(Perhaps I was a little too harsh in my judgement of Juggernaut's less than manly,teary-eyed reaction to being bombarded with his worst fears in Uncanny X-Men #369. Since The Juggernaut making another appearence in an X-book is mine I too found myself curled up into a ball under the steps crying once I saw one was coming.)
Uncanny X-Men #411 & 412:"Juggernaut's going to kill us all!". Famous last words. This line told me all I needed to know. Once I saw the issue start off like that I knew exactly what course this issue was going to take. Iceman freezes The Juggernaut,The Juggernaut breaks out. He then reaches for the wooden spike impaling the downed Wolverine from the crash and yanks it out. Iceman then blasts The Juggernaut with a frozen beam to knock him away from Logan and through a wall. Vines burst up from the ground and snatch Angel down and The Juggernaut re-emerges. Iceman puts up a giant ice barrier for cover so the X-Man can escape,but The Juggernaut shatters it with one blow. Nightcrawler says the X-Men never leave another behind and stand with him. He fires a steady stream of his ice power at The Juggernaut and keeps pouring it on. The Juggernaut just steady smashes through it until he's right up on Iceman and visibly annoyed. He asks if this is how they treat people who call them for help(Wow,didn't see that one coming. *laced as heavily with sarcasm as humanly possible* Asking for help. Again.).
The X-Men are shocked and ask if Juggernaut sent a distress call and Juggernaut condascendingly points out that he's the only one there. Iceman asks why he was attacking Wolverine if he wanted help. Juggernaut points out the obviousness of pulling a stake from someone's chest as a sign of assistance,not attack. Juggernaut tells them to get their bearrings because "he" was going to get stronger now that "he" had Angel and Monet. Iceman asks who "he" is but before he can get an answer more vines burst from the ground and snatch down Juggernaut,Wolverine,and Stacy. Iceman and Nightcrawler dodge the attempt to pull them under. Underneath the X-Men are entangled in a jungle of vines and Juggernaut says it's Black Tom,that he'd mutated further(...again). He pleads with Tom to stop but a monstrously plantlike and mentally unstable Tom refuses,saying that Juggernaut's power was now only a shadow of what it once was and he was now useless to him. Tom is furious that Cain has shamed him by bringing the X-Men,his worst enemies apparently,to save him. Odd considering both of their last two X-appearences were about nothing other than Tom bringing the X-Men to help Cain. But anywho,Cain defends his actions saying that the change was killing Tom. Tom says it's Juggernaut who the change is killing and latches more siphoning vines onto Juggernaut's face. Wolverine cuts the vines off of Cain and slashes Tom's face. Tom says his eyes will grow back but their body parts probably weren't as replenishable and they'd be wise to stop fighting before they found out.
Wolverine asks what's going on with Tom and Cain says he's "taking root or something". He says Tom was the only friend he had and he'd do anything to save him,even calling that "useless piece of $#%`" Xavier for help. Offended by the insult Wolverine defends Xavier and once again makes it seem like Juggernaut is a petty and ungrateful person for hating Professor X so. (This is a common misconception that has always irked me. While The Juggernaut is by no means the salt of the Earth he actually does have every reason to hate Charles Xavier. Despite it often being made to seem otherwise,Xavier has legitimately earned his stepbrother's hostile sentiment. I'd hate him too if he used his power to cheat in every aspect of his life to falsely make everyone think he was better than me and then robbed me of any secrets or personal thoughts of my own by reading my mind.) Meanwhile Iceman and Nightcrawler follow the water in the vines via Iceman's power to locate their source,Black Tom. Black Tom collapses a wall around them but apparently misses. End #411.
#412 opens with the captured party dangled from vines and The Juggernaut visibly drained of power(surprise surprise) with his armor now sagging around his withering frame. Again. Tom punches a vine through Iceman's chest but Nightcrawler teleports to avoid the same fate and punches Tom in the face. Nightcrawler notices that when he hits Black Tom the captured ones feel it too. Nightcrawler then teleports Stacy free so she can use her pheromone powers on Tom. She does and while she has Tom chemically infatuated beyond reason she tells him they can be together and to just let everyone go. Tom stops draining them and Iceman seizes the opporunity to freeze all the water in the vines. Black Tom fights it which causes all those trapped to scream,but with Stacy seducing him not to fight Tom faulters and the frozen vines snap off. Once Stacy is pulled away Tom begins attacking the X-Men,destroying the whole island. Juggernaut screams for Tom to stop because the X-men just came to help him. An X-plane flies by and Juggernaut grabs Wolverine and tosses him all the way up to it. A now more coherent and intelligible Black Tom rises up and confronts Juggernaut. He says he gave Cain everything and he turned on him. I don't know what Tom means by he gave Cain everything since Cain has always been the main contributor in their partnership,but what the Hell. They're just making it up at this point. He says Cain's father was right and that Cain was just born hopeless(*sigh*). Tom destroys the cliffhead Cain is standing on and Cain plummets into the ocean. Wolverine says Juggernaut's lost his power and that he even saw him bleed and that he was sure he was probably capable of drowning now too(*sigh*,again). Xavier asks who has the strength left to dive in such turbulent water after him. Before anyone can answer the fish boy from #411 dives out of the plane into the ocean after Juggernaut. Once he finds The Juggernaut Cain has apparently given up completely and is willingly sinking to his death and not even trying to save himself(*sigh*). The fish boy tells him not to give up,that a guy named Xavier was in the plane up there and he has a school. He says even
though Cain may be too old for school Xavier just wants to help people so he should come anyway. This apparently gives Cain a reason to live and he reaches out and takes the kid's hand. It was hard to read on from here since by this point I was choking on my own bile,but I somehow managed through sheer force of will. Something they seem to have taken great measures to make sure The Juggernaut no longer has. Insert fourth sigh here.
Juggernaut is now in the plane and Xavier thanks him for saving the X-Men. Cain says it was the least he could do since he was who got them in trouble in the first place. Xavier says Cain will need time to recover and that he's welcome to stay at the school for as long as it took. Cain is getting ready to refuse when he looks at the X-Men and for whatever reason that makes him change his mind. He says that Xavier shouldn't take that to mean that they were now square and that he didn't hate him anymore. Xavier says Cain should know he has eternal hope. Cain sits down in one of the plane's leather seats which makes a sound. The fish boy pokes fun at Cain,they all live happily ever after,and I went off to find the bullets for my gun.
And that was the straw that broke the camel's back plus five or six more for good measure. Time to call it a hobby. The sight of him neutered to the point where he tries to kill himself for no reason other than another fight with Tom is way too much. To make matters worse,the squabble with Tom that he's trying to kill himself over makes no sense with the history of the characters. And then for Cain to stand in front of the hated Charles Xavier and not so much as give him a pluck in that bald head of his? This kinder,gentler,weaker punk is not for me. Especially after seeing him chumped by Wolverine the very next issue after this one. It's quite literally like another person stepped in and is masquerading as Cain Marko. I don't even know how he will be able to continue calling himself "The Juggernaut" anymore with such a mysteriously diminished level of power. Hard to support your rep as unstoppable while you're bleeding out of your mouth.
But that's for someone else to deal with I suppose.