KINGS OF PAIN

KINGS OF PAIN Spoilers for the four main Kings of Pain chapters. This is just the lead story running through New Mutants Annual #7, New Warriors Annual #1, Uncanny X-Men Annual #15, and X-Factor Annual #6. I'm keeping the annuals' separate backup stories out of this write-up. Kings of Pain returns to Proteus, but it gets there through a child named Gilbert Benson, called Piecemeal. By the time Proteus is back, Gilbert's suffering is already a major part of the story. The danger isn't just that somebody has resurrected a powerful enemy. It's how they've done it, and who they've used. The opening is in a New Mutants annual, although Cable's team is already calling itself X-Force. Cannonball and Boom-Boom are there alongside Warpath, Shatterstar, and Feral. That puts this at a transition point in the reading, with Cable's approach and the newer members changing the shape of the group. Their investigation begins with the Alliance of Evil and a series of attacks linked to energy collection. Harness brings Piecemeal to these sites and forces him to absorb the energy. He's in pain, and his body keeps swelling as he takes in more. When Artie, Leech, and Taki try to interfere at their school, they're hurt too. The attacks lead Cable's team to Genetech, where they run into the New Warriors. Of course, the first thing the two teams do is fight. But once they stop hitting each other, they start comparing information. The New Warriors were protecting a company they believed was being threatened. Cable's group followed information that pushed them toward that same company. Somebody has been arranging for them to misunderstand the situation. Night Thrasher, Marvel Boy, Firestar, Nova, Namorita, Speedball, and Silhouette bring another young team into the story. Working alongside X-Force also exposes differences in how they operate. Cable's group is willing to intimidate and hurt people for information, and the Warriors don't simply accept every part of that approach. The investigation splits between the companies, their hired operatives, and the data behind the energy signatures. A.I.M. is operating through a corporate front. Genetech's work and Piecemeal's collection are linked to the same underlying project. When the heroes use Cerebro to connect those pieces, the name they reach is Proteus. So they head for Moira and Muir Island. The Muir Islanders include Legion, Multiple Man, Siryn, and Polaris, with Moira at the center of the response. Their behavior is already affected by the Shadow King. That matters when reading this alongside the surrounding issues: this isn't an ordinary visit to Moira's lab with everyone thinking clearly and freely. After another confrontation, the groups work together. Moira knows what her son's power can do, and the attempt to bring him back is heading toward Edinburgh, where Harness is forcing Piecemeal to absorb the remaining energy. There's an attempt to save Gilbert before the process finishes. The heroes combine their abilities to contain what's happening and remove the energy, but they can't keep up. Meanwhile, fighting Harness reveals that the person abusing Gilbert is his own mother. Piecemeal's body ruptures, and the being that emerges contains both Gilbert and Kevin MacTaggert. Proteus has returned as a combined consciousness. The city around them is caught in the resulting reality distortion. By the time X-Factor arrives, Edinburgh has been transformed into a mathematical landscape. Proteus can alter their bodies and surroundings, and the old method of using metal against him doesn't work. More force isn't producing an answer. Jean learns that Kevin experienced a kind of peace while his energy was dispersed. Now the combined being wants to remake the world into the order he associates with that experience. Everybody else's lives would be rewritten in the process. That's where the story turns into an argument among the heroes. They discuss providing a body that would let the being continue living without consuming hosts. Cyclops also proposes convincing him to end his own existence if they can't stop the threat another way. Cable opposes that outcome. For all the aggressive tactics earlier in the story, he argues for giving them another chance. Jean and several others also push back against treating death as the answer. The disagreement doesn't line up neatly with which team looks tougher or who carries the biggest gun. The combined Proteus ultimately chooses to end his existence, and Edinburgh returns to normal. Moira's response is entangled with the Shadow King's influence, while Harness continues her cruelty toward Gilbert. Cable challenges the others afterward over how much of a choice they really left the two of them. That argument is part of the ending. The story doesn't have every hero quietly agree that saving the city settles the question of what happened to Kevin and Gilbert. Meanwhile, the people who helped set the whole thing in motion are still treating it as a game. The two chess players are revealed as Gideon and Toad, pursuing different uses for Proteus. Their closing exchange puts the title in context: powerful people have made plans around lives they don't have to live themselves. Across those four chapters, the story moves from a corporate investigation to a reality-warping emergency, then ends with the heroes divided over their response. The teams stop the immediate threat, but the abused child at the center of the scheme hasn't been rescued. Gilbert and Kevin are gone, and the people who engineered the crisis are still comfortable enough to congratulate each other.