Story: Tony Bedard
Pencils: Paul Pelletier

Synopsis & Review by Sean Mills. Thanks!:
Synopsis: The Exiles are visiting the House of M Marvel Universe in order to return Beak to his wife and kids, only Blink is relatively sure that this universe is doing very well for itself. Mutants are in control here and the humans aren’t exactly repressed, so perhaps fixing this reality would be the greatest crime of them all. Magneto is ruler of the world and even has the Sentinels working for him; everything is great! Except, of course, for Beak.

Everyone’s hanging out in the middle of New York with hundreds of mutants around. Mimic assures Beak that they’ll fix things, get his kids but, but Sabretooth argues the other point. The Exiles fixed doomed realities, this world is great, but Beak’s kids don’t even exist in the House of M! Sabretooth argues that if they undo this reality, it might wipe out a billion other kids – like Peter Parker’s children for instance (though the Exiles don’t know about them, I’m just adding that in there). Would that be fair? Beak is young and he can start over in the House of M, here his looks are actually normal and nobody’s going to judge him like they did back in the normal 616 universe.

Mimic gets right in Sabretooth’s face about writing off Beak’s children, because if it was Blink who was suddenly erased from existence then Sabretooth would kill half the planet to get her back. Sabretooth’s okay with that as long as he gets to start with Mimic. It’s different though, Blink and Sabretooth have been together for years, Beak has had his kids for a few months and the mother, Angel, is far better off in the House of M as a famous model. They’d be doing Angel a favor if they left her with that life instead of living in a shack with Beak.

Blink separates them and tells them that before they do anything she wants to find out how things changed in the first place. Meanwhile, Beak has spotted Angel in the crowd and runs after her. Mutant X has possessed Angel, and she swoops down and carries Beak away. Morph turns it into a joke, asking why the chicken literally crossed the road, and the Exiles are about to rush off to help when a dirty beggar woman stops them, saying that it would kill Beak if they tried to save him. She says that she can tell the Exiles what they’re up against, but out of the view of the Sentinels…one of which seems rather interested in the woman.

She takes them to a homeless shelter and explains that Angel is already dead, being used by her son Mutant X, who can possess bodies and bend reality. She’s been tracing his energy signature with a remote all the way from her home in Scotland, and oddly enough, the Tallus gives off a very similar energy signature so she hoped perhaps they could help. She’s Moira MacTaggert, but nobody seems to have a Moira in their own reality, they’ve never heard of her.

On Muir Island, Moira was a scientist who first discovered mutants two decades ago and she won the Nobel Prize. She received a lot of grant money, but none of it could save her son Kevin (who is alive again, along with Moira, thanks to Scarlet Witch’s tampering, which has brought a number of characters to life again in the House of M). He withered away on his own body and needed to feed on others, so Moira locked him away and began to search for a way to neutralize the mutant gene. That’s a big no-no for Magneto and he sent his Sentinels to destroy Muir Island, but Moira and Kevin escaped to become the most wanted human and the most wanted mutant in the world respectively.

Meanwhile, Mutant X takes Beak to her apartment and he thinks she’s finally come to her senses. Mutant X tells him otherwise and demands that he explain whom the Exiles are as he feels something kind of kindred with them. Beak still doesn’t get it, but Mutant X explains it all to him and demands his answers. He could easily just jump into Beak’s body and find out what’s up, but he’s sure that Beak will just burn out right away while Angel is lasting awhile.

Sabretooth wants to go save Beak but they first do a quick check with Heather about Moira. Heather explains that Moira would be dead in the normal version, but everything else she has said rings true about her and Kevin. The priest that runs the homeless shelter comes over to ask the Exiles to leave, as their mutant presence is disturbing the disadvantaged sapiens. Moira tells him that they’ll leave, but that’s when a drill comes up through the ground and right into the father.

The Sentinels have found Moira and are tearing through the homeless shelter to get to her, coming right out of the ground. A fight breaks out as the Exiles try to get people to safety and take out the Sentinel. The Sentinels, however, just blast anyone and everything and Blink realizes that this place isn’t a utopia at all. So since the Sentinels are robots, she doesn’t have to pull her punches and teleports them into pieces and then into space. She can’t even remember the last time she was happy, she’s sick of being lied to and manipulated and watching her friends get hurt. Everything is being taken away from her.

Sabretooth, her father figure, hates the man that she loves. Calvin’s beautiful face is now gristle and meat thanks to Deadpool. Sure she can look past it, but still! Why does it just keep happening? Morph makes a joke about being able to accept Magneto as leader and mutants in the majority, but Sentinels coming out of the floor instead of the ceiling is just wrong! Blink returns and takes out the last Sentinel, grabbing Moira and explaining that they’re going after Beak.

Moira begins to explain Mutant X’s powers. He can temporarily suspend the basic laws of physics to warp reality to his sick whim; only the things that they’re suddenly seeing on the street are a little more ostentatious though. Buildings are changing, people are twisting, and basically everything around them is just going topsy turvey. Kevin’s powers, however, consume his body so he’s forced to jump to different host bodies, but when he possesses someone it instantly kills the host. So they should all stay at least ten feet away, and Kevin’s only weakness is the touch of metal.

Good to know because Mutant X has found them!

Review: Another issue to go before I find out if my prediction about the fate of my favorite character comes true! It’s very tense and I’m very worried. It just seems kind of silly. Mimic is the only one with a power that directly prevents Proteus from taking over his body…but I can’t help but get the nagging feeling that it’s finally time for the reason I started buying Exiles to bite the dust. Well, I guess I’ll just have to suck it up and wait and see…

Anyway, great issue. I guess it was mostly just explanation, refamiliarizing everyone with Proteus and trying to get us to be afraid of him and be afraid about what he might be able to do. Like I just said, I know I’m afraid. So this was kind of just a normal read, really only explaining Proteus and Moira MacTaggert and preparing us for the first of what I assume will be many showdowns between the Exiles and Proteus on their World Tour. I first met both characters on the X-Men cartoon show, so I remember them very well.

The standout of this issue was Blink and her narration. Maybe she’ll join Sabretooth’s point of view in just going home and not bothering with the other realities anymore. I mean, is Morph’s sense of heroism and self-sacrifice so strong that he’s willing to torture his friends just to feel good about it all? I mean, the previews have already declared that more Exiles will die (or at least leave, I think leave instead of die). So how exactly will they justify continuing as the Exiles when someone dies? Are they really just going to shrug off the death of Mimic? Although my theory is that they’ll chase after Proteus to save Mimic, but we’ll see.

Chasing Proteus does keep the story going without having to face these important questions, but I think an issue where they discuss the paths that they could take would be good. Sabretooth made a lot of sense in his defense of the House of M, especially since nobody in the actually House of M book is defending the new world, at least not seriously. Spider-Woman tried but Wolverine just made fun of her. I wish I could use this space to rant about the House of M, but whatever, at least Exiles is still good!

And they’ve gotta be kidding me, nobody has heard of Moira MacTaggert? Not even Mimic or Morph? That’s just too much of a stretch considering their worlds. I know it technically could happen, but it just doesn’t click with me.