Writing: Scott Lobdell
Art: John Romita Jr.
What Went Down: Bloodties Part 4: We enter on a splash page of Professor X using his body as a shield to protect a wounded Genoshan refugee. Turning the page, we see a two page splash of Beast and U.S. Agent engaging the human soldiers to protect the mutant prisoners. We learn that most of the mutants are infected with the Legacy Virus, and Xavier uses his powers to help the heroes against the soldiers. This reveals that he is a mutant to some of the prisoners, but Charles just brushes them off.
Meanwhile, Exodus is getting knocked across town by Sersi, the Eternal Avenger. Exodus uses his bright energy powers on Sersi, and she identifies his powers as being psionic based. On the ground, War Machine—who is feeling a lot better after being beaten up by Exodus last issue—Captain America, and the Black Knight note that the city might not survive the battle. Black Knight also recognizes Exodus, which doesn’t get resolved for many years; his predecessor, the original Black Knight, fought Exodus during the time of the Crusades.
Back at the UN, the Black Widow tells off the UN and apologizes to the world for letting the UN place politics before the Avengers true mandate. Then they leave to go to Genosha. Back in Genosha, the X-Men break into a government building to liberate the employees there. Cyclops discovers some dead bodies and questions the point of their struggle. Iceman tries to remind him that they still saved a lot of people.
Black Knight and War Machine are now trying to break up Sersi and Exodus before they destroy the entire city. A huge explosion occurs, and War Machine protects himself and the Knight behind a forcefield. Exodus flies off, and Sersi emerges from the rubble very angry. Dane stops her from pursuing the villain.
Down in the city’s sewer, Jean Grey and Quicksilver are searching for Cortez and Luna. Jean detects a presence, but it turns out to be Crystal and the Scarlet Witch. The heroes fill each other in, until Cortez appears and threatens to use his powers on Luna. Cortez explains that he wants protection from Exodus, who suddenly appears for the last page cliffhanger. Cortez tells the heroes to protect him from Exodus or Luna will die.
How It Was: A hard issue to comment on since most of the same arguments for this issue being subpar apply to the previous two issues. Let’s start with the first thing to stand out: that cover is horrible. Exodus looks nothing like he is supposed to, and all of the heroes have the exact same face. As for the story, after a plot stalling fight with War Machine, Exodus engages in a plot stalling battle with Sersi. Yes, beating Sersi shows off that Exodus is very powerful, but the majority of the fight is panels of both combatants standing around bathed in yellow energy. So it’s not much of a fight, and it gets even worse when Exodus realizes how pointless the fight is and flies off to finally move the plot along. And then there is the fact that War Machine and Black Knight’s whole storyline this issue is trying to stop the pointless fight that just ends on its own, wasting the participation of two more characters.
The scene at the UN is also fairly boring, and I can’t understand why so many heroes are needed to stand around while Hawkeye and Black Widow make a speech. It is kind of nice to see the story acknowledging that politics can often complicate situations such as a war or civil conflict, and often get in the way of helping the people that they are meant to. Still, it isn’t very interesting. The X-Men discovering dead bodies does carry a sense of tragedy to it, but Cyclops’ melodramatic internal monologue isn’t exactly deep or hard hitting. It feels like a wasted opportunity to finally depict the conflict from the perspective of the civilians and flesh out the dispute a little better.
The scenes that do work somewhat are the conclusion, if for no other reason than it finally furthers the plot a little, and the opening scenes with Xavier and the Beast. Yes, I still dislike the concentration camp angle because it vilifies one side over the other, and it’s kind of inappropriate, but at the same time something is actually happening. There are prisoners in danger, overwhelming odds, and an actual attempt to squeeze some tension out of the plot. This whole issue is just kind of a mess and it doesn’t really know what it wants to say about the characters or the setting. Basically this whole story so far has been a tedious attempt to find something for the characters to do until the story finally ends.
D
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