Synopsis / Summary / Plot
The Exiles have just returned from the Arabian Nights reality of Caliph Doom to Marvel Earth and landed in New Jersey when they are confronted by another team of Exiles led by ex-member Khan who they thought was dead. And the other bunch don't look friendly.
Blink asks Kamala Khan what's happening. Khan says that Blink's team must come with them, willingly or not. Some of her other new Exiles just want to cut straight to the fighting. Iron Lad notes that they each seem to have a specially chosen counterpart on the other side (except add-on partner Becky Barnes). Finally Khan unleashes her forces.
Khan attacks Blink, explaining that she's been promised she'll get her daughter back. (All the Exiles are prevented from returning to their own realities, including Khan.) She's sorry but she'll do anything for that. On the other hand Blink's heart isn't really into fighting her friend and she's fairly quickly knocked out.
Valkyrie has to fight a silent skeleton of Thor, possibly the dead 1 from her own timeline. She can't bring herself to strike the legend and is blasted by lightning from Thor's hammer.
T'Challa is taken on by a masked warrior called Killmonger. He is taken aback when she unmasks as his sister Shuri, and blasted by her Panther-gun. The alternate-reality sister stands over his body and says he'll soon be as dead as *her* brother is.
Captain America (Peggy Carter) and Becky Barnes are cornered by a hulking brute who is just about recognisable as Steve Rogers. He turns out to have been given a gamma serum by Nazi Germany. Peggy fights defensively until Steve tags Becky.
Cartoon Wolvie is matched against X-2/3rds, claws vs claws. But he just wants to make friends so she easily slashes and stabs him.
Iron Lad is up against a Kang with jet boots and palm blasters like his own. They both unmask to reveal they are both versions of Nathaniel Richards (not Mr Fantastic's dad but his future namesake who became Kang). This 1 calls himself Iron Prince. He's a version who accepted Kang's offer to be trained by him (which Iron Lad turned down in #1). As he defeats his weaker foe he reveals that the Watchers are going to let him return to his own timeline where he intends to defeat his future self Kang and replace him.
Our side are all down. Khan has a Tallus on her arm just like Blink and intends to use it to take them all to the waiting Watchers. But Blink is just about awake enough to teleport her team to safety on a small offshore island.
They compare notes while T'Challa uses healing herbs to reinvigorate Blink, and maybe some others. They now know that the rogue Watchers from previous issues sent their attackers to capture them, and seem to have promised them all a way home. Blink says they'll be ready for Khan's next assault. But Captain America expects them to use a different tactic. This isn't Blink's world but she's made a home here so they'll probably take her friends hostage.
Blink immediately takes them to 'Aunt' Sandra's house where it turns out Cap was right. Sandra tells Blink not to give in. Clarice tries to reach the Kamala she knew, who she thought died (#5). Khan says the Watchers showed her a timeline where her husband and daughter are alive, and they can send her there. Each of her Exiles have been promised the same thing. Blink promises that her team will come quietly if they let Sandra go. Khan is ready to trust her word. But the rest of her team *want* another fight ...
... and they get it. The bad guys try to attack their own counterparts again but Blink suggests the old switcheroo tactic.
Iron Lad and T'Challa pick on skele-Thor but don't fare very well against his hammer and lightning. But Nate Richards deduces that the skeleton is held together by the lightning. He tells the 'Western' crackshot to put a Wakandan vibranium bullet through Thor's left eye socket and he'll hit it with a repulsor blast at the right moment. And Thor collapses in a heap of bones.
The superstrong Asgardian Valkyrie attacks Steve-Hulk but is also beset by Iron Prince. The Captain pulls her cloak off so she wraps it round his head to blind him. Her fist easily smashes through IP's armour and she punches out the other guy.
Becky is fending off X-2/3's claws when Shuri fires her Panther blaster at Peggy. Who deflects it with her shield to take out X-2/3. Our pair then turn to face Killmonger. Cap asks their foe to surrender. When Shuri refuses Peggy throws her shield to knock her out.
Blink and Wolvie (recovered from all the stabbing) are just trying to convince Khan that what she's doing is wrong. And because she's a good person they succeed. And then Khan's Tallus takes them away to meet their fate.
Blink remembers that Iron Prince said the Watchers were on the Moon. So she suggests that her team go there to sort things out.