the X-Men.

“You’re correct, I feel extremely guilty… and rightfully so,” Cassandra finally responded. “It’s no less than I deserve.”

“True. But as the old adage goes – time heals all wounds,” Henry said. Backtracking on his statement a bit, he then muttered, “Or most of them, anyway…”

“I suppose then that time will tell with my situation,” Cassandra said, her eyes fixed again on the plaque on the wall emblazoned with Charles’ name. “I don’t expect anyone to ever forgive me. I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive myself. But if there’s anything I can do…”

“We’ll take things one day at a time,” Henry told her. He had the instinct to place one of his paws on the woman’s shoulder to comfort her, but he fought it; he had to keep reminding himself of all the horrible things she’d done. “We should really be getting back now, though.”

“Very well,” Cassandra said as she and Henry began moving towards the exit. “Lead the way.”

Hours later

Jean stood before the full-length mirror, giving herself a final once-over as she prepared to venture out into the world for the day. She adjusted the crimson red undershirt beneath her black blazer to a more modest height, then proceeded to slip on her black high-heels. One last quick telekinetic ‘de-frizzing’ of her long, red hair, and she was all set to go.

Scott had woken up and gotten himself ready over an hour ago, and was off attending to some business – either grilling Cassandra or investigating just what those things were that attacked the mansion the other day, Jean supposed. Whatever the case was, he’d promised to finish up quickly so he could spend a majority of the day out in Manhattan with his wife and their daughter. They were bound to cause a bit of a scene – it wasn’t every day the President of Genosha went shopping in New York City after all – but then again, the thought of using image inducers or Jean utilizing her vast telepathic talents to disguise themselves was always an option if they wanted a more peaceful afternoon.

Jean’s mind had no time to drift to thoughts of shopping on Fifth Avenue or dining at her favorite NYC restaurant, however, as the image before her suddenly and violently shifted into something terrifying and all too familiar. The landscape in the mirror was now akin to the surface of the sun, and the figure reflected back at her was none other than that of the Phoenix, its black skin offset by the burning fire emanating from its hair, eyes and the symbol emblazoned across its chest.

{I’m not going anywhere, Jean,} it said to her, its words blaring through Jean’s mind like a crash of thunder. {Whether you like it or not…}

Just then, a man’s voice came from the other room. “Jean?”

“In here, Scott,” Jean replied, not a touch of anxiety present in her voice. “I’ll be right out.”

She reluctantly turned back to the mirror, the Phoenix still present within its frame. “I’m done with you.”

As Jean started to walk away, the Phoenix just sighed. {It’s only a matter of time,} it said. {And that time is coming oh so soon…}

Author’s Notes

So here we are, finally, a new issue after… wow, a year and a half.

And the sad part is that a majority of this issue was written a long, long time ago, and it took me this long to finish it up. Chalk it up to a combination of me continuously forgetting about it, being too busy, and heck sometimes being just plain lazy/not in a ‘writing mode’.

This issue was originally meant to be a little longer, but was cut down due to some plot points being cancelled. I was originally going to throw something else in to give it a little more meat, but ultimately I decided I just needed to finish the damn thing and be done with it so the series can finally move forward.

It’s with a heavy heart that I announce that this is my last official issue of Uncanny X-Men. Obviously I’ve not been working much on it (or anything Marvel Omega-related for that matter) in recent times, and in addition to a lot of personal and work issues I had in the latter part of 2008, I’ve ultimately just lost my drive to work on the series anymore. I love UXM and all the characters I’ve gotten to put my personal touch on over the past ten years, and while I’ve got so many more stories and ideas in me that could keep this series going for years to come, I just don’t have it in me. I have a lot of plots remaining, and Dino is going to be scripting and wrapping things up for me for the next few issues. Then it’ll be onto a whole new start for the X-line which I know is going to be simply amazing, especially with people like Mike Franzoni and Chris Munn leading the charge.

Is this goodbye to my mutants forever? Certainly not… I’ve still got Jubilee’s solo series to attend to (a little less daunting of a project for me), though there will be no releases for that until I’ve got a good amount of issues finished and I won’t promise it’ll be anytime soon or even this year. And I may be back to tell an X-tale or two at some point in the future… who knows! What I do know is that these characters are in capable hands and I can let them go without worrying that anyone’s going to muck things up.

There isn’t really much else to say, except a) sorry for the long delay on this issue, b) I know it certainly isn’t the best story I’ve ever written, and c) ten years on this series and all I managed to churn out was 57 issues?? Well, I guess 64 counting the ½ issue and the annuals and specials, but still… you’d think I could have gotten to at least issue #75!!

Anyway, that’s the scoop. Thanks to everyone who’s ever read the series, and know that it’s not over by a longshot. There’s some amazing stuff in store 🙂

~Ryan
3/20/09