Twenty Years of Exiles

[Nullviahomo]

I'm now re-reading New Excalibur. Those Shadow-X kids had a damned sharp look.

[Captain Buttocks]

Exiles #20-22 - Legacy

First – a big error on my part. Issue 18 and 19 represented original series artist Mike McKone’s final issues on the book, and I had assumed he had one more story to go, therefore my one-line acknowledgement of his artwork in last time’s synopsis is a real bungle on my part.

Whilst I’m sad to see McKone go, it’s doubly saddening for him to leave on such a poor storyline, especially when you consider the fantastic work he had provided on the series. He did a great job in setting the comedic tone of the book, and provided some great visuals when it came to the character work.
Anyway – back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Exiles #20 was released on the 4th of December 2002 and sold 39,475 copies, charting at #41 in the North American sales lists. Issue #21 then released on the 3rd of January 2003 selling 38,917 copies and #22 finished the story arc on 5th of February 2003, charted at #42 and sold 36,517 copies which in terms of Exiles is quite a drop, as it had been rock-solid thus far.

The sales in themselves would not be a warning were it not for a strategic decision made at Marvel (and in fairness it would have been made long before these pre-orders came in) to decide to publish 19 issues of Exiles in 2003. News in itself, but certainly not the big news that would affect the future of this title, which emerged over the course of this arc.

The week that issue 22 was published, it broke on the news sites of the day (such as bleeding cool, newsarama and X-fan) that writer Judd Winick had signed a 12 month exclusive deal with DC Comics. This was quite a hefty blow landed by DC. Whilst not yet top tier talent, Winick’s star was very much in the ascendancy, and it hinted at signs of what was to come, with DC picking off Marvel’s biggest-selling writer as well before the year was out, in a sign that the then-Marvel strategy of “writer-driven but with Bill Jemas repeatedly yelling in the writer’s ears that they are worthless piece-of-**** hacks” might have one or two problems when it came to sustaining morale.

In itself the news that Winick had signed a 12 month exclusive deal was tempered by the fact that he was 12 months ahead on Exiles scripts and thus Marvel could continue to publish the book monthly (does that not sort of render the exclusivity deal pointless?) but with the book being a reliable seller they had solicited 19 issues for the forthcoming year. Thankfully we don’t need to worry about that just yet.

What of this storyline then? Well, once again we have a world over-run by the characterless horde of the week, which in this case is the Vi-Locks, a techno-organic creature caused by warlock trying to save Cypher from the Legacy virus.

The MVP of this storyline is regular fill-in artist Jim Calafiore who succeeds where others fear to tread when it comes to tackling the notoriously difficult Warlock design that only really Bill Sienkiewicz could succeed with up to now (which was why the character was bumped off back in 1990 by Rob Liefeld). The colouring is a little off, but Calafiore does very well here.

The Vi-Locks themselves aren’t interesting, and whilst it’s nice for long-term X-Men fans to get a bit of Warlock and Cypher (who had remained dead for all of the 90’s) unless you’re a rabid New Mutants fan there’s little here to get your teeth into.

Naturally there are an alternate universe set of Avengers here, but they’re all bland (although the MJ Spider-Woman would be revisited later on in the run in one of the single-issue highlights) and in the end Morph does a big deus ex machina to sort the plot out, so that Winnick can get to the real crux of the story – the Timebroker shows up to send Blink home and introduce Magik as the new team member (for another New Mutants fangasm).

Now, this could be quite an interesting development, as we would have Mimic’s reaction to losing Blink, plus Magik being revealed to be the “evil teammate” in subsequent issues. Unfortunately, Winick’s last story before he departs would be a sub-standard Weapon X three-parter, and then it’s on to six months of Chuck Austen fill-ins (where he writes Magik with all the subtlety of how he treated writing any other woman – i.e none at all) before Winick’s stories resume, and any momentum the book had would be long since crippled.

It’s by no means as bad as the last story, but sadly this isn’t a great story for Winick to say (temporary) goodbye to his series regulars with, and if you take the development with Blink on the last three pages out of it, it’s very mediocre fare indeed.

Next time – Masada and (sadly) some poor artwork, as we say goodbye to Judd Winick and this series retrospective.

Death Count – Two, with one leaving.

Tallus Crypticometer – the Tallus is reasonably talkative this month. Three.

Roster Count – nine.

Elsewhere in the X-Books (replacing Best Cover) – A busy few months for the X-Books. At the top end of the quality scale, New X-Men was about to hit the Riot at Xavier’s storyline, and the under-rated and under-bought Icons: Chamber miniseries came to an end, bringing with it an end to the Icons mini-series experiment.
On the middling level of the scale, Chris Claremont continued with both the pleasant-but-hardly-essential Mekanix and his ‘Schism’ storyline in the much-improved X-Treme X-Men. Sadly Agent X would have Gail Simone’s final (for the time) issue published with the amusing omnifetishist Shameful William and his passion for superhero undergarments, and in the Marmite category X-Statix continues to be not quite as good as when it was X-Force.

Lastly, amongst the more dubious offerings, both the Dominant Species and artist Kia Asamiya would debut as Chuck Austen’s Uncanny X-Men proceeded to go spectacularly off the rails, Soldier X was weird, X-Men Unlimited was pointless and Ultimate X-Men and Weapon X were nihilistic, unpleasant and “kewl”.

[Captain Buttocks]

(I genuinely thought I had posted this last year - apologies to those who were following)

Exiles #23-25 With An Iron Fist

Exiles #23 was released on the 5th March 2003, selling 35,946 copies and charting at number 40, Issue #24 then released on 26th March selling 35,492 copies, charting at #42 in the same month. #25 finished the story arc on 9th April, charted at #44 for that month and sold 36,516 copies.

