The Sage Saga Part V: Upgrading The Living Computer

Calling Chris Claremont's New Exiles a bit of a convoluted mess might not be too charitable...

But it is the truth.

Fans never were too eager to have Claremont take over Exiles, a book that had been doing just fine under longtime writer Tony Bedard. When Chris took over in issue # 90, he quickly made it his own by bringing in Psylocke, another one of his pet characters. After ten issues, Exiles ended with issue # 100, making way for Claremont to introduce a whole new cast in New Exiles.

One of those New Exiles was Sage, who just recently had all the knowledge of Roma, eternal ruler of the Omniverse, dumped into her mind.

Needless to say, what happened next was Sage getting a little crazy. In almost every issue, she'd have to fight with some incarnation of the evils Roma had been aware of, and even her former fake personality Diana Fox popped back up from time to time.

Its got to be a little confusing when you're fighting in your own mind while also trying to survive the fight on the outside of your skull... Here, Sage takes on bad guys ánd Diana Fox in scenes from New Exiles # 5 and 6.

The Diana Fox persona was subtly trying to take over Sage by influencing her actions in the field.

So, the essence of Roma and a fake personality are fighting to take over her mind... Two mind controlling influences in one single brain. That's pushing it, even for Claremont.

Thankfully, there's also some old fashioned outside mind control to deal with... Meet the mind controller Purge in New Exiles # 10.

Ahhh, vintage Claremont mindcontrol... you have your victims all chained up, nowhere to go, a little sweat, some passionate pleas and a smirking bad guy who assures you that resistance is very futile indeed. Almost makes one nostalgic for the old days....

Despite his best efforts, Claremont never managed to make New Exiles the powerhouse of a title he had hoped it would be. Sales floundered and Marvel decided he'd better wrap things up. Claremont had a lot of ground to cover, especially if he wanted to solve the big drama he had set in motion: the multiverse was destabilising, causing entire realities to literally dissolve into nothingness...

In order to stop the unravelling of all that is, someone had to become one with the living computers of the Panoptichron. Yes, apparently the omniversal observatory the Exiles had been using as their base, was actually the source of the disturbance... That makes about as much sense as believing looking at shooting stars through a telescope won't cause them to burn up in the atmosphere.

Ignoring all that pesky common sense, lets see who volunteered to become the heart and soul of the Panoptichron...

                                                       

Sage herself seems pretty content with her new status quo, Psylocke appears less happy about it in the eighteenth and final issue of New Exiles.

 If anyone is trying to run, its you Sage... Running away from any semblance of common sense, that is. Check out what else she had to say about her new role as the voice of the omniversal GPS tracking system...

"I always wanted to play on a bigger stage. I certainly can't improve on this".

Thus ends the Sage Saga... The tragic tale of a proud, strong woman who valued her personal autonomy above everything else, a woman who had been locked in a struggle for her very sanity with two competing personalities in her own mind... freely gives up everything she is, to serve as the user interface of a computer system.

And to add insult to injury: she wasn't even the system's first choice.

The Sage Saga part IV: Taking A Big, Steaming Info Dump On The Living Computer

Meet Albion, a Brian Braddock from an alternative reality in which World War I didn't end in 1918. Instead, the conflict raged on well into our modern day, ending only when this Brian was given powers by Roma and Merlin. With his superpowers, he managed to end the global conflict, but after decades of brutal and exhausting war, Earth was decimated. This drove Albion over the edge, swearing vengeance on Roma, Merlin and all the alternate Captain Britains because, well...

I dunno, its as good a reason as any to drag him to the 616-reality. Upon his arrival, he caused considerable trouble and Sage devised a way to stop him: by going undercover.

Dying her hair blonde and creating the new identity of Diana Fox, Sage went to join up with Albion and his forces so she could help defeat them from the inside. Smart thinking, but she soon discovered there was something odd about the costume Albion gave her...

A costume that not only shapes your body to be the ultimate weapon, but also mindcontrols you into believing it? If I had one of those, I'd never have to go to the gym again. Still, Sage's computermind sort of kept her own identity intact. But that caused another problem: the Diana Fox persona became a seperate personality in her own mind.

Still, that's not half as bad as it sounds, right? Its not like Sage would do anything rash or give in to the murderous rage and bloodlust all of Albion's other corpsmen seem plagued by...

... Well, maybe yeah, maybe not. Sage, or Britannia as Albion called her, got in a fight with the alternate reality X-men team known as Shadow X... and she didn't think twice to decapitate Cyclops. Oops. After that, Sage pretty much lost control, giving Diana Fox/Britannia free reign. It was only after Captain Britain gave her a stern talking to that she came to her senses again.

"You are Sage". 

That proverbial splash of verbal cold water reset the computer and Sage was Sage again. It was also near the end of New Excalibur, the book got cancelled due to poor sales. The remaining storylines were dealt with in a miniseries called X-men: Die By The Sword and featured a team up with the Claremont-penned otherdimensional Exiles. 

Now, I would be committing a crime against all that is decent and holy if I took the time to provide a full recap of that five issue catastrophe of a miniseries. All you need to now: Mad Jim Jaspers, an old foe of Captain Britain's, had returned to life and was using his reality warping powers to cause incredible destruction in the Omniverse. 

The Exiles and New Excalibur teamed up to stop Jaspers and his allies, but not before one of the bad guys fatally injured Roma, the guardian of all that is, was and will be. Luckily, Roma was able to pass on her knowledge right before she died. 

Who? Ow, three guesses and the first two don't count...

Roma used her final moments to transfer all that she knew about everything that ever was, is and will be in the entire Omniverse... into Sage. Sure, she may have a computer-like mind and can store and analyse data faster than anyone else... But even living computers can be overwhelmed... 

Uploading an Omniverse worth of data into your skull is like force feeding your Windows 3.11 computer the entire internet. Needless to say, Sage didn't react too well....

With New Excalibur coming to a close, Claremont had Sage jump ship so she could join his New Exiles. Her exploits with that team will be the focus of the fifth and final part of the Sage Saga.