Writing: Bob Harras
Art: Steve Epting
What Went Down: Part 1 of Bloodties: Fabian Cortez starts off the crossover looking over the burning city of Hammer Bay in Genosha. He is holding Luna, the daughter of Quicksilver and the Inhuman/Avenger Crystal and talking to himself about events to come. In Washington, Val Cooper, Nick Fury, and Henry Peter Gyrich set up the plot for the crossover. Basically Magneto’s attack on the planet has inspired the humans of Genosha to break the peace they have with the mutates. Fearing the mutates might conquer them, the Genoshan army begins attacking any mutants in the country, and the mutates—former mutant slaves of the government—retaliate. Up in the SHIELD helicarrier, planes are being dispatched on an unknown mission.
In New York, Nick Fury assembles both the east and west coast teams of Avengers. Fury tells the Avengers that they are not to interfere in Genosha, since at this point they are answering directly to the United Nations. U.S. Agent gets assigned a special mission. While certain Avengers argue the fact, Fury explains that he received intelligence that the Genoshans might attack the Avengers. Crystal suddenly realizes that her daughter must be the target, and runs off to check on her. She finds her daughter with her nanny Marilla, but it turns out to be a shapeshifting mutate from Genosha instead. The mutate blames the Avengers for their inaction, and then proceeds to blow up the building.
At the X-Mansion, U.S. Agent and Gyrich are meeting with an unshaven Professor X, Philip Moreau, and Jen Ransome. Xavier is being asked to help broker peace between the two sides in the Genoshan conflict. He agrees to come, as long as he can bring the Beast with him. Beast teases his old Avengers liaison Gyrich, until Gyrich informs him that Trish Tilby is covering the conflict in Genosha.
The X-Men are in the middle of a Danger Room session; Quicksilver is still hanging out with the X-Men after Fatal Attractions, and he is debating visiting his estranged wife Crystal. Xavier telepathically informs the X-Men what is going on and tells them to meet him in Genosha.
Jumping back to the Avengers, Crystal used her powers to push the explosion up at the last minute, saving everyone. The Avengers decide that they are going to Genosha to save Luna, but Fury warns them that SHIELD is under orders to prevent them from leaving the country. SHIELD agents swarm in to tease the fight that takes place next issue. On the plane to Genosha, Xavier and the rest of the group watch a transmission on TV from Cortez. Cortez is using Luna, the granddaughter of Magneto as a symbol to rally the mutants behind. Xavier and Beast are shocked to discover that Luna is in the hands of Cortez.
How It Was: Bloodties is a five issue crossover between the X-Men and the Avengers. If you’re wondering why the Marvel offices found this necessary, since the X-Men just got done with a big crossover, let me explain. You see the X-Men and the Avengers both debuted in 1963, so in 1993 it was both titles’ thirtieth anniversaries. To commemorate this occasion, a crossover was commissioned by the powers that be. Also, it is important to remember that at this time the X-Men were Marvel’s best selling comics, while the Avengers weren’t doing great, so Marvel was banking on boosting sales for a couple of months and maybe getting some new readers. So Luna gets kidnapped in order to bring both teams into the picture, although it is really more of a premise for an Avengers/X-Factor crossover, given that Quicksilver isn’t actually an X-Man. Anyways, over the course of these five issues, we will find that there is too little plot and too many characters to distribute over the course of this story.
This issue is really nothing but set up. There are a couple of quick action scenes, including a Danger Room sequence—the go-to plot device for action sequences before a story has gotten to the conflict. The first thing you’ll note is that we are dealing with over two dozen characters, and the story hasn’t even gotten properly started yet. The poor West Coast Avengers really have no reason to be in this story, and this isn’t exactly the greatest Avengers roster ever; there’s no Iron Man or Thor, but we do get Sersi, Black Knight, Hercules, and Crystal? On the other hand, I do like the idea of the Avengers’ commitment to the UN conflicting with their desire to just go out and help people. It’s interesting to see the Avengers treated like criminals, especially when you look at the rest of the issues that have Trish Tilby describing the X-Men as heroes on the news.
Actually, this issue has some fun moments, like Beast’s interaction with Gyrich, and Iceman’s prank on Rogue. Looking past these moments however, the rest of this issue is just assigning which characters are going where, and what they are doing. It succeeds in that, but the reader doesn’t really get a feel for the threat of the story. The central conflict should be the war in Genosha, but we don’t see any of it, other than some burning buildings in the beginning and some generic pictures of soldiers on viewscreens in the background. A scene or two showing the humans and mutants at war with each other and the animosity between the two sides might have upped the tension a little bit. Instead, the only tension created is for the fate of Luna, but it’s hard to believe that four super hero squads wouldn’t be able to save her (although I guess if Illyana Rasputin could die, why not a different little girl?).
The art is pretty good, and it must have been a daunting task with so many characters to draw. Epting does a nice standard Marvel House Style; it complements Andy Kubert’s style very nicely. My one nitpick would be that he portrays a lot of characters with five o’clock shadows, but I can live with that. The real problem is that all characters are just standing around talking, and then there is one explosion. This issue serves as an okay set up, but it fails to really light a fire under the reader—the conflict of the story isn’t thrilling enough to really enliven, it just kind of rolls along at its own pace.
B-
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