Welcome to the annual post-Bristol Convention edition of the X-Axis.  What this means in practice is that it's Sunday evening, I've just got back to town, and I'll be skipping over the junk in order to cover the important stuff before I go to bed.

We start with Exiles.  This is the second half of "Hard Choices", although it's the sort of storyline that doesn't really benefit from being listed as a two-parter.  It works rather better if you view it as part of an ongoing Magik subplot; taken in isolation, it's irritatingly unresolved.

That's inevitable, because it's the central conceit.  The big idea is that last issue, the Exiles rejected the rather unpleasant mission they'd been set - with the exception of new member Magik.  Instead the Exiles set off to save the day regardless of their official mission.  However, Magik betrays them and goes off to fulfil the original mission.  So when she does it, they all get yanked away.

It's not quite as unresolved as it first sounds - the resolution is that the bad guys win - but it does read rather oddly because Austen spends much of the issue on the fight against the nominal villains, a thread which inevitably is never resolved.  I'm not sure there's any way of getting round that, because if you marginalise them altogether then you telegraph the ending.  The problem, I think, stems from billing it as a two-parter which makes you expect a clearer ending.

More problematic is the mechanics of how Illyana wins.  This calls for tremendous suspension of disbelief.  The idea is that this world's Colossus is so naively trusting and loving that he cheerfully accepts the word of a woman claiming to be his younger sister (despite being some ten years too old) and decides that her request to kill Colossus and his fellow Avengers is entirely reasonable.  This strains credibility to breaking point, especially when you have other characters pointing out to him that he doesn't have sufficient grounds to believe a word she's saying to him.  The story doesn't give him sufficient motivation to justify his choice, and consequently the story doesn't work.  It wants him to look noble; he comes across as staggeringly stupid.

Clayton Henry's artwork remains crisp and attractive.  There are a couple of moments where the action sequences look slightly awkward - Luke Cage taking an optimistic swing at a woman who seems to be standing some seven feet from him, for example - but he does the character moments well, and it's very pleasant to look at.

I can see what the story is trying to do, and at the high concept level it's fair enough.  The idea of saddling the team with a renegade member whom they obviously can't expel is a neat riff of the premise.  It's just the plotting that sends this issue off the rails.

Rating: C+

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