Twenty Years of Exiles

[Captain Buttocks]

Captain Buttocks,

I always enjoy your deep-dives and this is no exception, another well-written and thought-out topic.

It’s been an age since I read Exiles but I definitely have some very fond memories of it. The Mimic, Nocturne and Morph always stood out as favourites for me. I also loved the work Winick did over at DC on the relaunched Outsiders and always wanted him to get a shot at a main X-Men book one day. Bummed his comic output is very limited these days.



I never thought about this but it's absolutely true and absolutely impressive too. Obviously there are a few other satellite X-titles that passed the 100th issue mark but they're mostly the historical spin-offs like New Mutants, Wolverine, etc. For a C-level title as you say to accomplish that I believe is a testimony to the strength of the concept as well as the strong foundations laid by that original run by Winick, McKone and Calafiore.

Sorry - I missed this comment somehow!

It is indeed quite the achievement, and I did a little bit of digging into some other X-Books released in the early 2000s also. Cable and Deadpool, which was another short-lived book expected to die within twelve issues (it launched pretty close to solos for Nightcrawler, Gambit, Jubilee and Rogue, all of which didn't reach a #13) was the last non-flagship book to make #50. Albeit that was it's final issue!

[Captain Buttocks]

Up North and in the Green & A Chance to Dream – Exiles #5, 6 & 7

Issues 5, 6 and 7 of Exiles were released on 10th October, 7th November and 5th December 2001 respectively (all on time, as Exiles really had its sushi together compared to the rest of the X-Books at the time). The issues sold 45,772, 45,313 and 43,071 issues each and placed 33rd, 31st and 32nd in the monthly sales charts for those dates. The series seems to be settling down in terms of sales and would be a very reliable mid-to-low level book for the entirety of the run, which may actually have harmed it somewhat as we’ll discuss around issue 25.

Up North and in the Green is a two-part story where the Exiles beam into Canada and are given the mission by the Tallus to help Alpha Flight subdue the Hulk, as unless they interfere he will kill them all. Already it feels like another “characters we’re supposed to care about but don’t” plot, so it’s fortunate that other developments are moving along in the background.

Our glorious leader, Blink, formally begins a relationship with Mimic, who also uses some free time to explain how his powers work – this is odd to consider nowadays but at the time the character of Mimic (and that of Thunderbird too) hadn’t really been explored in many years, so a wee refresher was handy. Putting Mimic and Blink into a relationship helps to foster more engagement with our core cast, especially given issue #2’s establishment of the “anyone can die” atmosphere within the book.

We’ve already touched upon the slightly formulaic and repetitive nature of the book, so it’s here that Winick (sensibly) decides to shake things up a little with the introduction of a different team of Exiles, referred to as Weapon X, as almost 75% of things were between 1990 and 2005. Winick doesn’t seem to have quite figured out the purpose for Weapon X being in the storyline, as they allude to wanting to capture the Hulk to join their team of dimension-hoppers, but that doesn’t really fit in to how we’ve been told the dimension-hopping/Tallus/Timebroker business all works, and it’d be changed by the next time we see them.

As intriguing as the above two plot points are this is a character piece for Thunderbird first and foremost. By meeting the shamanistic version of himself from this dimension he is able to explore his own character and mull over his own destiny in a nice bit of characterisation for the big man. Sadly the main plot stumbles into the way as Hulk rocks up, but in what might be somewhat of a meta-analysis of his own plot by Winick, Thunderbird beats the crap out of him. Ho-hum. We also get to see the results of his pre-Exiles transformation into War, in a very nice piece of artwork.

Artwork for this issue is provided by Jim Calafiore, who goes above-and-beyond the standard required for a fill-in with some lovely artwork. It’s clearly his own distinctive style, but works within the tone of the book, and there’s a great comedy sequence with Morph reacting to the Hulk. Calafiore would become the alternate artist for almost the entire run of the book, an achievement he should be proud of, although it beggars belief that at the time he was providing knock-out work on a C-list book like Exiles both nominal flagship titles, Uncanny X-Men and New X-Men were beset with artwork delays and inconsistencies.

