Colossus has one of the simplest and most painful objections to the team's new arrangement: his sister thinks he is dead. The tactical advantages of disappearing do not make tha…

Colossus has one of the simplest and most painful objections to the team's new arrangement: his sister thinks he is dead. The tactical advantages of disappearing do not make that fact smaller. Piotr can understand the plan and still hate what it is doing to Illyana. Uncanny #231 brings the cost into focus. He is able to reach her in Limbo, but she believes she has summoned a ghostly version of her brother. Being present is not the same as being recognized as alive. He can help her fight and give her comfort while the misunderstanding remains between them. The issue also deals with the injury that has followed him since the Massacre. Piotr has been unable to return to human form. In the Australian heat, even touching him can be dangerous, an especially cruel detail for somebody whose tenderness is so often expressed through physical protection and affection. His eventual transformation back in #231 makes the family encounter important on more than one level. The book does not treat recovery as a medical footnote before the next team fight. It gives that change to a story about his need to reach somebody he loves. This is why Colossus belongs so strongly in the Outback ensemble even when the setting looks designed for rougher, more secretive characters. His feelings keep asking whether the plan works for people, not merely whether it works against enemies. The team's survival has consequences beyond the people sitting at its table. He can still provide enormous force against the Brood or other threats. But the Australian period gives the steel body a daily inconvenience and gives the hidden identity a family cost. Piotr isn't simply the recovered muscle missing from the reconstruction. He is living with what recovery still hasn't put right.