As mentioned in the recap of the Vi-Locks storyline, Judd Winick was off to DC for a 12 month (sort of) exclusive deal, however he had written twelve months ahead on Exiles so as not to miss any issues. Marvel however – in their infinite wisdom – had decided to solicit 19 issues of Exiles over the next 12 months, so 6 issues of Chuck Austen fill-ins (including a crossover with his disastrous Uncanny X-Men team) were scheduled immediately after this story.

If that wasn’t momentum-killing enough, Winick had decided to have a three-month interim storyline here featuring his Weapon X team of alternate Exiles. So that would be a nine-issue spell of what could charitably be described as mediocre (at best) fill-ins.

I’ve been somewhat harsh on Winick over the last six or so issues of Exiles, and I feel it would be remiss of me not to point out that his workload over the last few months here must have been hefty. Getting twelve months ahead on scripts as well as negotiating a new deal with DC must be quite the strain.

A keen observer of this recap would notice that thus far I have avoided talking about any discernible plot. That because the plot is as boring and hackneyed as it comes, which -whilst a sad way for Winick to sign off on a series that initially had so much sparkle - does seem strangely fitting.

It’s a world where Tony Stark is evil, and not just evil, but eeeeeeevil. He’s subjugated the Earth, but hasn’t yet subjugated the Inhumans. Now, having been privy to numerous attempts by Marvel to make the Inhumans interesting, I’d be telling Tony not to bother, but given how he is almost as evil in this as Ike Perlmutter who also had a weird obsession with the Inhumans (mainly due to their film rights being held by Marvel) I suppose we can allow it. That previous chunk of text was the most I have ever written about the Inhumans. God they suck.

It’s important to note that, while he was a founding Avenger and a Marvel mainstay, Tony Stark was far from the A-lister that he is nowadays, so popping him on the front cover was unlikely to boost sales (only Wolverine had that power by this point, but even his drawing power was collapsing due to over-exploitation). He’s completely one-dimensional here and may as well be a totally different character.

Anyhoo, Weapon X eventually show up, but rather than help the Inhumans fight Tony they have to help Tony kill off the Inhumans, because they’re dark and edgy. I’m frankly all for this, given my dislike of the Inhumans. Now, issue 23 in particular is a problem here, because Weapon X – in principle the protagonists of the story – only show up on the last page. Instead we get 21 pages of Tony Stark taking over the world, and to show the world what a good guy he is, dressing as Dr Doom. As usual with Winick’s alternate Earths, the entire population has had their brains removed.

In issue 24 we get Weapon X infiltrating the Inhumans compound, and then issue 25 goes completely sideways by giving us a potted history of the siege of Masada, and then rather than leave it on that parallel, Sue Richards kills Tony, leaving everyone to wonder two things “why couldn’t she have done that earlier?” and “what was the point of all that?”.

As is now customary in what is nominally supposed to be an X-Book, there’s a team of Avengers, which consists of Wanda, Wonder-Man infused with Gamma Rays and Dr Strange with no legs. There are some alternative universe characters who make such an impact on the readership that they demand that they become part of the 616 fixtures and fittings. This does not apply here.

Art on this story is provided by Kev Walker who I have to confess to being unfamiliar with. It’s a rougher, scratchier style than the crisp clean artwork that McKone and Calafiore have provided thus far on the title. In places it works (he does a nice Gambit) but unfortunately overall it’s pretty bland and doesn’t really work for me although individual mileage may vary.


It's a pretty poor note to be leaving Exiles on for Judd, and it definitely hints at some of the things to come that would trouble the X-Books over the next few months and years as the entire line would struggle with a lack of direction and then a disastrous editorial decision as to the future of the line.

With all that being said though, and despite my gripes, I have enjoyed re-reading Exiles. When Winick got it right, the book had a certain sparkle and verve that few other books had.


Next time – Chuck Austen arrives, and with his usual charming subtlety, leaves us in no doubt as to what kind of team-mate Majik will turn out to be. Fortunately, I’m calling it here with these recaps so we can avoid that.


Death Count – Two, with one leaving.

Tallus Crypticometer – the Weapon X Tallus is a bit of an upgrade on the one used by the regular Exiles. Zilch.


Roster Count – nine.

Elsewhere in the X-Books (replacing Best Cover) – A busy few months for the X-Books. The previously excellent New X-Men hit an absolute nadir with the atrocious Murder at the Mansion storyline, Wolverine improved by having meaningless fill-in and Weapon X continued to muddle through the overlong Underground storyline with a twist that literally everyone saw coming.

On the middling level of the scale, Agent X started the raft of fill-ins before it’s cancellation (it would receive a brief stay of execution). X-Statix was….fine… and the curious X-Men/Gus Beezer one-shot came out. New x-adjacent books were launched with Runaways, Sentinels and Mystique all getting first issues (I liked all these books).

Elsewhere, Ron Garney who was principally one of the regular artists on Uncanny X-Men turned in his sixth issue out of a possible twenty since his appointment. Don’t over-exert yourself there, Ron. The writer, Chuck Austen, was himself about to give Lorna the “characterisation of women” treatment that he became so beloved for.





I’d like to thank everyone who read and/or commented on these issues. It was a lot of fun going back to them. For all the last few stories haven’t been great it’s a concept that Marvel has returned to a lot over the years since its inception, and for that we can really only praise the creators involved.