Overall a nice little story with some good character beats that makes up for the lack of anything but the most basic of plots. A welcome step forward after the last story’s misstep.

If #3-4 represented a slight misstep and #5-6 a positive step forward then #7 would be akin to stepping in dog dirt only to find it was burning through your shoe in the style of Alien blood, amputating your leg, beating you to death with it and then stealing some ornaments – some with sentimental value – from your mantelpiece.

A Chance to Dream is another of Marvel’s fabulously ill-conceived “Nuff Said” issues from December of 2001. Peter David, who was writing Captain Marvel, managed a decent story, but nobody was reading that book anyway. Grant Morrison did an excellent issue. Chris Claremont - bless his heart - tried to fit the silent issue in as part four of a five part storyline which reads like a train-wreck and inspires the sort of boredom I normally reserve for books associated with the Inhumans. We covered Joe Casey’s effort in the Uncanny issue-by-issue but suffice to say it’s…. weak.

Exiles decides - as many books did - to produce utterly meaningless filler for a month, as the Exiles have a snooze and each has a wee dream telling us something we already knew anyway. Morph is quite the exhibitionist. Blink has nightmares about AoA (I know the feeling I still have them about the 2006 revisit), Mimic likes Blink yadda-yadda. It’s a bit of a slog to get through, it looks fine as McKone is back and that’s really all there is to it.

‘Nuff Said was a tremendously bad idea anyway, but doing it in a book that is about dialogue and banter is pretty much sheer stupidity. I cant really say much about this issue overall as there is so precious little to say (consider the irony). Skip it.

Next time – another three issues, and it’s one of the most famous Exiles stories, which isn’t as great as you remember, but is still very good.

Death Count – Magnus.

Tallus Crypticometer – 2 out of 10. It doesn’t do owt in #7 but is reasonably helpful in #5 and 6.

Roster Count – seven.

Best cover – Still issue 4 but 6 is very nice indeed.

[Captain Buttocks]

A World Apart – Exiles #8, 9 and 10

Issues 8, 9 and 10 of Exiles were released on 3rd January, 6th of February and 20th February respectively (all on time, as Exiles really had its sushi together compared to the rest of the X-Books at the time). The issues sold 42,271, 40,362 and 40,238 issues each and placed 34th, 34th and 31st in the monthly North American sales charts for those dates. Issue 8 also featured a “named best comic of the month by Wizard magazine” blurb on the cover, although I’m unsure what specific issue they were referring to.

Before we get into this story, I’m not going to be nitpicking obvious logic holes and flaws with the set-up (specifically all the characters having their powers when they couldn’t possibly have been able to), because it would take forever and I’m not a big fan of that style of criticism. Plot holes and logic flaws I don’t actually have a problem with as long as the story is fun, which this one certainly is.

The big set-up is that the Skrulls conquered Earth in the late 19th century and – as is the style in this sort of story – use the locals to fight in gladiatorial style combat for their amusement. The Exiles got captured pretty much upon their arrival, with the exception of Blink and (thankfully) Morph, who both attempt to rescue the others, and are unsuccessful. There’s a short montage before the story begins of various worlds the team have been to since our last story to add some of the humorous beats this book was becoming known for.
There are some other nice touches here and there, with the commentary on the superhuman fights being good, and Mimic performing a nice one-shot of Captain America to annoy the crowd. Morph again provides a degree of visual humour as well, which a potentially dark story desperately needs.

The expected story is then subverted as rather than having the Exiles lead the superhumans in a rebellion against their Skrull oppressors, the Skrulls actually abandon the planet as Terrax the Tamer, the herald of Galactus approaches. Issue 9 ends with the heroes having barely defeated Terrax as the Big G arrives for Issue #10’s smackdown, where Thunderbird sacrifices himself to ultimately win the day for the goodies. It is also revealed that T.J is pregnant by T-Bird before he is ultimately left behind as the Tallus zaps the team on to their next mission with him left behind comatose and braindead.

