BLACK KNIGHT: EXODUS

Stan Lee Presents: Dane Whitman, Master of the Ebony Blade
"THE BOND"
Writer Ben Raab | Penciler: Jimmy Cheung | Inker: Andy Lanning
Lettering: Richard Starkings and Comicraft | Colors: Tom Zuiko
Editor: Kelly Corvese | Editor in Chief: Bob Harras

The Plot: In another dimension, Sersi attempts to open a portal to bring herself and the Black Knight home. They're both enveloped by light and then awaken in the twelfth century, where the Black Knight inhabits the body of his ancestor, Sir Eobar Garrington, in Egypt searching for an "Eternal Pharaoh" alongside his best friend, Bennett du Paris. Sersi catches up with the Knight and he recognizes her. That night, one of Garrington's men informs him that Paris has left. The Black Knight and Sersi head out to find him.

Meanwhile, Paris battles a humanoid/insect creature in the desert, and he unleashes his mutant power to defeat it -- then he vanishes. Sersi, meanwhile, fills Garrington in on her past with his descendant, Dane Whitman. Garrington realizes that he must turn his body over to Dane, and so allows his spirit to depart. Dane assumes control of Garrington, then he and Sersi are attacked by one of Garrington's former allies, Sahreed -- who reveals himself as a mutant in the service of the Eternal Pharaoh. Then a gigantic citadel appears, from which emerges the Eternal Pharaoh himself, Apocalypse. Apocalypse says that he has rewarded Paris with great power, and then later inside the citadel's dungeon, Paris -- now calling himself Exodus -- visits with Sersi and the Black Knight. He challenges the Knight to a duel and takes him away, leaving Sersi behind. But she immediately breaks free of her bonds and follows the pair.

As Apocalypse watches, the Black Knight and Exodus begin their fight. Exodus outmatches the Knight, but Sersi appears and mindblasts him. He overcomes her power and takes her down, and Apocalypse orders Exodus to kill them both -- but Exodus refuses to serve his new master and attacks Apocalypse instead. The villain then vanishes, and Exodus disappears with him. But six months later, the Black Knight and Sersi, along with two of the Knight's crusaders, find Exodus in suspended animation inside a tomb created by Apocalypse. The Knight's allies swear to guard the tomb with their lives forever, then the Knight and Sersi embrace and disappear, apparently bound for home at last.

Continuity Notes: The sole footnote in this issue points to UNCANNY X-MEN #307 as the moment when the Black Knight recognized Exodus.

But there's more going on here than just that, of course! This issue is actually fairly laden with coninuity, even besides the obvious "Apocalypse created Exodus." As described above, the story opens with Black Knight and Sersi trapped in a sort of void. There's nothing around; just the two of them. Which jibes perfectly with their departure as conceived by Bob Harras and Steve Epting in AVENGERS 375 -- but does not seem to fit with their published histories in the interim. As I mentioned at the time, after the couple was written out of AVENGERS, Marvel shunted them into the "Ultraverse", the superhero universe of Malibu Comics, which Marvel acquired (allegedly only for their computer coloring operations) around that time. Black Knight spent a year or more as a member of Ultraforce, with Sersi popping up a few times as well. But based on this story, I'm assuming the Ultraverse stuff is considered apocryphal at this point, and we are meant to understand that Black Knight and Sersi really have simply been residing in the void since we last saw them.

This is actually the second time Dane Whitman has inhabited the body of his ancestor, Eobar Garrington. Sersi recaps the first time it occurred:

And later, she gives Garrington a recap of her time with Dane and the Avengers:

You'll note that above, she mentions the gann josin bond she shares with the Knight. Recall that the bond was actually severed in AVENGERS #374 -- and I commented then that it would be severed again in the ongoing HEROES FOR HIRE series (only about seven months away from its debut at this point) -- but Ben Raab seems to provide a nice bridge to explain how that happens. Here, Sersi implies that the bond still exists; it's simply weakened -- and she's trying to strenghen it in order to get Dane and herself home. By the issue's end we can infer that the bond has indeed been strengthened, because Sersi is apparently able to send the Knight and herself back to their proper time. So the bond being severed a second time in HEROES FOR HIRE would apparently be this newly strengthened iteration.

My Thoughts: I'm... not sure what I just read. It's a story, for sure. About the Black Knight, Exodus, Sersi, and Apocalypse. There's some fighting. Apparently Black Knight and Exodus are best friends, but you wouldn't really know it from the few pages they share together before they get into a fist fight and go their separate ways. And apparently Apocalypse is responsible for Exodus becoming Exodus, which is totally fine and fits with the nature of the X-books in the nineties, when either he or Mister Sinister factored into everyone's origin in one way or another. Oh, and Sersi still loves the Black Knight, and it appears maybe he loves her too, though he never comes out and says it.

So there are a lot of pieces here, but none of them fit together very well. Partly it's because Raab and his collaborator, Jim Cheung, dedicate way too much time to things that ultimately don't matter, like the Black Knight having a guide who turns out to work for Apocalypse, and there being a bunch of unruly characters in the Knight's posse who try to beat up Sersi when she appears. All of this space would've been better served to develop the friendship between the Knight and Paris, to make their eventual falling out and battle feel more momentous. But as it is, we're told that they're friends (literally -- Paris essentially says to Garrington, "As you know, I'm your best friend," and then later Dane yells to Sersi that Paris was his friend) -- but barely shown what that friendship looks like.

So I guess it's nice to have the tease of a relationship between the Black Knight and Exodus resolved a few years after the fact (though I seriously doubt anyone was clamoring for this revelation to the point that it needed its own one-shot), and it's even nicer to have Dane Whitman and Sersi returned to the Marvel Universe proper -- but I feel like the execution is sorely lacking here.

That said, what i do like about this one is Raab's handling of Sersi. He really leans into her Eternal heritage, showing her using mental bolts and demonstrating super-strength on more than one occasion -- two areas where Harras and Epting kind of shirked. Their Sersi flew and transmuted matter, and that was about it. It's nice to see her do some other things here with her broad power set!

Now I have half an inkling to re-read HEROES FOR HIRE and find out what happened next in the lives of our star-crossed lovers. My recollection is that without Harras and Epting to guide them, they just sort of drifted apart. Which is kind of sad; they were really cool together!

Lastly, in a strange way, it feels kind of weird to read this epilogue to the Black Knight/Sersi story in a comic from Marvel's "Digital Age" -- so much of their saga was told in comics published on newsprint, hand-lettered, with more classic style colors -- and now we're suddenly in the era of Comicraft and we have digital letters and colors, and (though I read it digitally), an issue which would have been published on slick, glossy paper. It's only a few years here since AVENGERS 375, but in terms of production values, it feels like a lifetime!