STORY: "Bloodties, part 2 of 5: Civil Disobedience!" (22 pages)  Fabian Cortez has kidnapped Magneto's granddaughter, Luna Maximoff, and taken her to Genosha, where he has sparked a civil war.  The X-Men and Avengers follow him, hoping to rescue Luna and calm the situation.

What you need to know:
"Bloodties" was an X-Men/Avengers crossover.  It runs through Avengers vol 1 #368, X-Men vol 2 #26, Avengers West Coast #101, Uncanny X-Men #307 and Avengers vol 1 #369.

About the only long-term significance of this mess was to kick off a period of total incoherence in anything to do with Genosha.  Various writers kept trying to explain what the hell was going on there, but nothing seemed to stick.  Finally, some sort of stability was imposed when Magneto got control of the country - six years later.  In the meantime, it's a mess, best explained as an ongoing civil war.

The trigger for all this is that Fabian Cortez turns up in Genosha with Magneto's infant granddaughter, Luna Maximoff, in tow.  Then he starts inciting a mutant rebellion.  Having been kicked out of the Acolytes, Cortez is trying to rebuild a new power base for himself and prepare for when Magneto comes looking for him.  Of course, Cortez doesn't know that Magneto's comatose at the moment.

Renee Majcomb debuts.  She goes on to become a minor supporting character across the X-books, though she never gets up to anything particularly significant, and she's been completely forgotten about over the last few years.  She's a Genoshan scientist, and yet another old acquaintance of Professor X.  At this point she's leading the Bipartisan Rebel Battalion, a neutral faction trying to calm down the incipient civil war.  They never appeared again after this storyline, presumably recognising Genosha as a lost cause.

There's a subplot with Colossus continuing to angst about what he should do.  Exodus blithely announces that he's going to have "a counsel" with Magneto, despite the fact that Magneto is plainly a comatose man propped up in a throne.  He appears to be deadly serious about this.

Comments:
Oh god, Bloodties.  Basically, it's a shameless attempt to boost sales on the Avengers titles, and a poorly edited one at that - characters teleport from plot thread to plot thread, giving the distinct impression that the various creative teams were singing from different hymn sheets.  Featuring both X-Men teams and both Avengers teams (the West Coast Avengers were still around at this point), it's deluged in characters, and gets bogged down trying to find something for them all to do.  It's not even a particularly memorable Avengers line-up - the Black Widow?  The second Spider-Woman...?

Evidently the creators looked for some sort of plot that might genuinely involve both the X-Men and the Avengers.  From the look of it, they came up with one that would justify an Avengers/X-Factor crossover, and decided to fudge it.  The story is built around Fabian Cortez kidnapping Luna Maximoff, whose parents were X-Factor's Quicksilver and Crystal.  The idea is that because she's Magneto's granddaughter, she has symbolic value for Cortez' rabble rousing.  The idea isn't bad, but it doesn't quite come off.

At least it's an attempt to unite the two families, but it would have made rather more sense with Quicksilver's regular team.  But who would have been interested in a crossover with them?  

And yes, for some reason, it's Revanche who goes on this mission, not Psylocke.  Even though Revanche is dying and infected with a killer virus.  In fact, she's missing from two of the crossover issues entirely, so heaven only knows what the thinking was.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Gambit and Storm (all last in Avengers vol 1 #368; all next in Avengers West Coast #101, then in Uncanny X-Men #307, then in Avengers vol 1 #369, then Professor X in X-Force vol 1 #27, then Cyclops & Jean Grey in Cable #6, then all but Gambit and Storm in Cable #7-8, then all in Uncanny X-Men #308, then Professor X and Gambit in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #3, then all in issue #28)
The Beast, Iceman and Rogue (all last in Avengers vol 1 #368; all next in Avengers West Coast #101, then in Uncanny X-Men #307, then in Avengers vol 1 #369)
Archangel (next in Avengers West Coast #101, then in Uncanny X-Men #307, then in Avengers vol 1 #369, then in issue #29)
Bishop (last in Avengers vol 1 #368; next in Avengers West Coast #101, then in Uncanny X-Men #307, then in Avengers vol 1 #369, then in Uncanny X-Men #308, then in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #3, then in Uncanny X-Men #310, then in issue #30)

GUEST STARS
The Avengers: Captain America I, the Black Knight IV, the Black Widow I, Crystal, Hawkeye, Hercules, the Scarlet Witch, Sersi, Spider-Woman II, the USAgent, the Vision and War Machine (all between Avengers vol 1 #368 and Avengers West Coast #101)
Quicksilver and SHIELD (all between Avengers vol 1 #368 and Avengers West Coast #101)
Henry Peter Gyrich (last in Avengers vol 1 #368; next behind the scenes in Avengers West Coast #101)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Renee Majcomb (first appearance), Philip Moreau, Jenny Ransome (both last in Avengers vol 1 #368) and Revanche (last in X-Men Annual vol 2 #2; all next behind the scenes in Avengers West Coast #101)
Trish Tilby (between Avengers vol 1 #368-369)

VILLAINS
Magneto and Colossus (both next in Uncanny X-Men #315)
Fabian Cortez (last in Avengers vol 1 #368; next in Avengers West Coast #101)
Exodus (next in Avengers West Coast #101)
The Unforgiven (Cortez' henchmen; first appearance; next in Avengers West Coast #101)

GUEST APPEARANCES
Luna Maximoff (between Avengers vol 1 #368 and Avengers West Coast #101)
Nick Fury (between Avengers vol 1 #368-369)
Dum Dum Dugan (last in Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD vol 3 #42; next in Tales of Suspense (one-shot))

OTHER CHARACTERS
The Bipartisan Rebel Battalion (Majcomb's group; first appearance; next in Avengers West Coast #101)
Various Genoshans

Written: 7 October 2004

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