Imperial (comics)
"Imperial" was the second story arc from Grant Morrison's run on the Marvel Comics title New X-Men, running from issues #118-126. It further explored the origin behind the character Cassandra Nova as well as giving more depth to the student body at the Xavier Institute, specifically the Stepford Cuckoos, Beak, and Angel Salvadore. Plot As mutant culture takes center stage in the world media, a new movement propagated by book The Third Species begins to affect human/mutant relations. Several school shootings occur where the assailant takes mutant organs to graft to themselves, believing they will transcend to a higher state of evolution (somehow superior to the natural mutations occurring). Cyclops and Emma investigate the impetus behind this movement by confronting John Sublime, the book's author. He reveals himself to be leader of the U-Men, a radical group that doesn't improve themselves by changing their own genes, but by harvesting mutant parts from unwilling donors. Cyclops and Emma are taken hostage for fatal surgery. Meanwhile, Wolverine is following a lead on a new mutant, arriving just in time to stop a crew of U-men from killing Angel Salvadore for her insect wings. Despite her reluctance in accepting her mutation, and anyone's help in coming to grips with it, she does follow Wolverine back to the institute, where several squads of U-men are about to assault and slaughter the student body. Jean Grey, with help from her students, fends off the attack, eventually manifesting a phoenix raptor display in psychic dominance. Emma Frost and Cyclops escape from their captors, with Emma confronting John about the damage done to her cosmetically enhanced face, threatening to drop him from the highrise window his office sits in. John forces himself from Emma's grip, seemingly convinced by Martha Johansson, a floating brain in a jar John used to exert psychic control of his captives. Back at the mansion, Hank McCoy staggers from his ICU bed onto the front lawn. He cradles Cassandra Nova's body in his arms, revealing that Professor Xavier's mind has been switched and he is trapped. Emma and Jean psychically probe Nova's body, discovering that she and Xavier were fraternal twins, but the instant Xavier became aware, he tried to kill his twin in the womb. In the far reaches of space, the Shi'ar empire is being slowly torn apart by the possessed Charles Xavier. Empress Lilandra sends Smasher through 4-space to warn the Earth of the villainess' coming. Smasher arrives in a field populated by cows, and he loses consciousness before finding someone to spread his message. The X-Men convene in Cerebra to share what they know about Cassandra Nova. As Jean and Emma's psychic excavation reveals, she is a living entity of pure emotional energy, who used Charles' DNA to form a body. In her mind, the universe and the womb that housed her brother are one and the same. Only she and Charles Xavier are real. Thus, her competition for survival is her twin "brother," and he must be killed.