Exiles #87

Background

With no immediate threats on the horizon, the Exiles attempted to enjoy some down-time on their home worlds much against the wishes of the Timebreakers. However, that peace is short-lived when a threat grips Heather Hudson's reality and calls both the Exiles and Alpha Flight to deal with it. The threat, however, seems minimal when it's over until the Exiles learn the true scheme: the Timebreakers have just fired them and stranded them in that reality! To face a new threat of an all-powerful mutant that is a combination of Magneto, Scarlet Warlock, Quicksilver, Mesmero and Wolverine called Brother Mutant, the Timebreakers discovered the answer was a team of Wolverines. However, every team they have sent in has fallen into Brother Mutant's thrall and attacked the latest grouping. Only two from the latest managed to escape the same fate, and got the Timebreakers to bring the Exiles back into the game. Together, they were able to stop Brother Mutant and bring things back to business as usual: to save the reality where the world has already been destroyed!

CURRENT EXILES:

SABRETOOTH (Victor Creed): Enhanced senses and healing.

BLINK (Clarice Ferguson): Teleportation

MORPH: Shape-shifting.

DR. HEATHER HUDSON: Scientist.

LONGSHOT: Agility and luck powers.

SPIDER-MAN 2099 (Miguel O'Hara): Spider-like powers and talons.

POWER PRINCESS (Zarda): Super strength and flight.

Story Details

The Exiles travel through space through the remains of a destroyed Earth, en route to their objective: to protect a stone giant from the Silver Surfer! They watch as the Surfer effortlessly cuts through the Shi'Ar imperial guard as if they were nothing. Finally, he confronts the stone giant demanding something from him willingly, or to be taken from his corpse. Before he can deliver a killing shot, Blink teleports the top of Four Freedoms Plaza in his path. She readies another salvo when the giant takes her over and has her blink their ship away. The ship blinks on a collision course with the Surfer, as the Exiles are blinked to safety. Before the Surfer can regroup, he's blinked into the rings of Saturn.

The Exiles wonder how Blink did that and where she's taken them, when the giant appears and collapses from his efforts. With a blind spot blocking Heather's attempts at getting info about this world, Longshot tries a trick of gaining information through touch. It works, but with explosive results. He learns that the creature is Galactus, RESTORER of worlds.

A blight destroys planets in the universe and Galactus travels to fix them, but the blight moves faster than he can. Norrin Radd from Zenn-La proposes the idea of making him his herald in order to track dying planets faster and more efficiently with the promise of one day passing on the secret of healing worlds. Norrin had other plans, as his last invention laid waste to his own home world. His true objective was to trick Galactus into resurrecting it. But as its demise was not cosmic, Galactus could do nothing. The Surfer turned his rage on those who worshipped Galactus and sough to steal Galactus' power himself. And the resulting assault on the Surfer is where they came in.

Mantra from the Imperial Guard arrives at their location, and tells them they must bring Galactus to the Throneworld of the Shi'Ar Empire. The Exiles are invited by Lilandra herself to join the guard as they make the final stand against the Surfer to save Galactus and the universe.

General Comments

Interesting twist on the Galactus story here. Silver Surfer's design has him looking a bit more like Terrax, which adds to his menacing quality. This issue was primarily set-up and explanation for the story, so not much really happened otherwise, but, overall, a very good start that leaves you wondering what comes next. Paul Pelletier's art was top-notch as usual, complimenting Tony Bedard's writing nicely.

Overall Rating

4.5 Webs. Good set-up and interesting character changes make for a good read.

Footnote

In every issue, Morph takes on some familiar and unusual forms. Here, we'll try to chronicle as many as we can in a section we'll call: MORPH'S MORPHS!

Morph's morphs: Chewbacca, binocular eyes, Humpty Dumpty, Galactus