"The Professor is in the Phantom Zone?" I asked in surprise.

"No you idiot!" shouted Sage impatiently. "It's the Astral Plane. You've been there! The Phantom Zone is in a Different Continuum."

"Oh," I said in as knowledgeable a tone of voice as possible. "So . . what do we do?"

The Martian Manhunter spoke up. "Clearly we have to come to the Professor's aid. I can track his psionic signature but I am unable to move between dimensions. Do you have some means to travel to the Astral Plane?"

"Yes," said Sage. "Hank and I have developed a mass transporter based upon Reed Richards Dimensional Transference Warp Initiator. I can calibrate the lower registers to allow permeation of the astral barrier."

"Um . . so that was a 'yes', right?" I asked. In answer, Sage just shook her head and started down to the lab. "Why don't you put a team together and meet us in the lab?" she suggested.

"Hey. You don't tell me what to do. I tell you what to do. I'm in charge here. Now I want you to go down to the lab and get that thingy ready and I will go and get the team together."

Sage stared at me with a totally blank look on her face. Yeah, she's obviously super intelligent. She shook her head again and left with the Manhunter.

Okay, so who do I pick for the team? Well, Wolverine obviously. It's in his contract to go on any and all missions involving mutants. Storm? No way. Iceman. He's reliable. Except I think he was the one that made that ice patch that ruined my moves with Warbird. Maybe I'll just see who's in the living room.

I walked into the main hang out area just in time to see Kodiak plant a big wet one on Rogue. Whoa! My jaw hit the floor. I stared in disbelief as Kodiak continued to kiss her. For some reason, he didn't collapse into a lifeless heap. That is, not until Rogue pasted him with a vicious uppercut.

Kodiak went flying back into our giant screen high def TV, shattering the thing into several pieces. Rogue got all hissy and stomped off. I still couldn't believe what I had just seen.

Maybe I should step in. Do something leader like. Ahh, they obviously worked it out. I've got to get the team together.