In the first story the Exiles are instructed to essentially allow the genocide of an entire race of people. On the surface, that's an interesting idea to explore. From Winick's previous books we've seen that sometimes fixing a reality requires doing something which on the surface looks horrible-but in this book the story just ends abruptly. We have no idea what the outcome was, or why the characters were supposed to do that. On top of that none of the characters act like themselves, and there are no repercussions for their actions (at least not in this book).
The second story is even worse. Austin has the Exiles pop into the "real" Marvel Universe, basically right into the middle of a plot he was doing in Uncanny X-Men. The Exiles act even less like themselves, and the plot they're involved with is just stupid (and the "real" X-Men don't act like themselves either). On top of that, for no apparent reason Austin tries to claim all the events in the Exiles series actually revolve around a character from Uncanny X-Men.
The only redeeming quality this book has is the possibility that in the sixth book Judd Winick might do something clever with the mess made here. Again, the previous four books are excellent. Very, very fun if the idea of combining the X-Men with Sliders or Quantum Leap appeals to you. It's just this fifth book that's a big let down.
