Originally Posted by
Captain Buttocks
Exiles #1&2 – Down the Rabbit Hole
Exiles #1 was released on the 6th of June 2001, written by Judd Winick with art by Mike McKone. The North American sales charts had it selling 59,786 copies, coming in it at number 17 on the monthly sales charts. Issue 2, released one month later sold 59,139 and charted at number 20. A strong start for the series at a time when a lot of big X-book re-launches were going on.
There has always been a rich appetite amongst X-Men fans for “alternate” versions of characters. The hugely successful Age of Apocalypse crossover introduced Blink, the main character for this series and other memorable characters like AoA Sabretooth and X-Man would have storied careers in future X-books. Winick had wanted to use AoA Morph, but as he perished during the original crossover, basically just used an identical version of the character from a happier alternate universe.
Elsewhere on the team we have Winick-created versions of Thunderbird and Mimic, and also Magnus, son of Magneto and Rogue in his universe, with the unfortunate ability to turn anyone he touches into metal.
The cast is rounded out with Nocturne, an alternate universe daughter of Nightcrawler and Scarlet Witch created by Jim Calafiore (more on whom later) in the book MiIlennial Visions.
The fundamental problem with a lot of alternative universe characters is in getting the reader to actually give a damn about them. Often writers use the chance to write such characters by either making them “mirror” versions of themselves (evil Superman, tall Puck, well-adjusted considerate lover Batman) or by adding a twist to them – who could forget the Mutant X version of Sebastian Shaw? Regular Sebastian Shaw - but in a box.
Thankfully, Winick spares us the usual negatives of such characters by using popular yet unexplored characters (Blink, Morph for all intents and purposes), new creations or characters who haven’t been used much in the regular universe like Thunderbird and Mimic. Magnus probably comes the closest to being YOUR horrible fanfic character but there’s enough back-story teased out in the first two issues to see that at least a modicum of thought has gone into him.
The issue starts with the cast being teleported into a desert and meeting a character called the Timebroker, who explains the series central premise – the cast have become unhinged from time and have to hop around dimensions fixing things that went wrong. The Timebroker is apparently “a manifestation of their collective consciousness” which the seasoned observer may realise is absolute codswallop.
2001 was a different time. We had faith in our writer-driven comics and obvious gibberish like this was assumed to be something that would be brought up later (it was, but not by Winick and I highly doubt in the way he had planned). The other main plot device brought in is the Tallus, a gizmo that teleports the team and provides instructions on what they need to accomplish in each universe they arrive in to repair it. Much like the Timebroker, this also presents difficulties as the Tallus would give sometimes bizarrely cryptic instructions, as it does in this mission.
This particular issue with the Tallus would rear its ugly head over and again during the first thirty or so issues of the book, as sometimes it would be straightforward and other times annoyingly cryptic. Later runs on the book would even the variation out before doing away with it entirely, but at the moment it leads to a Trademark Misunderstanding™. The team arrive in a universe where superheroes are incarcerated and tortured and decide to free Xavier. Only problem is he’s a murderous psycho and then they have to release peace-loving Magneto, but there’s a bomb and Magnus dies saving everybody.
It’s all competently done, aided by some wonderful artwork from McKone and (whisper it) the fact that our heroes come across as a fairly likable bunch. Winick has a gift for humour and dialogue and this makes the book a very pleasant and engaging read. Likable characters was definitely a shift from the grim anti-heroes of the 90’s, and despite Mimic and Thunderbird in particular being powerhouses, they come across as decent sorts, even though Mimic gives Xavier the old Wolverine claws through the cranium.
The ending, where Magnus sacrifices himself to save everyone is competently done, and we’d had enough of Magnus to feel a bit sorry for the bloke, but it highlights one of the biggest problems this book would face – it’s very hard to get invested in the fate of the worlds we encounter and the supporting characters that occupy them.
So it’s a competent start, with a distinctive comedic art style, and an emphasis on snappy dialogue, which rises above the slightly formulaic nature of the book’s premise. Excellent art, and whilst it may be a formulaic purpose the slight hints at things being not-all-they-seem makes for an easy jumping on point to the book and the characters and it’s all done and dusted inside two issues, which is the sort of thing we wouldn’t see for much longer beyond Exiles as decompressed storytelling was coming into vogue.
Death Count – Magnus bites the big one.
Tallus Crypticometer – definitely 8 out of 10 on the cryptic instructions scale here.
Roster Count – Sunfire shows up at the end to take us to having had seven Exiles in total at this point.
Did anyone else read this when it came out? Can you remember what you thought? Or if you read it later – thoughts?