Exiles #94

Background

With Psylocke on the team, Sabretooth and Morph head out to the other world with her to rescue their teammates. However, what they don't know is they're being brainwashed into the service of Hydra, led by Sue Storm! The Exiles have only a few hours to kill Reed Richards, leader of the freedom movement on the world, before the dimension is wiped out from existence. Things aren't made easy for them as they need to face Sue's hordes of Hand ninjas as well as their brainwashed captured teammates and their general, Slaymaster. Psylocke also has history with Slaymaster as he had once ripped out her eyes on her world, giving her some disabling issues upon seeing him. And, Reed has his own plans when he confronts his ex-wife as she's about to attack him and offers her the omniverse in exchange for her leaving and never returning to their world.

CURRENT EXILES:

SABRETOOTH (Victor Creed): Enhanced senses and healing.

BLINK (Clarice Ferguson): Teleportation

MORPH (Kevin MacTaggert): Shape-shifting.

DR. HEATHER HUDSON: Scientist.

LONGSHOT: Agility and luck powers.

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

PSYLOCKE (Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock): Telekinesis.

Story 'We'll die Another Day'

Sue ponders Reeds offer to rule all of reality when Wolverine, rendered invisible by her to sneak attack Reed while she led a frontal assault, is suddenly made visible by being struck with a TK blast courtesy of Psylocke. Sue lashes out into the heroes, and reveals as Reed tries to calm her down that she would have just stolen Reed's device to access the world without honoring the bargain anyway. Psylocke is thrown to Wolverine, but she easily takes down the overconfident mutant only to come face-to-face with her worst nightmare: Slaymaster!

Elsewhere, Sabretooth struggles to remain upright as Slaymaster had cut his tendons to virtually cripple him while tying up Spidey and Blink before they regain consciousness. Elektra emerges with Valera Richards, the daughter of Reed and Sue she rescued from stasis in the White House, and introduces her to Creed as their savior. Heather tells Creed they're out of time and need to leave, but Elektra and Valera convince him to stay to save the world and his friends.

Slaymaster taunts Psylocke, preparing her for the kill, while Sue places an invisible bubble over her head. Reed tries to save her by taking down his ex, but Wolverine recovers and puts his claws through her. Slaymaster is upset over losing the kill, but Sue reminds them nothing matters because they're winning At least, until Morph and Longshot crash the party. Longshot takes down Wolverine while Sue tries to down Morph. Slaymaster, observing Longshot's lucky moves, has Sue turn her attentions on him and take him down. With that, she claims Reed's dimensional device and hits the button just as the dimension comes to an end.

Or, does it? Everything is back the way it was, Reed enthusiastic that his plan worked. He reveals he overheard Heather's words through the Tallus' comm.- link. His device was designed to transport the entire would to another dimension. And as for all the citizenry who had supposedly died during their attempt to escape the planet when Sue took over, Reed revealed he had digitally converted almost 2 billion people and placed them into a pan-dimensional pocket accessible only through a pendant Valera wears.

The world and Psylocke begins its steps towards recovery. Reed denies how badly he was hurt by Sue in favor of working to rebuild the world. Elektra and Psylocke both ponder their places in the universe as they are a very specific kind of woman not easily assimilated. All the while, in another dimension, another Psylocke is brutally murdered.

General Comments

It has become apparent that Psylocke is gonna work her way into becoming the central character of Claremont's run. This arc started out as an Exiles story and quickly became all about her. Conveniently, major players in the story also had connections to her and her past. Hopefully, Claremont remembers this is a TEAM book, and not a Psylocke solo project. Other than that (and the weird and similar way everyone suddenly talks), the story was good and not bad for the first effort. The end felt a bit rushed and no explanation was given to what happened to Sue Storm and her cronies. Suddenly all the Hand ninjas left disappeared? One could deduce a similar method to how the people were saved on the planet was used, but it would be nice if the author of the story would close his own plot hole.

Overall Rating

4 Webs. A good intro story for Claremont, although a little Psylocke heavy with a rushed-feeling ending.

Footnote

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: Juggernaut, frog