The first series ran for one hundred issues (absolutely unheard of in Marvel today) and is considered by many to be a classic that is unmatched across the multiverse...at least until Chris Claremont came in for the final leg of the story and turned it into the "Psylocke and all her friends" show.
And people say that Wolverine is a publicity hound.
But while people did come and go (and they did come and go a lot), the Exiles had all been removed from their own timelines and universes in order to go trekking around the multiverse to set right what once went wrong, and hope that each leap would be the leap home. Also, unlike most of comic books...deaths tended to stick. Anyone could and would die, often in rather horrifying ways even for comic books, and they didn't come back...at least not without (usually) a very, very good reason.
It was something unlike any other. If you want to get a good look at the series overall, I'd recommend checking out Linkara's massive retrospective on the entire series up until the end of the six issues of Exiles Vol. 2, which is where I admit that I ever heard of the Exiles to begin with. So, thanks, Linkara! But I'm not here to talk up somebody else's work, but rather tear apart somebody else's work. When I heard that 2018 would bring us a new Exiles comic, I was ecstatic!
...then the pre-release images came out of Blink looking awful.
And of a male version of Kamala Khan and...a Chibi Wolverine?! What the fu-?!
So, naturally, I was more than a bit confused - as I know many were - as to what in the actual hell was going on. Given the fact that it was the multiversal nature of Exiles, I thought I'd go ahead and check it out...and I did, which brings us to the New New Exiles.
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| "I killed Uatu, and all I got were these sexy chains." |
Luckily for us, Psylocke and Sabertooth are no longer here, and Chris Claremont isn't around to absolutely glorify them and throw out utterly confusing bullshit at the cost of explaining anything that was going on. Unluckily for us...we're in an era of Marvel that's still transferring from the Axel Alonso days of...just...not good stuff. That's not to say there hasn't been some good. I've most recently been praising Jason Aaron's Doctor Strange run in particular, and it's been consistently been pretty good up to the time of this writing (the reboot at #1 isn't looking too promising, though). But, for the most part...yeah, Marvel has been putting itself through the ringer.
Bad artwork.
Bad writing.
And endless company-wide crossover events. There is no point to having six events every year. Not one point. Even DC learned (mostly) that this is a bad idea.
But does Exiles survive the three big problems of Marvel? Does it manage to transcend itself from that muck and create something truly beautiful?
Well, if we're going by just the first issue, it definitely avoids having company-wide crossover events!
Issue #1 begins on the Moon with "the Unseen", the final form of the 616 Nick Fury as seen at the end of Original Sin and Unworthy Thor (both of which I'll be tearing into at some point in the future). Looking over the Earth like a hooded, S&M version of Rita Repulsa, he exposits on his backstory and on some great evil known as the Time-Eater which is travelling from parallel Earth to parallel Earth and destroying them.
And then, another Nick Fury shows up with a Tallus - the wrist-mounted device that lets the Exiles go from universe to universe. The two don't converse, per se, but it seems that the newly-arrived Nick Fury is dying and has the intention of leaving the Tallus for "the kid and her pals". The Unseen witnesses his past/alternate self die,. but not before Nick gives off one more quip and then the Tallus begins to call out...to Blink.
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| Right: You Left: The Mutant He Tells You Not To Worry About |
Clarice Ferguson, who is enjoying some time in the Bahamas with her Aunt Sandra (a version of her, anyway) when the Tallus calls and mucks that up for her. She travels to the moon and, in the ruins of Uatu's fortress, she meets the Unseen, who catches her up to speed on what's going on - essentially, the Time-Eater is eating time and Blink has been chosen to save the multiverse yet again because of brand recogni-I mean, the Tallus recognizes her as a stalwart defender of the multiverse who is the only one who can keep time from unraveling.
The Tallus snatches her away before formal protest, and she ends up in a post-apocalyptic future where the Inhumans are apparently running warrior gangs. Before we get too much more detail, though, Clarice is rendered unconscious and we get to meet KHAAAAAAAAAAAAN! That is, the male version of Kamala Khan featured on the cover.
Both Khan's design and the scene in which he's introduced look very much a homage to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which was either intentional or...no, no, I'm pretty sure it was intentional. Khan looks very much like a young Ricardo Montalban, and he's ruling over a pack of outcasts from a bunker that looks like the Botany Bay. Jersey City is an Inhuman safe zone, he says, and demands to know what Clarice wants. So she tells him.
