For whatever reason, in 1998 Marvel decided their Annuals would be mash-ups of two different titles. I think the most well-known is Joe Kelly's Daredevil/Deadpool which revolves around both characters' complicated relationships with Typhoid Mary, but there's also this, the conclusion of the 5-part "Siege of Wundagore" story that ran between Heroes for Hire and Quicksilver. While the latter title started out written by Tom Peyer, Ostrander had taken over, co-writing with Joe Edkin, in issue 7.
It's basically one huge fight, with shifting loyalties constantly. The High Evolutionary's gone mad with power, amped up on something called "Isotope E", which is contained in the glowy green thing Pietro's holding. He was fighting Exodus and thee Acolytes for control of the mountain, but there's also his traitorous creation the Man-Beast lurking around. The Heroes for Hire keeping sliding around on the evolutionary scale, from apes to humans and back. The Acolytes decide to help the H4H, following Quicksilver's lead. Exodus, Thena and Man-Beast combine mental powers to down the Evolutionary, though White Tiger nearly kiboshes the thing trying to fulfill her purpose and kill Man-Beast. The Black Knight and Exodus have it out, because Dane was Exodus' friend at some point centuries ago, when he inhabited an ancestor's body.
There's a lot going on, but other than the White Tiger thread, very little of it relates to the Heroes for Hire. The main thing for Pietro is he rejects both the power Isotope E grants him, and the Acolytes' offer to follow him, in one of his periodic, "I am not my father" phases. Father, in this case, being Magneto. I forget who Marvel (was it Remender in Uncanny Avengers?) changed it to a few years ago. The Evolutionary?
Having four inkers on a single issue is rarely a good sign, and Ferry's art varies as wildly as you'd expect from that. Especially when White Tiger is fighting Man-Beast, it gets hard to tell which is which in the panels of their faces, and Tiger looks a lot more like a gorilla than something evolved from a tiger should. It's interesting to see how he draws Quicksilver, though, because sometimes Pietro's running, and other times he tucks his legs into his chest like he's doing a cannonball and sort of zips along a couple of feet above the ground. Not sure how that works, and I've never seen any other artist do that with a speedster.
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