X-Termination 2, Uncanny X-Men 5, Wolverine and the X-Men 28

X-Termination 2
Lapham, Liu, and Pak (s) and Lapham (w) and Lopez, Mogorron, Valdez, Lolli, Ho, Ruggiero, Cuevas, and Martinez (a) and Mossa (c)

It's worth noting in this final issue of the event (which I should have noted a while ago) that there are usually a lot of artists on these books because the book is broken up into chapters (which, admittedly, is kind of random) and that different artists draw each chapter. Also, in terms of my own process, I put pencils and inks all under the "artists" label, for better or worse, so half of that (a) up there is made up of pencillers and half of inkers and they all switch off throughout the book. ONWARDS.
Nightcrawler prepares himself for what he has to do, which is mostly jump back and forth through the portal carrying people. As we saw with little Kurt Waggoner, it's an extremely exhausting task and will leave him weakened, but it's the only way to save people. He brings people back one by one until everyone we've seen recently (which does not include most of the AoA crew) except Dazzler and Prophet remain. Prophet even sends for AoA cast member Harper Simmons (from the 616 originally) so Nightcrawler can bring him back, saying that someone has to tell the story. Dark Beast also hijacks a trip back with Nightcrawler and ends up on the other side of the portal. Dazzler doesn't want to abandon the AoA but Prophet knows it's the only way and refuses to hear her out. He also says he'll fight to win or go down with the ship. Jean swoops in and knocks him out and tells Dazzler to send him to the other side. She's still pretty much in control of the Apocalypse power but she knows she's likely to be overwhelmed by the monsters. Dazzler and Prophet leave. On the other side of the portal, the teams need to figure out how to close off the AoA. The solution, it seems, is for Nightcrawler to grab the "end" of the portal (black swirls on the border that have a physical form) and teleport them back into the AoA. The trip will kill him, but it will close the portal. Nightcrawler redeems himself, even in the eyes of Wolverine, and shuts the portal. The threat passed on the 616, the three remaining members of the X-Treme X-Men part ways and Wolverine offers Dazzler a spot at the school, impressed with her actions here. She wants time to think about it. Prophet and Harper Simmons meet a few weeks later to talk and Dazzler happens to be on the same beach. It ends with a short in memoriam to those who died.
I liked this event a lot. This final book was maybe the weakest, if only because everything turned out okay. I don't mean that in a "I WANT EVERYONE TO DIE" nor a "THE AGE OF APOCALYPSE DIDN'T MATTER, I'M GLAD IT'S A PRISON FOR THE MONSTERS" way. I mean that in a "oh, the plan worked" kind of way. Okay, look, there's no way to say that that doesn't feel stupid. I guess the issue is that the event was so good at taking twists and turns and putting insurmountable enemies against them that a plan working out seemed out of the question. Then it did. Still, it's a solid event that didn't overstay its welcome and gave us a solid story while effectively wrapping up two different series. Good event. Now it'll be interesting to see the fallout from that, with Dazzler probably going to join the school and a William Stryker back in the world.

Uncanny X-Men 5
Bendis (w) and Irving (a and c)

There are problems with Magik's powers after all. She seems to be holding her powers together through the Darkchilde, a fierce and mysterious force that isn't totally unlike the Hulk of magic. Dormammu has taken over Limbo in Magik's absence, berating her for spending so much time away. Magik attacks him but loses until the Darkchilde takes over and wins. Now she's having trouble stuffing it back down, despite a pep talk from Scott. Meanwhile, SHIELD frets about the new team after Scott's on-camera declaration about defeating the Avengers and the sudden emergence of a new mutant who can stop time being on their team. Speaking of her, they're also trying to set up a love triangle or something between her, Emma, and Cyclops, despite the fact that she seems to be a teenager and she's only ever seen Cyclops in his costume, which looks RIDICULOUS. I haven't really gotten into their new costumes in this book but I'm against pretty much all of them. I think Magneto's all-white costume looks okay but there's a weird obsession Bendis has with taking a character's iconic colors and replacing them with white. He did it with Iron Fist too. Neither looks bad, it's just an odd choice. Also, it severely reduces the number of heroes with the green and yellow motif and the number of characters with the maroon motif. Magneto is one of the most famous villains/characters in the Marvel Universe; it's an interesting decision to change the costume. It all represents a new era for the X-Men, sure, but if you're going to have Magneto as a defining member of that team it seems like you shouldn't pretend he's a different Magneto than the one he's always been or than the one he's been recently. On top of that, he doesn't fit the black theme that the rest of the team has. He's a literal white sheep. Well, not literally a sheep. Whatever. Anyway, I've gone off-topic here. Cyclops looks RIDICULOUS. I have trouble believing that the teenager, who dubs him a "beautiful man," could really believe that physically. If it's based on his personality, what she knows is a man who shows up and takes kids and possibly killed his master. I think she's heard all that. It's all hard to separate because plot points get repeated about a thousand times. That's about all that happens. Magik hulks out and is still having trouble controlling it and that girl expresses affection for Cyclops. And some more wacky things happen with the other new mutants. Just wacky.

Wolverine and the X-Men 28
Aaron (w) and Perez (a) and L. Martin and Milla (c)

The Savage Land field trip wraps up as Wolverine meets up with Idie and Broo, who have taken refuge in a cave where Idie hopes to live out the rest of her life (she fears returning to the temptations and evils of normal life). Meanwhile, Eye Boy, the only student who we haven't seen use Wolverine pep talk to help them aside from Glob Herman who is terrible, reveals that he's more impressive than he looked. He can see more than just physical things as he focuses and Sherlocks the rest of the team, citing random physical actions as proof of Shark Girl's abandonment issues and Sprite's need for validation while perfectly shooting down a robot. It's a neat little turn for the character that actually makes him a useful addition to the team. Whether Wolverine suspected that would happen or not is up for debate, but it's certainly happened. He helps neutralize the immediate threats and gets everyone back on task before Dog shows up again and threatens the kids again. They stand up to him this time before Wolverine steps in and allows Dog to beat him up a bit. One of the time traveled bad guys shoots Dog, demanding answers. Dog, upset by the fact that he still couldn't best Wolverine as the best Logan, time travels himself and some of the others who are displaced in time away. Logan is angry that he got away, but angrier at himself for allowing the kids to be taken from him. He has a whole slew of doubts about his abilities with these kids. He passes them all on the assignment and, as such, the course, except for Glob Herman, who ran away. Wolverine suspects, and the audience sees, that he's gone off with Sauron to join the Hellfire Club. It's fine, he was always a terrible character.
I have to say, I'm often kind of suspicious about this book. It doesn't tend to deliver the best characters nor the best stories. It's usually a little more fun-oriented than other Marvel books, though it certainly has its share of tension at times. However, this arc went a long way to characterizing the newest students of the Jean Grey School. Some of them have been around for a while now and some are pretty new, but it's all worth exploring. I would say that Bendis' Uncanny X-Men book needs an arc like this to let us know more about the new recruits they've gotten, but I'm not sure that's for the best, entirely. He's done stuff each issue to try to build their characters through dialogue and a little through action, but they still feel largely indistinguishable from one another. My worry with an arc like this would be that they'd remain indistinguishable and wacky. If he could do an arc that characterized them and made them worth caring about, great. If they're all going to keep their stock personalities, it's far less great. Well done by Aaron to go out of his way to make sure these guys all had a specific personality and a specific interaction with Wolverine. Interesting arc.