Exiles #85

Exiles #85
A fun issue, for all that it has very little substance at all. Most of the issue is spent on setting up the plot, and by the time we actually get around to said plot, there's not much room left for it, so we get an extremely abbreviated fight scene, which is supposed to be representative of a similar situation which has occurred numerous times before.
Here's how it is. The timebreakers want control back, so they recruit an all Wolverine team, with the notable inclusion of Wolverine from Days of Future Past. They send the team to Dark Phoenix (the city) to take down an amalgamation of Earth 127's Magneto (Female), Scarlet Sorceror (Male), Quicksilver (Female), Mesmero, and Wolverine. DoFP Wolvie realizes that the timebreakers have tried sending an all Logan team several times before, but all those teams have falen under the thrall of this "Brother Mutant". So he petitions the timebreakers to allow him access to the crystal palace, and ends up recruiting the old team of Exiles to help him out. It would be a more satisfying issue if I could place all the Wolverines, other than the ones recruited this issue, and it would be nice if we could be told how each reality differs from ours. The recruits this issue come from Earths 181 (the same reality as the evil Daredevil), 520(Wolverine from Weapon X - which seems to be identical to 616 for all given purposes), 811 (DoFP), 1880(young James Howlett - also seems identical to 616), 5211(again, no dissimilarities from the Albert (and Elsie-Dee) of 616 - since at one point the pair had some time-traveling adventures, it's possible they're the same ones.), and Z (Marvel Zombies, aka Earth 2149). Like I said, very little info is given besides that - at least nothing which helps me to place each Earth into Marvel publishing history. Somebody should publish a companion book, or a listing of alternate Earths, or something.
[I just placed one of the Wolverines...Mean (Earth 5311), or, "The Fiend-with-No-Name" whose universe was created by Kitty Pryde's imagination in Uncanny X-Men #153, then later in Nightcrawler (Volume 1) #3-4.]
Whatever, so it's an OKAY issue for what Bedard is trying to do...namely, kill time until Claremont is well enough to return or decides that he won't be coming back. Until then, Bedard seems to be under editorial mandate to not do anything which can't be undone. Which shouldn't really be a problem for this book anyways.
Still, he's written better.
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