Our new member is Sasquatch who will learn more about in subsequent issues. It’s another “powerhouse” member which presumably will be good fun to draw in group shots with the team, but thankfully there are layers there to explore.

Following Jim Calafiore’s fill-in stint, Mike McKone is back on regular art duties and looking better than ever. The fight scenes look great, the visual humour is on point and the story flows like my wine as I try to put down an issue to stop admiring it and start typing my thoughts. It’s stellar stuff and enhances the reading experience, which shows how the synergy between writer and artist is what makes comics so damn engaging, unlike the ‘Nuff Said experiment of the previous month.

As mentioned above, it’s hard to be objective with this review as there are clearly some logic gaps and plot holes that if you think too carefully about them cause the whole thing to fall (a world?) apart. If nit-picking logic gaps and going full Cinema Sins is for you, then it’s entirely possible that this book is not, as it will have you tearing your hair out.
I, on the other hand, have learned to be reasonably forgiving of books that emphasise good characterisation, lovely art and a general likeability, so I’m far more forgiving of this plot than I was of some X-Books at the time (see Tieri, Frank and Austen, Chuck) and I still enjoy re-reading it.

Over time, this story came to be considered the most iconic Exiles story (certainly from the early run) and that may in part be due to being the first story to go for more than two issues to tell and the last story featuring the most recognisable line-up.

If you haven’t read Exiles (why are you reading this?) and wanted to consider a story to dip your toe in the waters this story may well be a great place to start. There are certainly other “entry-level” stories later on in Tony Bedard’s run, but A World Apart really holds up.

Next time – we look at a one-issue short featuring Morph and Sunfire, and then a two-parter where we check in on Weapon X.

Death Count – Thunderbird isn’t technically dead but is treated as such moving on. Two now.

Tallus Crypticometer – The Tallus barely gets a mention here.

Roster Count – eight.

Best cover – Issue 4. The three covers for this story each feature two of the regular cast, and frankly all look a bit odd.

[Captain Buttocks]

Exiles #11 – Play Date

We have a slight change of plan to the original schedule here, as I find myself without the time to do three issues this week. Instead it’s the relatively lightweight (but not without its charm) issue 11 of Exiles, which is a standalone story. It hit the shelves in April 2002 and sold 40,238 copies in the North American market, charting at number 31 in a very unique month for comic sales. The ill-fated Dreamwave Comics’ ill-fated Transformers series topped the charts (believe me, I’ve always wanted to write about that), alongside the first ever batch of Free Comic Book Day titles.

As mentioned above it’s a one-and-done for Exiles this month with a story set prior to the preceding storyline (I wonder if it was shunted to make way for the silent issue?). With a week to kill before being shunted off to their next world, the Exiles want to go skinny-dipping and the heretofore under-utilised Sunfire is tasked with taking Morph shopping (for lingerie) so he wont be childish around the other four (T-Bird is obviously still here).

After an afternoon of heavy ogling Morph reveals that he knows Sunfire is distracting him, and the two bond over dinner and reveal a bit more about their pasts and personalities to each other. Morph explains where his show-off tendencies come from, and Sunfire finally shows a bit of personality, explaining her unhappy childhood and strict upbringing in Tokyo. Additionally, she reveals to Morph that she is a lesbian, as he had started to display signs of attraction to her.

It’s all perfectly readable stuff, and both characters come across as very likeable. The rest of the team are very much in the background, and their spurious reasons for packing Morph off are glossed over pretty quickly. There’s a small scene with TJ and Blink chatting but for the most part the book is given over to the Morph/Mariko interactions, and wisely so. Mariko has pretty much been a blank slate so far, so it’s nice to see her get a bit more of a fleshed-out background, and having Morph accompany her keeps the tone nice and light with the usual humourous touches shining through, keeping the book firmly in that light, fluffy Exiles style which has been established throughout this first year of stories.

