Writing: Bob Harras
Art: Steve Epting and Jan Duursema
What Went Down: Bloodties Part 5: This double-sized, shiny cardboard covered issue opens with the SHIELD helicarrier flying towards Genosha. Nick Fury and all of the Avengers from the UN want to join the fight in Genosha, but there is a forcefield around the island. So they all contribute nothing to the rest of the story, except for later discovering that the energy dome field is shrinking.
In the sewers, Exodus rants for a while, takes over Cortez’s body, forces him to hand over Luna Maximoff, and then kills Cortez (don’t worry, he’ll be back later, but then he will die again). Exodus then defeats Quicksilver, Crystal, Scarlet Witch, and Jean Grey in one panel.
On the surface, Trish Tilby is still reporting on how the X-Men are rescuing civilians when the other four Avengers show up. They offer their help, and both teams agree to team up to save Luna. Gambit also flirts with Sersi. The first part of the plan is for War Machine and Storm to fly up and recon the energy dome. Since War Machine’s sensors don’t detect any barrier, he decides that the best course of action is to fly right into it, which turns off his armor. Both teams assume that Exodus is responsible for the dome. Xavier contacts the X-Men and tells them that they are needed immediately.
On the other side of the city, U.S. Agent, Xavier, Beast, and a wealth of other minor characters have been cornered by the Genoshan soldiers. Everyone assumes that this is their final stand, and Renee Majcomb gets clipped by a laser. Luckily, the X-Men and the Avengers show up just in time and defeat the soldiers. Cue a big fight scene. After the fight is over, the heroes are helping the wounded, when suddenly Xavier yells a warning to Rogue, and Rogue falls out of the sky. It turns out that Exodus was using his psi-powers to kill Rogue because she has a loose connection to Magneto and betrayed him. But it’s okay, because Exodus does a bad job, so Rogue is just fine.
Exodus finally confronts the Avengers; he is using his powers to restrain Luna’s family and Jean as well as fight the X-Men. Exodus rants some more, and another battle starts, this time involving the mutant armies that Cortez was leading. Exodus has all of the heroes on the ropes as the field starts to destroy the highest buildings in the city.
As Exodus is about to sacrifice the child Luna for being a human, Xavier attacks Exodus with his powers, leaving him open for the Black Knight to use his sword on him, frying his nerves or something. Xavier then proceeds to chastise all the mutate soldiers for following a villain who would slaughter a child. Exodus recovers and flies off, but not before shooting Quicksilver with an energy blast. Black Knight performs CPR on Pietro, which is a big deal because they are both rivals for Crystal’s affection, and Quicksilver wakes up. Everyone is happy. In the epilogue, Captain America, Jen Ransome, and Professor X sit on a beach and talk about whether the country can be helped.
How It Was: Marvel gives us a forty-eight page finale to a tired, strung out five issue event. And great news, it’s written by an editor and has two different artists. Suffice to say, this issue suffers from a lot of problems. First the art: it’s perfectly good and both artists fit fairly well with the standard Marvel House style. The problem is the consistency of the subjects being portrayed. Because each artist is assigned different sections of the issue, characters appear and disappear at random. Archangel, Revanche, and Sersi’s jacket are non-existent for the first thirty-or-so pages, and then suddenly pop in like they’ve been there the whole time. And why is Revanche in this story and not Psylocke? You can also tell by the art that the artists had no idea what Revanche’s powers were since she is only depicted fighting hand to hand. Each artist also draws a completely different design for Nick Fury in two separate parts of the book.
But the writing is where this issue, and really the entire crossover, is let down. It’s not that the writers are untalented; it’s just that this whole story was poorly planned to begin with. It’s plainly obvious from the story that there is just not enough narrative here for four squads of super heroes. This leads to lame attempts on the part of Harras to widdle down the cast so that the ending makes sense, and the artists don’t have to draw a bazillion characters. So we get half the Avengers standing on the sidelines and contributing nothing. We get War Machine acting like he forgot his brain in his other suit and taking himself out. Rogue gets knocked out in a scene that is more of an afterthought, when Harras remembers that Rogue is also connected to Magneto, but it’s too late to have her join Quicksilver and the others. Why not have Rogue tag along with Quicksilver instead of Jean in the first place? It is really a shame to see such great characters go to waste because of poor planning.
The most head slapping moment is when Xavier finally contacts the X-Men to come and save his group. It begs the question, why didn’t he just contact the X-Men at the end of part three instead of waiting until the middle of part five? The answer of course is that then the Avengers and the X-Men wouldn’t be able to crossover. The same question holds true of Exodus, who could have just flown off three issues ago to kill Cortez instead of waiting until now. It is frustrating to realize how unnecessarily long this bad story is. Oh, and Exodus is kind of a boring villain in this issue. He has pages and pages of dialogue this issue, as well as the power to defeat a dozen heroes by just standing still.
There are a few bright spots. The fights with the soldiers are pretty well done and exciting, even if most of them look generic. And the scene where Exodus is finally defeated works really well as a big, epic conclusion, at least until he stands up again two pages later and just flies away. Character inconsistencies aside, the art is still pretty good from both pencilers.
The problem with Bloodties is that it didn’t start out as a story idea, it started as a gimmick. Celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of two comic properties is not enough to base six books worth of story on (five issues with one of them being double-sized). With a smaller, trimmed down cast and a three-issue length as opposed to five, this story could have been something better than it turned out to be.
D+
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