Story: Tony Bedard
Pencils: Jim Calafiore

Synopsis & Review by Sean Mills. Thanks!:
Synopsis: When the alien race called the Trinarians tried to colonize Ego the Living Planet, he got his revenge by hurling their homeworld into a black hole. Because of this action, he ruined a Celestial genetic experiment started a long time ago on the Trinarians, orchestrated by the Celestials Gammenon the Gatherer and Jemiah the Analyzer. Celestials are these giant God-like robot-looking beings that live in space, Gammenon is all gold, Jemiah is green and blue. Because Ego ruined their experiment, he had to die.

But Ego is a tricky old planet and he evaded the Celestials only to come to Earth with a plan to defeat them. Earth was home of many beings who had vexed Ego in the past, such as the Silver Surfer and the Fantastic Four. Ego planted a seed of awareness in Earth and then went to hide behind Jupiter to await the birth of a new Living Planet. Now his wait is over, Gammenon and Jemiah will soon arrive, and Earth is waking up.

All of this is being told to the gathered Exiles and the Fantastic Four, deep in the center of Earth where the newly formed brain is being helped along by Reed Richards. Richards has attached Earth’s brain to his own and he is helping it develop. Ego had sent that story as a psionic message so strong that Reed couldn’t help but speak it aloud. So the Exiles and the Fantastic Four know the game, Ego has turned Earth into another living planet to help him combat the Celestials, and when Earth is ready, Ego will have him destroy all the humans using the hexagon-headed antibodies.

Up on the Earth’s surface, the Avengers and Dr. Doom are still fighting the antibodies. If they can’t defeat them, what chance do normal people have? Suddenly, an earthquake and a great storm have come upon the Earth as Ego is in close orbit, affecting the tides. The Avengers can see Ego very clearly from down on Earth. Up in space, Ego asks why Earth does not respond, which causes Reed to freak out. He cannot be disconnected, he tells Sue, no matter how freaked out he gets. Ego tells Earth to awaken and two giant glowing eyes suddenly rip open on both coasts of America as the newly sentient Earth looks out upon Ego, who claims to be his father.

Ego is smaller than Earth, and the new planet is confused. Ego is not his father. Ego tells him that he is and that he needs Earth’s help to defeat the Celestials. But Earth, speaking through Reed to the others, claims that he feels his father inside of him, nurturing him, teaching him. Earth thinks that Reed is his father but Ego tells him to destroy the infestation. Earth begins to push Reed out but he can’t fight it. He needs help. The Thing gives Reed a pep talk on how awesome and smart he is, surely Reed can do this.

But there is more trouble: evil antibodies have followed them down into the brain. The Exiles have a job to do; they must stop the antibodies from getting to Reed. Up on the surface, the Avengers have been defeated and Dr. Doom rises above it all. He will flee, but suddenly he gets a beeping from his metakirlian imploder from last issue, the drilling device to help him destroy Earth’s consciousness. It’s still active, teleported into space, so he calls it back to him. Doom can finally get back to his mission of killing Earth before it becomes a problem.

But then the Celestials arrive and Ego gloats and perhaps he ruined another one of their experiments by giving life to Earth. Ego attacks, much to Earth’s dismay, and the Celestials attack too. They all blast things at each other. Down in Earth’s brain, the Exiles and half of the Fantastic Four start kicking antibody butt while Morph shoves Beak back into the little shelter with Reed, Sue, and Blink. This is out of his league. Meanwhile, Reed is losing it. He can’t fight it any longer and he screams that they’re all going to die. Sue tells him not to give up hope.

Reed tells them that Earth needs energy to help Ego fight the Celestials so he’s going to ingest all of the living things on his surface for energy. Reed is trying to tell Earth that he needs his biosphere, but Earth is like a child, ruled by emotion. He can’t think of anything to do. So Beak steps up to the plate, yelling at Reed to stop thinking and start feeling. Reed and Earth are linked, so the Earth can feel Reed. So Beak tells him to give Earth something to feel, how does Reed feel that his children are about to be destroyed. Beak has his own children, if he ever lost even one of them…

Reed and Sue catch eyes and realize that if they do lose, then they will also lose their son Franklin!

Up in space, Earth asks why the Celestials hate Ego, but the Living Planet says he will explain once they’re dead. Suddenly, Earth is struck with an epiphany and screams out the name, “Franklin!” Ego turns, asking what is wrong, and Earth blasts with full force at him, telling Ego that he is what is wrong! The antibodies stop fighting and the whole Earth shakes as Ego fights back. Blink announces that Reed got through, he convinced Earth that humans aren’t a parasite, humans are Earth’s children, and now everyone is fighting Ego.

Suddenly, the core of the Earth is interrupted as Doom arrives with his drill. He is astonished to see that both the Exiles and the Fantastic Four are still alive, but he will rectify that. He orders the drill to attack the cortex, but Blink is going to put up with that. She takes one of her teleporting arrows and hurls it at the imploder. Both Blink and the imploder are teleported hundreds of miles up and into outer space. She can see the fight between Ego and the Celestials, but the vacuum of space is killing her.

Before she freezes, however, she teleports the imploder directly into Ego’s brain. Effectively, this is like a lobotomy and a dead Ego floats gently away. The green and blue Celestial, however, notices something small and pink floating in space. He stretches out his mighty hand and catches the near-dead Blink before she can pass away.

Blink wakes up three days later in the Fantastic Four’s hospital. Reed and Calvin are there and she asks, in a weak voice, if they saw the Celestials. They didn’t see anything, other than Blink and the imploder leaving and suddenly Ego is dead. Doom was mad, but he had to retreat anyway. Reed and the Exiles deduced what she had done, but Reed wanted to know how Blink had guessed that the Celestials would return her to Earth. She didn’t know, she had only hoped she could teleport back in time, but she wasn’t able to. She practically had gone on a suicide mission.

While she was out, Calvin had explained who they were to Reed. He didn’t believe him at first, but they covered everything. Reed finds the fixing of broken realities fascinating, but he is particularly intrigued about the Timebroker. Speaking of which, Calvin asks if their mission is accomplished. Blink says yes, they’re about to move on, but there is something else. It seemed like a dream, but while the Celestials were taking her back to Earth it felt as if they were talking to her in her mind. They wanted to warn her, to warn all of them.

They said, “Beware the Timebreaker. He is not what he seems.”

The Exiles teleport away, and a few moments after they’re gone, Reed freezes and asks, “Timebreaker?”

Review: Fantastic issue! Pun intended! The action, the excitement, the coolness that is Ego the Living Planet. Blink and the Celestials were also exciting, that’s a tough leader the Exiles have. I don’t think the Exiles is losing steam and all, it’s still a great action-packed book. Granted, the rich character development isn’t seen as much and many of the Exiles have only been background characters, but I can live with that.

This was an exciting story, the kind of thing you won’t usually find in the normal universe anymore. What with a focus on Marvel Knights and Wolverine, battles against Ego and Celestials doesn’t happen very awesome. I also liked Beak’s speech, the second reading through it really got to me. This was good stuff.

And a fan of this series couldn’t ask for a better cliffhanger! Timebreaker?! Amazing stuff, done excellently with Reed’s confusion after they left. Exiles is still great.