Issue 11

Date:  May, 1991
Title:  Forever Yesterday, Part One: Days of Present Past
Writer:  Fabian Nicieza
Penciler:  Mark Bagley

Synopsis:  In a drastically altered present, Firestar and Marvel Man are working with a gang of rebel mutants that plan to overtake the Sphinx, who has somehow become an all powerful ruler.  Nova is working with the Avengers of this altered present who are attempting to stop the mutant rebellion.  Nova lets Firestar and Marvel Man escape while Wolverine dies in battle against the Avengers.  Nova feels out of place with the Avengers and when he returns home he is visited by Sayge, the living embodiment of truth.  He tells Nova that the world as he now knows it is wrong in almost every way.  Meanwhile, Marvel Man and Firestar, along with Cannonball, return to the mutant hideout.  Magneto, their leader, had sent them to pick up information they attained from a mole working against the Sphinx which will help them destroy the mutant detection field that is around Maqaman Island.  Back at the Riders' apartment, Sayge tells this reality's story of the Sphinx.  Thousands of years ago when Moses demanded that an Egyptian pharaoh release his people he threw his staff to the ground which then turned into a snake.  The pharaoh's wizard turned his staff into a snake as well, which then devoured Moses' snake.  Moses was then slain by the pharaoh's guard.  Because of this, the wizard became the pharaoh's most trusted confidant and became involved in the growth of the pharaoh's empire.  Many years later while a crew was constructing a sandstone highway a great sand storm blew away the sand that had been covering the Temple of the Ka.  A peasant woman, the sole survivor of the storm, found the Ka Stone inside the temple and returned with it to the Cairo.  She presented it to the wizard who then placed it on his head transforming him into the Sphinx.  The peasant woman became his wife and he gave her the gift of immortality.  Together, they advised many pharaoh's over the centuries.  When a civil war in Cairo erupted the Sphinx turned to the United States of Asyria, who helped to end the war.  When the second great war broke out, the Sphinx's home city was bombed.  He was able to erect a field around the city to protect it, but the surrounding areas suffered the deaths of millions and became an uninhabitable wasteland.  Because of these event the Sphinx grew tired of his immortality.  He bestowed immortality to his wife's cat so that she would have something to remember him by.  Then he removed the stone from his forehead and placed it on his wife's, thus ending his life, and granting her the power of the Sphinx.  Sayge then reveals the the Sphinx has been exerting control over the world for thousands of years.  Back in the mutant hideout, Henry McCoy determines that the information given to them by the mole is accurate.  The mutants plan to attack the Sphinx that night.  Elsewhere, at the Taylor Foundation, Reed Richards is revealed to the mole as he is discovered in conversation with Hank McCoy by Deir Taylor, this reality's version of Dwayne Taylor's father.  Reed admits that he has been working with the mutant rebels for years and that they plan to capture the Sphinx that night.  Dier offers his help to Reed.  At that moment, in the Chrysler building, the Sphinx, aware of the coming rebellion, vows to protect her hold over this world.

Key Events:

First full appearance of the female Sphinx.