The art is an issue where your mileage may vary here. Jim Calafiore is back on fill-in duties with his usual high standard of crisp pencils, visual humour and flow. The problem is in the premise of the issue involving nudity and lingerie, so your mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for cheesecake. Now, in my book, the art here is far from egregious. Calafiore is too good an artist to resort to obscene top-heavy characters or gratuitous poses, but at the same time I could see why some people may not be a fan of it. Elsewhere there’s great pizzazz in his renditions of Morph’s shape-changing, and he remains far too good an artist to be simply a fill-in.

So overall it’s a nice fun issue which adds a little depth to two of our cast, and a little bit of breathing space after the heavy-hitting story from the previous three months. The book continues to impress and things are looking good as we head into its second year.

Next time – the Weapon X two-parter, as we try to define the term “crippling anticlimax”.

Death Count – Thunderbird is now alive again, as this story is set before the last one. Lets split hairs and say one-and-a-half.

Tallus Crypticometer – the Tallus is ordering the team to take a week long vacation here. Very helpful. Zero out of ten.

Roster Count – erm...back to seven? This is weirding me out. Stoopid silent issue (possiby)

Best cover – Issue 4. The cover to this is a nice one by McKone, with a slight hint of cheesecake.

[Captain Buttocks]

Another Rooster in the Henhouse – Exiles #12 & 13

Exiles #12 was released on the April 2002 and sold 41,677 copies, charting at #39 in the North American sales lists. Exiles #13 was released on the 1st of May 2002, selling 41,101 copies and also charted at #39 on the North American sales list, as the book continued to show the sort of stability that would make it such a solid performer in the line.

These issues end the first year of Exiles as an ongoing monthly comic book, and it’s worth taking stock of where we are now in the book’s life cycle. The book has had a highly promising first year, introducing the concept, selling well and garnering a positive critical reception. Additionally, it managed to avoid the kind of delays that were plaguing books at Marvel at the time. There had been some hiccups along the way – notably the ‘Nuff Said issue – but overall it’s been a tick in the win box over at the X-Office.

The main concern going into the second year is the possibility of repetitiveness sneaking into the plots. The “team arrive in a crap-sack world and have to defeat the villains inside two or three issues” concept isn’t the most interesting to begin with, and it’ll be interesting to see how Winick copes as the novelty wears off. As it is “Another Rooster in the Henhouse” bridges the gap between our first and second years of Exiles, and definitely marks a turning point of sorts in the title.

This story addresses the Weapon X plotline, referring of course to the alternate-reality version of anti-heroes doing a similar job to the Exiles, but with added 90’s kewl. Why the clarification? Just so you could be assured that I wasn’t referring to Weapon X the ground-breaking series in Marvel Comics Presents by Barry Windsor-Smith, Weapon X the Age of Apocalypse title or Weapon X the upcoming (awful) comic series by edgelord Frank Tieri that would launch in 2002. Nor was it referring to Garrison Kane a.k.a Weapon X or the recent team of Weapon X recently featured in Deadpool, made up of Copycat, Deadpool, Sabretooth and Mauvais. Ok, Deadpool and Sabretooth are in this version of Weapon X but not the same Deadpool and Sabretooth, although obviously the Sabretooth here was the one that featured in AoA where as we mentioned above there was a Weapon X book and also a Weapon X character but that was Wolverine not Sabretooth.

Some people find comics confusing, I cannot even begin to imagine why.

There’s a short montage introducing Weapon X to begin with, which slightly mirrors the intro to World Apart, and some decent value out of the scene where the Exiles and Weapon X first meet up. Clarice and Sabretooth are joyously reunited, whereas the other team members are a bit more cautious around each other. In another nice scene Sasquatch gets to shape-shift back to human, surprising everyone by being a black Heather Hudson, and not Dr Langkowski like the 616 version.

