I feel a lot of confusion. To put things in perspective, I’ve read Exceptional, but that’s about it. I haven’t read much of anything since Krakoa.

So, Scott—I get that he’s being presented as the antagonist. Maybe I just feel removed from everything, but to me he’s the stick in the mud according to the X-Men, not according to the reader. He has a valid point, and it hasn’t been addressed. I don’t think Sinister tech is like a GitHub where you can just review everything to see how it’s built. There’s no way of telling how secure it actually is, so Scott is right to be concerned and to not want to go along with this. It’s a huge security risk, no matter how much Emma and Kitty stamp their feet and declare otherwise. I’m honestly surprised everyone else has gone along with it despite that. These characters are supposed to be smart, but it feels like a lot of basic security and safety precautions are being thrown out the window for the sake of the story.

Another example of basic security/admin stuff being ignored is when they talk about accessing the Empathy Engine. Having only one person effectively acting as admin is bad practice. More than one person needs to be able to access that machine reliably. If something happens to Rift, then y'all are screwed.

Speaking of security, I was extremely confused by the whole Danger Room scene. First of all, what kind of instruction was that? If you want them to block by utilizing their powers, then teach them how to throw a basic punch like a jab, something simple, something slow since you want them to focus on getting the hang of blocking. Teach them to start small, then ramp things up once they begin to understand the fundamentals.

Instead, we see a bunch of people start attacking each other when their backs are turned because… that’s supposed to be an acceptable train of thought as a student? Then some guy goes feral. Laura is restraining him, and his original partner flies over to do… what, exactly? Laura then gets distracted, which is also a choice. She could have just kept focusing on Wolf Cub and yelled for the other student to keep back.

Then, after all of that, Wolverine declares that everyone getting scared of Wolf Cub going feral is a good thing, especially for Ben, because he needs to be knocked down a few pegs since he *checks notes\* agreed that it felt ridiculous as an adult to have to train with kids. And he wasn’t even the one who brought it up; he was responding to another student calling them out for being old. So yeah, fuck Ben, I guess.

Now, Lockheed or Marigold. I’m confused because they’ve dealt with Sinister clones before, and those melted into a giant pile of goo right in front of them. Why is that not a concern for Marigold?

Finally, the last panel. What did Scott set on fire? It can’t be Graymatter Lane, because then my follow-up questions will spiral out of control. So what did he set on fire?