Exceptional X-Men —Ewing/Carnero— “Keep the Next Generation of Mutantkind Alive”

[Digifiend]

The team is pretty weird. It's a Juggernaut legacy, Escapade, Blade's daughter, Aaron Fischer (the gay Captain America legacy) and Moon Girl. I might be forgetting someone.

Yeah, Red Goblin.

[Technopriest]

But you cannot do that with Emma and Kitty around. That isn't a tweaked premise, but a straight up deletion. NYX is supposed to be the young adult mutants figuring out things on their own. That means you cannot have the seasoned X-Men around to offer them advice or assistance.

I meant tweak Exceptional. If you combine the casts, NYX doesn't exist so it's premise doesn't matter.

[skyvolt2000]

There will be over a dozen "X" books every month, if someone's fave is not in a book it is not because one of the many rotating books decided to focus on one of the aspects of X-Men comics that a lot of people do like, it is because no one wanted to use them.

That is not always true.

You have writers who have tried to use or do something with characters and got constantly shot down. Ask Vita and Leah.

Heck ask Redjack and his battles with pitches. Especially with Blue Marvel.
Ask Priest who DC would NOT stop offering him black characters despite his resume.
That last Nadia book we saw that was originally a REJECTED Bumblebee pitch from DC.
Ask Gail Simone and who she wanted to use in Birds of Prey.
We won't talk McDuffie's JLA run that made him miserable.
Heroes in Crisis-that was NOT the book Tom King pitched. He was given a list of character to butcher including Red Arrow.

All these writers can tell you how many times they got told NO. And many of those pitches become Image or Boom books.

Here is the issue with this-there are TONS of mutants already existing that have NOT had any training or we never saw them get trained in X-Academy.

It doesn't take much to go to Marvel wiki to find them like Shane Shooter from Jubliee's solo.


You can not keep making more and bloat the ship. Because sooner or later you will get the following-


1) Fan disinterest. Looking at history-the fates of those 3 does not look good.

2) FAN resentment. One of these new guys catch on and there is an investment. YES you are going to see resentment by others who never got that investment like STORM and others who have been around for years and we are still waiting?

[Kingdom X]

I'm withholding judgement on all of the new books until we're done with Krakoa. For a flagship this cast is very small, so I'm guessing we'll have to wait until the end until we get a better idea of where all the mutants end up, seeing how there are a lot of mutants that don't have "homes" yet. That said there is nothing wrong with the premise of the book if Kitty's role in the current event is over as of now, since she's clearly in a broken state of mind.

Yeah it’s weird that Breevort described this as the “school” book when really it’s giving… after school tutoring. Also does anyone find it odd that Emma is fine just being a teacher in the new era? For Kate it makes sense she’s wanting to step away from the superhero life. But Emma has been defacto leader of the Krakoan resistance and recently got a spot on the Illuminati. This all just feels so small scale.

[OBrianTallent]

I could understand adding one new character....my pick would have been Bronze, she seems to be the most interesting character in the new lot...but then add some of the kids from the other series...Cipher or Pixie or Hellion or Cannonball, Sunspot, Richtor...or I could name about a hundred other mutants that dont seem to be anywhere that could use community and maybe training. I will give the book a go and see how it is, I do love Kitty and Emma interacting together. They have an odd relationship. We didn't need any more new mutants really.

[MythicalChicken]

I saw the subject and thought! “and, Lo! Lord Ewing has not abandoned us!” And here we are. Sad face.

This sounds like such a rehash of mechanix it hurts.

[berserkerclaw]

I wonder if thier are more teachers. Emma and Kitty thats it? Maybe Colossus can be a teacher too or somw of the New Mutants thst be nice

[Til]

I have to be honest: I have zero interest in this series. I've never been a big fan of Kitty, and a trio of new characters does nothing for me. I might give the first issue a try but I haven't decided for sure yet. It's also weird to me that this is being promoted as a flagship title. Kitty, Emma and three randos hanging out in Chicago doesn't scream, "Flagship X-Men comic!" to me.

[cranger]

That is not always true.

You have writers who have tried to use or do something with characters and got constantly shot down. Ask Vita and Leah.

Heck ask Redjack and his battles with pitches. Especially with Blue Marvel.
Ask Priest who DC would NOT stop offering him black characters despite his resume.
That last Nadia book we saw that was originally a REJECTED Bumblebee pitch from DC.
Ask Gail Simone and who she wanted to use in Birds of Prey.
We won't talk McDuffie's JLA run that made him miserable.
Heroes in Crisis-that was NOT the book Tom King pitched. He was given a list of character to butcher including Red Arrow.

All these writers can tell you how many times they got told NO. And many of those pitches become Image or Boom books.

Here is the issue with this-there are TONS of mutants already existing that have NOT had any training or we never saw them get trained in X-Academy.

It doesn't take much to go to Marvel wiki to find them like Shane Shooter from Jubliee's solo.