In amongst all this character work, you can feel Winick reluctantly getting round to giving us a plot. This world has been overrun by Sentinels and the combined might of the two teams is required to free a young boy named David Richards. Once this is achieved within a few panels, the Tallus changes the game by telling the teams that they have to kill the boy because he’ll grow up to be a genocidal despot. THEN WHY BUST HIM OUT A DEATH CAMP TO BEGIN WITH? Excuse me.

The conflict over whether or not to kill young David (who gets no dialogue at all) results in conflict between Weapon X and the Exiles, until Sabretooth arbitrarily decides to stay and mentor young David to which the Tallus says “oh well that’s all right then” in what strikes me as a really poor cop-out ending.

The character stuff is as good as ever here, but the plot feels incredibly lazy and the resolution is just annoying. The other thing that seems odd is the remit of the Weapon X team. It looked in their previous appearance that they were going to alternate worlds and choosing their own candidates (like Hulk in issue 6) but here Iron Man just gets blinked in after Sabretooth (apparently) kills Wade.

Regular artist Mike McKone turns in work to his usual high standard, with clear storytelling, and some nice action scenes. The rapid blinks to get away from Vision are a nice re-use of art so I’m not complaining and Spider in particular has a nice creepy visual “feel” to him during his scenes. The usual visual gags with Morph are also up to their usual high standard.

Overall this story is a bit of a mixed bag, with the formulaic Weapon X team and a boring plot set against the nice character work and smooth artwork. Not bad by any means, but just a little bit forgettable with a real stinker of an ending.

Next time – Mimic gets a hugely condensed origin and we *really* start to feel formulaic plot strain.

Death Count – Back to two for the Exiles, but hoo boy have Weapon X racked up a body count. They're kewl you know.

Tallus Crypticometer – this week there are two Talluses. Talli. Tallusees. Tallu. Either way, they’re both in “half the mission now, half later FOR DRAMA” mode, which is annoying, and then completely agreeable to a complete change in the mission parameters roughly 12 pages after saying the boy must die. 114 out of 10

Roster Count – eight.

Best cover – still Issue 4. Issue 12 has a nice Weapon X (kewl!) cover and 13 comes close to top spot, with some nice colours and shading.

[Captain Buttocks]

I Cover The Water-Front – Exiles #14 & 15

Exiles #14 was released on the 5th of June 2002 and sold 41,233 copies, charting at #37 in the North American sales lists. Exiles #15 was released on the 3rd of July 2002, selling 41,717 copies and charted at #34 on the North American sales list. The book is still holding remarkably steady above the 40,000 sales mark. With the exception of Uncanny X-Men, the majority of X-Books are going great guns at this moment in time.

This will be a short review because there is precious little to write about in this story, and it’s sunny so I might go for a walk.

If we were to consider Exiles thus far as a whole, we would have to give a lot of praise to Judd Winick for the characters and the well-balanced use of humour. With the possible exceptions of Sunfire and Sasquatch, the main team of Exiles has been well fleshed-out and we find ourselves with a reason to care. With the humour, we have the delightful one-two punch of some excellent witty dialogue, combined with great use of visual humour by McKone and Calafiore.

The negatives tend to be pretty predictable – interchangeable worlds and plots which reek of approximately twenty minutes of effort by Winick before he can get back to doing the character work that he clearly is enjoying.

For the most part, Winick has managed to get away with it on account of the character work being just so darn enjoyable. However when it comes to this story, the character stuff isn’t up to the usual standard and therefore the flaws of the plot and setting are amplified further than usual, resulting in a reading experience that – whilst by no means unpleasant – could certainly be described as “meh”.

