Earn your Wings

• Writer - Tony Bedard
• Artist - Mizuki Sakakibara
• Lettering - Dave Sharpe
• Ass't Editor - Cory Sedlmeier
• Ass't Editor - Stephannie Moore
• Editor - Mike Marts
• Editor in Chief - Joe Quesada
• Colorist - JC

Summary

  In Namora's universe, she killed the Fantastic Four forty years ago. Namor is impatient and wants to hunt down the Exiles, but Reed wants to figure out what they're up against. Namora tells her story: as a child she often explored alone, thinking herself indestructible. She was attacked by a shark and tore it apart with her hands; she was the first mutant in Atlantis.

  Eight years later Attuma was the second, and he rebelled against and killed Queen Dorma and laughed when Namora challenged him, but stopped laughing when she killed him. She was given the Coral Throne and ruled peacefully for years, till two global wars and some atomic bomb tests convinced her the surface world was too dangerous to live next to. She prepared an invasion but was dissuaded by Xavier, appearing telepathically. She befriended the early X-Men, but all was ruined when Magneto attacked an air force base (cf. X-Men I:1). All mutants were arrested, and Xavier trusted the justice system and didn't fight back. The only super beings to protest were the Fantastic Four.

  Meanwhile, Ben and Johnny keep watch from atop a nearby skyscraper. The Exiles pop in and try to figure out how to get into the Baxter Building without starting a fight. Heather suggests they just finish their mission and jump to the next world, but they still don't understand it. Beak offers to act as mediator; Calvin says they just brought him so he wouldn't blab to the X-Men, but T.J. thinks he has a good idea.

  Sue doesn't like Namora making eyes at her husband and doesn't believe her; for instance, she ruled for decades before killing Reed forty years ago. Namora confirms she's 104 years old and continues her story:

  Namora led an attack and killed the super-beings who were rounding up the mutants. Ironically, it was now the Fantastic Four who rallied the humans in the Sahara and stymied her, till she lured Ben and Johnny to the Marianas Trench; Reed and Sue followed, and all were killed. She regrets the deaths but thinks of that battle as her finest hour.

  Beak rings the doorbell while the Exiles wait impatiently on a rooftop. Ben and Johnny find them there and attack.

  Beak vouches for the Exiles, and Reed agrees to meet them, to determine how to free them from the Timebroker, but then Ben and Heather crash through the wall, and the battle continues indoors. Namora's container breaks, and she joins in; Sue has hit her head, and Beak is upset he didn't convince them faster.