Another week, another batch of House of M crossovers.

Exiles wraps up the first leg of its "World Tour" storyline with the Exiles fighting Proteus in the House of M world.  There are really two points to this exercise.  First, introduce Proteus as a reality-jumping villain they can chase from world to world over the next few arcs, thus giving the team a clear mission again.  Second, get Beak back to Earth, now that his personal arc is complete.

I'm not entirely sure about using Proteus as a recurring character - omnipotent reality-warpers tend to work best in small doses.  And he's never exactly been the most original personality in the world.  But at least he's a character who's compatible with the book, and he's effectively set up as a major-league villain.  Plus, Tony Bedard comes up with a nice riff on the original Proteus story which plays on this book's ongoing storylines. 

Proteus is meant to be vulnerable to metal (a pretty sweeping achilles heel, but there you go), so the original storyline had Colossus turn to metal and kill him.  Mimic has the same powers and ought to be able to re-enact the story - but a few stories ago, he swore not to kill anyone, so he bottles it.  That's a good use of history.  And it's properly set up for readers who don't remember the original story, by having the Exiles consciously set out to use the same tactic that worked before.  There's plenty of potential in working this idea over Proteus' next few appearances.

The House of M aspects of this storyline rather fall by the wayside in the final issue.  The Exiles spent the earlier parts of this arc squabbling about whether they ought to try and put the world back, since they apparently considered it a major improvement.  Given that the House of M is a paramilitary dictatorship, this seemed a curious judgment for the heroes to make.  Nonetheless, after being prominently raised, the issue never gets resolved because the crossover ends while they're still fighting Proteus.  Really, they could have done this story without using the House of M material at all, just by visiting any old world with a Proteus on it, and it seems a shame that the House of M aspects, some of which were quite interesting, never actually lead anywhere.

Mind you, it does result in Beak getting back to Earth in time for the Scarlet Witch's second reality warp.  So perhaps he does get his happy ending by losing his powers (if you can even call them that).  Apparently there's going to be follow-up on that next issue.

A slightly underachieving storyline, but still pretty decent.

Rating: B

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