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| "THIS IS CETI ALPHA FIVE!!!" |
As his people and his world are obliterated by the white hot fire, Khan and Clarice are pulled away by the Tallus and end up in Blade Runner City #7488, where Clarice gives some exposition on the Exiles and their purpose, and they meet up with young Nate Richards, aka "Iron Lad". He's sixteen, connected to the Marvel supervillain Kang (loooooong story there for those who aren't in the know), and is busy using his advanced technological marvel of a suit that was developed by Kang to...mess with some of his former bullies.
...oh, don't pretend that that isn't the first thing you'd do if you got superpowers!
After Iron Lad gets them caught up on his backstory, Kang attacks...just in time for the end of the universe. Before the Tallus can teleport our three heroes away, however...we see the terror that is going to plague our nightmares for the rest of our lives. The deadly foe that has been consuming the multiverse, going from world to world and gobbling up everyone and everything in those spaces. The unspeakable Time-Eater...the being that is such a threat to the multiverse that Nick Fury broke time just to get the Tallus to Blink in the hope that she could stop it...
...is a floating Galactus Head with glowing eyes.
...what?!
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| ...what?! |
I joked on Twitter about this, but this really does feel like a reveal that should have been done several issues in, if not at the end of the arc. Why now? Well, after reading over the comic, I realize something - it's...all exposition. It's literally throwing information out there to set up a status quo that isn't even fully set up yet because we still haven't met two of our main cast members.
Yeah, despite prominent featuring on the cover - both Chibi Wolverine and Valkyrie in the style of the MCU do not actually appear in this comic, although Valkyrie is prominently featured in the solicits for Issue #2.
It wreaks of desperation, as though they didn't have a good enough story to tell and thus thought they needed to pull out the Final Boss tease early, and there was just no reason to do so. Things are scarier the less you see of it. The Unseen's narration talking about the destructive power of the Time-Eater and seeing the effects it had on various parallel Earths was more than enough to suffice - feeling its presence without actually needing to see it was more than enough to make the threat dire and make us want to see our heroes band together and succeed.
Except...even with the exposition, we don't really know anything about our heroes. Khan's a freedom fighter trying to defend Jersey, and Iron Lad is...well, a realistic depiction of a teenager with a high-tech suit. Other than that? Nothing. We know Blink because she's the same character from the previous volumes of Exiles that we've come to love. Other than that? The whole first issue is basically blurting out the entire story without any attempt at weaving it into the narrative or any sort of subtlety.
That being said, it has been almost a decade since the last time the Exiles were up and at 'em, and it is a new creative team. The writer, Saladin Ahmed, hasn't come up on my radar before this - although I've heard mixed things about his Black Bolt run. It is a bit of a leap going from the Inhumans to multiversal mania, any one who isn't Steven Moffat I'd be a little wary of. And doubly wary of Moffat.
...then again, he's not showrunner for Doctor Who anymore, he'd be a shoe-in for this.
...nevermind. Let's not give him any ideas, shall we?
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| "Ah, damn! Xavier didn't give me dental!" |
Getting back on topic, though, all that Issue #1 is is blunt-force expository trauma. Is it so bad that it can't be salvaged from this point? No. Is it good? Not really. Will it be salvaged? Given how Chibi Wolverine is apparently a thing, I'm having some severe doubts. The design choices are questionable - particularly Blink who is looking less like she did before and more like a teenage street punk with bad taste in hair dye (please, Marvel, let women have long hair again! C'mon!) - and Iron Lad looks like a cross between Iron Man and the Vision, though I admit I'm not familiar with the other versions of him enough to know whether this is intentional or is echoing the MCU.
Speaking of MCU echoes, we all knew that Valkyrie from Ragnarok was going to show up in the comics somewhere. Get over it.
The writing is...not great and leans way too heavily on getting information out without trying to make me care about it, and the reveal of the Time-Eater is...almost laughable, honestly. I get that Galactus is a major threat to the universe no matter which one that he's in, but a skeletal head of him with glowing eyes and a gaping maw? And we're supposed to be intimidated by this?
C'mon. Seriously?
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| "If you don't eat yer meat, you can't save the multiverse..." |
However, in spite of all the issues, I'm still exercising my "in three issues" rule. If it's improved by Issue #3, then it will likely join my pick ups for the forseeable future. And it's a good thing, too, seeing as my current ones have been reduced to Doctor Strange, Deadpool, and Scarlet Spider.
Possibly Domino if it remains any good.
We'll see. Cautious optimism. Bit of a nasty first step for the new run, though.
Exiles #1 (2018) is now available from Marvel Comics. Written by Saladin Ahmed, penciled by Javier Rodriguez, inked by Alvaro Lopez, colored by Jordie Bellaire (and by Javier Rodriguez) for page 4), with lettering done by Joe Caramagna and the cover done by David Marquez & Matthew Wilson.
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