New Exiles #10

Background

While the Omniverse is collapsing, the Exiles are stuck on an Earth where America is still part of the British Empire and the French are invading. The French have already captured the Queen, Morph and Sage while the remaining Exiles have teamed up with this world's X-Men, Force-X, to save her and buy the Empire time until the Atlanteans, the world's peacekeepers can get there.

CURRENT EXILES:

SABRETOOTH (Victor Creed): Enchanced senses and healing.

MORPH (Kevin MacTaggert): Shape-shifting.

PSYLOCKE (Betsy Braddock): Telekinesis.

SAGE (Tessa): Super mental prowess.

ROGUE (Anna Raven): Flight, super physical abilities.

MYSTIQ (Raphael-Raven Darkholm): Shapeshifting.

GAMBIT (Remy): Invisible force-fields, underwater abilities.

CAT (Catherine Pryde): Phasing.

Story 'Cry for Freedom!'

In the hold of one of the French vessels, a man known as Purge begins his task of reprogramming Morph and Sage, starting with her. What he doesn't realize is by shutting down Sage's mind, he allowed Diana Fox, her identity when infiltrating the evil Captain Britain's forces in the last Excalibur volume and X-Men: Die by the Sword, to gain control and break free. She engages Purge, but the fight is brief as Sage fights back for control with psychically explosive results.

Meanwhile, Storm is dousing the French forces with bad weather and Aurion freezes the bay, allowing Force-X to attack and cripple their ships. The French admiral sends Gigantor, a growing man, to deal with Starbolt and Sunspot, not counting on Gambit and Puma being there to back them up. Puma gets a few shots in, but Gigantor slugs him aside. With a rescue by Spider, Puma is ready for a rematch while Spider gets caught by another super-powered named Garotte. Gambit and Starbolt rise from the waters and rescue Spider while Mystiq, Puma and Rogue handle the rest of the crew. However, the odds quickly fall out of their favor.

In Paris, Psylocke, now believing herself this world's version, Lady Mandarin, stealthily invades the royal palace in order to impress France's ruler, Napoleon. However, she learns the man who trained her, Ogun, actually conditioned her to be a willing slave for Napoleon with the utterance of a codeword. What that served to do, however, was release Lady Mandarin's hold and allow Psylocke to reclaim herself and take Napoleon captive.

Back in New York harbor, the heroes are engaged with multiple copies of a man called Legion, while Mystiq hangs back and tries to find their source. Discovering him, he takes him down and with him all the copies. Just then, a hologram of Psylocke and Napoleon appear announcing the surrender of the French fleet and the ceasing of all hostilities. The day is saved, but there is still more work to be done.

General Comments

The last part of this story wasn't as good as the previous with such a quick and neat ending, but still a decent story. The artwork was great and Claremont's writing wasn't as stale as it has been. However, there seems to be a major blooper as Napoleon was with his NY invasion fleet when the war started, and now he was back in Paris. Sure, that could be attributed to the teleporting technology they displayed in the first part, but that shouldn't be left to assumption. Also, some of his Exiles characters are starting to get some depth to them, and raising questions about them. Also, Psylocke's re- training seemed to happen very quickly in comparison with the rest of the events. The timing there didn't quite mesh up.

Overall Rating

3 Webs. A pretty good story, although it seemed to end a little too easily and there were some questionable details within the story. Overall, better than Claremont's Exiles have been in a while.