Exiles #89

Background

When an Exile falls in battle, their form is placed in a sort of suspended animation within the walls of the Crystal Palace. The Exiles have come to call this the "Stasis Gallery." Recently, the Exiles have gone out of their way to return each and every former Exile to their home reality, all with the exception of original member T-Bird. As his injuries are too severe to risk him taken out of stasis, they hold him there until a way to heal him can be found...

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 'What Dreams may come...?'

It's another routine mission as the Exiles need to save J. Jonah Jameson from the Sinister Six. Routine, save for the fact exhaustion finally catches up with Blink and lets her get careless enough to be blasted by Electro. The Exiles rush her to the infirmary, but need to get back on the job as countless realities are collapsing like dominoes, accounting for their rushed pace. As the Exiles head off, Heather pulls Spidey aside to converse with him about something that occurred to her recently. During their final conflict with Proteus when they tricked the brainwasher onto his head so that he would be forever locked in Morph's personality, as well as his body, they did so by putting it inside the crown he stole from the queen of Atlantis. A METAL crown. As Morph's body doesn't deteriorate like past hosts, they realize it might be possible it protects Proteus from his Achilles heel now as well.

Meanwhile, in the Stasis Gallery, T-Bird relives the same nightmare over and over. He stands alone against his creator, Apocalypse, while his pregnant lover, Nocturne, is chained to a rock. All hope for T-Bird seems lost as Apocalypse easily over powers him and tells him he's about to join his teammates...in death! But it proves to be empty words as the Exiles appear and rescue Nocturne. This gives T-Bird the strength he needs to fight back, and finally win against Apocalypse's influence once and for all.

Elsewhere, the Exiles take on the Serpent Society, only to lose Spidey in the process. During a fight with the Hellfire Club, Proteus was almost released by the White Queen's mind probe when she confronted Morph. Only a spike from Longshot stopped her in time, but Morph spoke in a Scottish accent briefly. With the domino threat finally stopped, the Exiles regroup around a recovering Blink and Spidey, while Morph undergoes a conditioning treatment to fortify any damage the White Queen might have done. Heather contemplates it might be safer to stick him in the Gallery, but deemed it too cruel as she has guilt whenever she sees T-Bird in there. She tells Spidey they need to find a way to help him and get him out once and for all, to save him from his nightmares.

Little do they know that those nightmares have just become pleasant dreams, as T-Bird stands with his lover and child amongst the people he cares for most.

General Comments

The final Bedard issue before the title is turned over to legendary X-scribe Chris Claremont, and what an end. The last arc, I mentioned how Bedard took the Exiles back to their home worlds for visits, which have been neglected in these pages in favor of the story and just to set-up their involvement on the team. Here, he takes it a step further and shows us what's been going on with T-Bird since he fell in battle dozens of issues ago. Also, he has played up the whole Morph/Proteus angle to give the Exiles, and readers, a sense of foreboding at the possibility that any moment their greatest foe could be back to ravage them...this time WITHOUT any weaknesses. A well-crafted issue with the help of Jim Calafiore's pencils that show just how far the Exiles have come, and how much they've changed along the way. A nice send-off for this team.

Overall Rating

5 Webs. New mysteries playing up old plot points, and more revisiting of old characters long forgotten in the flow of the story. A great finale to Bedard's run, and a tough act to follow.

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: Bugs Bunny, snakes, Sherlock Holmes, chess piece