Issue(s): Uncanny X-Men #307
Cover Date: Dec 93
Title: "Night and fog"
Credits:
Scott Lobdell - Writer
John Romita Jr. - Penciler
Dan Green - Inker
Lisa Patrick - Assistant Editor
Bob Harras - Editor

Review/plot:
We basically just continue the fights from the last chapter. The headline event is Exodus vs. Sersi.

This could have been an interesting fight. I have an "Avengers are Earth's Mightiest Heroes, dammit!" bias that says that Sersi should have won here, especially when combined with my "who the #!#?@! cares about Exodus?!" bias, but if done well this could have made Exodus seem more intriguing. Instead John Romita draws a couple of panels of the two characters in some energy form and has them floating there shouting at each other. It's unclear exactly how Sersi's matter transformation powers are being utilized here (normally she turns her enemies into pigs) and Exodus' vague 'psionic but mysteriously something more!' powers are extremely unwelcome.

Sersi says that for all his power, Exodus is an "amateur", but he manages to blast her away. As he departs, the Black Knight thinks to himself that he recognizes him.

Sersi, on the other hand, emerges from the wreckage looking pretty unrecognizable.

What's going on, JRJR?

Meanwhile, Quicksilver, with Jean Grey, is searching for Luna and comes across Crystal and the Scarlet Witch.

Quicksilver and Crystal reconcile, with Quicksilver offering to start over as a family.

Then Cortez shows up with Luna as a hostage (and apparently Quicksilver can block Scarlet Witch's hexes with his hand?).

At this point Cortez seems to have given up and is just hoping for protection against Exodus, who shows up next.

The other big event is that the Black Widow withdraws the Avengers from their UN charter.

It's interesting that this was (or wasn't) coordinated to take place in an X-Men issue. It's a pretty big development for the Avengers, and it could have easily been fit into the West Coast Avengers issue, at least. The consequences of this decision are not explored here. It's worth remembering that the Avengers got their UN charter after they lost their US security clearance because one of their members (the Vision) tried to take over the world, and for a while the team was majorly inconvenienced by not having that clearance. Relatedly, the Avengers decision to flaunt their orders and send a contingent to Genosha should have consequences as well. It's not as bad as trying to take over the world, but in real life if a military unit decided to disobey orders and get involved in a country's civil war because it felt like it, that would be a major major scandal. Of course, you don't want to get too wrapped up in what's "realistic" or you destroy the basic conceits of a super-hero universe, which is probably why it's all being swept aside here (not that the UN charter came up much - or at all, really - prior to these issues).

That final Hawkeye picture looks Twitter Meme-ready, by the way.

tfw u told yr boss u shld get a smoke break, & u don't even smoke.

Between the charter development and the establishment of a connection between the Black Knight and Exodus (as uninteresting as that may be), there is a fair amount here for Avengers readers. The latter does probably the most in this crossover to create a new connection between the Avengers and the X-Men that might have enticed readers to stick with the Avengers books, but it's contingent on readers caring about Exodus so i don't think that it was very effective.

A number of pages in this issue are randomly sideways. I get that John Romita wanted to do a "landscape" or "fullscreen" view, but it's one thing when you do an entire issue that way and something else entirely when you have to constantly rotate your comic book to read it. The fact that JRJR is not on the top of his game makes the decision all the more questionable; it's not like he had anything good to show off here.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - Avengers withdraw from UN Charter

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part four of Bloodties. Part five is in Avengers #369.

References:

• Continues from Avengers West Coast #101 and X-Men #26.
  
• The X-Men previously liberated Genosha in X-Tinction Agenda, which started in Uncanny X-Men #270.

Crossover: Bloodties

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Bloodties TPB

This issue came out three weeks late.

About Pietro blocking the Wanda's hexes, it can be the concept that the mutant powers can not hurt the brothers (see Scott and Alex)?

@Midnighter I was just thinking the same thing. I'm not sure how consistently that concept has been applied over the years, and Wanda's powers in particular have been notoriously inconsistently portrayed. But in general, the idea of siblings being able to physically block each other's mutant powers harmlessly would seem to apply here.

Of course, if the twins aren't REALLY mutants (thanks to that awful 2014 retcon), then that might not really apply, but that's neither here nor there.

The Avengers' charter change occurring here really does seem out of place. I'd never considered that before, but that kind of development really should have occurred in one of the Avengers books.

Despite following on pretty directly from the end of the last chapter (with Sersi confronting Exodus), this is really the chapter where it feels like an issue is missing. Cortez goes from at least appearing in control, playing two sides to some fashion, to showing up disheveled in a sewer, desperate for protection against Exodus. That transition seems like something we maybe should have seen.

It might be my "X-bias" by I kinda disagree on the Exodus vs Sersi fight. As "lame" as he was Exodus is an extremely powerful individual capable of taking on whole teams of superbeings. I know Sersi is powerful too (with said powers as equally ill-defined as Exodus's) but I'm just saying don't underestimate Exodus. The big guy's main "flaw" is being an unbalanced fanatic, not anything power-wise.