To be honest, most of this issue is filler building to the final moment, of Scott figuratively offering a hand to Matthew Malloy. I have to say that I liked it, though. Bendis takes a common trope, of the telepath using her powers to control the villain that could easily defeat the team without such a ploy, and turns it on its head. After all, it's Rachel's attempt to control Malloy that gets everyone into trouble in the first place. Scott is the only one committed to treating Malloy as a person and, as a result, he's the one that wins him as a prize.
The problem, of course, is that Malloy can't continue to exist. Someone on his power level is too difficult to include in the world from a narrative perspective; it seems akin to the Beyonder never having left Earth after "Secret Wars II." I'm at least marginally intrigued to see how Bendis is going to solve that problem, so we've made progress from last issue, where it all just felt like another tie-in gimmick.
As a side-note, I feel like we need to create someone sort of symbol for Marvel to start using to indicate that a character has died. Just like I missed the fact that Scott actually killed Xavier in "Avengers vs. X-Men," I didn't realize that Matthew had killed Exodus last issue. It's sort of a big deal. Exodus is virtually immortal. It should be pretty clear when someone kills him. I know that Bendis is trying to use the ease with which Malloy killed Exodus to prove how powerful Malloy is, but he still has to make it clear to the reader that Exodus is actually dead.
*** (three of five stars)
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