X-Men #197-199 (2007)

The team have Sabretooth in custody and in the hands of Chris Bachalo he looks…cute.

No. No thank you. Also, yeah, you should engage the safeties. Trust me. By the end of this post, you’re gonna be sorry.

Last arc, Rogue got infected with a lethal virus.  To save her, the X-men go to see Cable, whose Providence Island medical team starts working on her. 

At the same time, a Shi’ar parasite is infecting various members of the team and starts killing everyone on Providence. It wants to eat the world.

The two stories converge when Rogue absorbs the parasite, which is actually a collection of minds collected via a Shi’Ar weapon that absorbed peoples’ lives.  This defeats the being (called the Hecatomb), but makes slightly insane.

Meanwhile, Sabretooth escapes X-Men custody.

Not wild about this story.  First, having Rogue suffer an infection while the rest of the team fights a parasite is a little too same-y same-y.  Plus, we’ve been here before, with Rogue absorbing minds that drive her crazy.  I also don’t love Bachalo’s art.

Still, overall, there’s nothing here that’s all that bad—I just don’t find it all that interesting.