I've seen a few people saying that Exiles #25 has redeemed this otherwise dreary storyline.  Well, I certainly wouldn't go that far.  Yes, it's far and away the strongest of the three issues, but it doesn't force any reassessment of the previous parts of this arc.

As you'll recall, this is the final part of the three-part arc starring Weapon X, the "dark" Exiles.  The basic idea is that they've been sent to a world ruled by an evil, villainous Iron Man who has schemed to achieve global domination.  To complete his domination, Iron Man needs to capture the Inhumans; because they're dark, Weapon X have been sent to help him rather than stop him.

The big twist in this issue is that while Weapon X manage to get in to Attilan, it then turns out that the Inhumans have all killed themselves to avoid capture.  The narrator then gives us a potted history of the siege of Masada in 74 AD before Black Bolt yells the word "Masada" and causes all manner of devastation.  Iron Man's victory is pyrrhic and subsequently he's bumped off by the surviving Inhumans.

Now, I'll grant you, the siege of Masala is a powerful story.  This is far from the most inspirational rendition of it - it requires a horribly blatant piece of infodumping in the middle of a battle scene in order for the climax to work, and Kev Walker's artwork nearly wrecks the crucial moment by rendering Black Bolt as a steroid-addled hunchback.  But yes, it's a powerful story.

But it's a strong story sitting in the middle of an otherwise weak story.  It can't get around two crucial problems.  First, Iron Man is undermotivated.  Writing him as a villain for no discernible reason is mere gimmickry.

Secondly, the point of the Masada story is that it's a pyrrhic victory.  With clodhopping literalism, Winick feels compelled to resolve the story with an actual defeat.  We're repeatedly told that Stark has been defeated, but this is only true insofar as his plan to capture the Inhumans has been foiled.  He didn't need the Inhumans to retain his grip on power, so there's no obvious reason why his control of the world would now be any weaker.  But whereas the entire Inhuman race was apparently unable to defeat Stark before now, Sue Richards on her own is somehow able to do him in by the mystic power of thematic resolution.  Nice try, but no sale.  If Sue can do it now, she could have done it before, so the Inhumans have died in vain and the theme is undermined.

Masada is a nice anecdote.  But it's not Winick's anecdote, and it's left adrift here in an otherwise unimpressive story with sporadically ugly art.

Rating: B

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