You can not keep making more and bloat the ship. Because sooner or later you will get the following-


1) Fan disinterest. Looking at history-the fates of those 3 does not look good.

2) FAN resentment. One of these new guys catch on and there is an investment. YES you are going to see resentment by others who never got that investment like STORM and others who have been around for years and we are still waiting?

Listen, some editor or whoever blocking the use of the character does not change what I said, it just adds to it: the character was not going to get uses regardless of how many new characters get created.

And fans who resent things because their pet character gets ignored will claim to resent everything and were never going to bother with anything that was not their fave and it does not affect the rest of the buying audience.

As for waiting for some character to get invested in? That is not how it works. That is like waiting for your favorite canceled TV show to come back even though it never will and hating every new show that gets aired. While some obscure or ignored characters pop up again or might even catch a break, for the most part people who think characters are any different are in the vast minority and their resentment does not matter to anyone else.

[Frontier]

They mention "dating" so I wonder if Kitty will have a love interest outside the team or we'll just get a montage of her going on failed dates.

Actually will she still be doing the day job and relationships outside the mentoring?

So going off of the info about the book calling her Kitty rather than Kate, I guess that she’s done with the whole unexplained Kate phase that she was going through throughout Krakoa. Hopefully she also feels less like someone going through a midlife crisis with this book.

I get the sense she's probably going to retake going by "Kitty" and Emma will probably be the only person who still calls her Kate or Katherine.

Tbh I don't think we even need to tell stories about new people coming into their own and becoming experienced X-Men. There's a 99% chance that their journey will be cut short and not amount to anything, because they'll just be demoted to wallpaper. For veteran fans, they know not to get attached to these characters because they're doomed. I can see the value of having a newcomer to help new audiences, but we don't need three of them. That's just taking up space and making it harder for each of them to shine individually.

Like I know it's a classic X-Men story idea, but the franchise clearly can't handle it. You don't need to compound a bigger issue (an overly large cast that's being neglected) to tell a story that everyone's already read and will likely not be satisfying.

EDIT: And I like the writer. I read her Champions and I'm one of the few people who read her Ironheart. They were good. But I don't think she'll do anything groundbreaking, especially under a franchise that's going to put a lot of limits on what she can do. At best, I expect the characters to have sympathetic stories that make me enjoy them to an extent, but they'll otherwise be a novelty to put on the shelf.

Ewing is a solid writer. If this is close to Champions level, I think it'll be an okay book.

[RAWRlrus]

I have to be honest: I have zero interest in this series. I've never been a big fan of Kitty, and a trio of new characters does nothing for me. I might give the first issue a try but I haven't decided for sure yet. It's also weird to me that this is being promoted as a flagship title. Kitty, Emma and three randos hanging out in Chicago doesn't scream, "Flagship X-Men comic!" to me.

We keep getting told it's a flagship but it really doesn't feel so. It's coming out last of the three but it feels like we heard more about both Adjectiveless and Uncanny shortly after they were announced while it took much longer for Exceptional. Both Adjectiveless and Uncanny will also have 18 issues a year but nothing like that for Exceptional.

[mattsarchamp]

I adore the White Queen and all but I'm so underwhelmed in this rosters. I hope they expand down the line.

Why not flesh out some characters like Petra and Sway? I think in someway somehow, they were resurrected along with other mutants like Archangel.

[Zoks]

I adore the White Queen and all but I'm so underwhelmed in this rosters. I hope they expand down the line.

Why not flesh out some characters like Petra and Sway? I think in someway somehow, they were resurrected along with other mutants like Archangel.

Feint should be in that age group if anybody remembers to use her again.

[RamaBird]

Add me on to list of people who are saying this will be cancelled within a year.

Brevoort said he didn’t want time travelers like Cable and Bishop at first to simplify things. Well he should’ve put this same rule to apply to new characters. One new character is fine but three?!

Look at Krakoa and Arrako. We got lots of new characters too but they came later and they weren’t front and center in the main books right off the bat. All the Krakoa/Arrako new characters are spaced out or not made main cast members right off the bat. That’s why nobody is complaining about Arrako having so many new characters. They were introduced correctly.

I see this book having a fate similar to “Children of the Atom” another teen book with all new characters in main roles that got cancelled rather quickly.

As an Emma fan, I’m pissed this is her hook.

With XMen 97 ending, some of us x fans are about to go through a drought.

I also find it disingenuous that they put a minority writer on a doomed book.

[Factor]

I wonder if thier are more teachers. Emma and Kitty thats it? Maybe Colossus can be a teacher too or somw of the New Mutants thst be nice

I don’t know if that would be good for the character. I was hoping he’d get to join a team like Excalibur with a more fantasy/adventure vibe. He needs a palate cleanser after all the Kitty and Mikhail drama.
Synch would be my top pick for a third teacher. He used to be one of Emma’s top students and now he’s come full circle as a leader. He could give some legitimacy to this underwhelming cast.