Ostensibly, the Exiles show up to a world where Dr Doom is at war with Namor and they have to attack a something to stop somebody or other or do something else. I re-read these issues thirty minutes ago and that’s as much as I can recall. It’s a bomb or something. I dunno. They split the team and Mimic goes to fight robots whilst the others have a big fight that isn’t shown. Or maybe a bit of it was. They argued with Doom for a bit as well, but it wasn’t clear what the argument was about apart from them not liking him.

Look, Winick clearly is putting the bare minimum amount of effort in here with regards to the plot and setting, so I’m certainly not going to be overly concerned with putting in a lot of effort when he cannot. World sucks because of blah, insert Exiles here.

The point of this is to get to the Mimic’s origin story. I mentioned before that Winick has done a great job with characterisation, but this actually feels a bit rushed. We get flashbacks of Mimic as a teen and then a superhero and it strikes me that – whilst still a good character - he’s easily the most boring of the main cast. The flashback itself takes only ten or so pages out of a two issue arc which leaves a fair amount of nondescript fighting with robots and then Mimic being depressed about having to ally with his enemies to fight his friends on crapsack world after crapsack world and then taking the arbitrary decision to be a bit of a dick to Blink about it.

Winick’s lack of effort seems reflected in McKone’s pencils. They’re still of a very good standard, but it feels like even he cannot be bothered mustering up enthusiasm for the material. The best work is again the Morph visual humour and his renditions of some of the scenes set in Mimic’s reality. Neither his Namor nor his Doom are that remarkable, which actually matches the two lines of characterisation we get from each of them. Neither of them are investable as characters, so neither is the plot or the setting or any sense of consequences. It feels like a fill-in issue of What If? that someone like Howard Mackie came up with whilst doing his shopping list.

It’s not as egregiously bad or as out-of-place as the silent issue, but that was editorially mandated. This story just reeks of lack of effort unfortunately.

Next time – A spotlight issue for Nocturne provides a welcome change of pace.

Death Count – Two.

Tallus Crypticometer – A mission so straightforward and boring that even the Tallus cant be bothered.

Roster Count – eight.

Best cover – still Issue 4. Looking ahead I'm not sure this was a great thing to follow as I don't see it being shifted until Paul Pelletier joins up and there doesn't seem to be the interest to go that far!

[Captain Buttocks]

Back - because you demanded it!! (well, maybe not, but I hate leaving things unfinished. Bad for the karma)

Nocturne and Evensong - Exiles #16

Exiles #16 was released on the 7th of August 2002 and sold 41,774 copies, charting at #40 in the North American sales lists. It comes in a couple of spots below X-Statix issue 2, and just ahead of all of the (mostly dreadful) Weapon X: The Draft one-shots. I mention these for a couple of reasons – X-Statix and its predecessor, X-Force were somewhat of a critical (if not commercial) darling at that point, and the Weapon X series had been using both the Wolverine and Deadpool ongoings to generate a lot of hype. The fact Exiles was doing so well after 16 issues (when most new titles are cancelled these days) shows that it had established a very loyal fanbase (and also one could argue that Weapon X had really set itself up to fail, much in the same way the Wolverine: Weapon X title would do 7 or so years later – as a side note I would *love* to revisit that Weapon X series. What were they thinking?).

One other thing to note is the other X-titles being launched that very week – there were two issues of the afore-mentioned Weapon X Draft one-shots, the first issue of the excellent Chamber mini-series, the first issues of Agent X and Soldier X (re-brandings of Deadpool and Cable respectively, as Bill Jemas either a) wanted to boost sales or b) wanted to annoy Rob Liefeld) and the big new creative team of Chuck Austen and Ron Garney would release the first issue of their…erm… unique take on the Uncanny X-Men following the departure of Joe Casey. In the X-Office, it seems that more is more.

As touched upon in the last few reviews, if Exiles has a major flaw (and it does) it’s that it tends to deal in rather dreary, formulaic “plot of the week” type stories which it feels like Winnick has hastily cobbled together, often with a diminishing rate of imagination to serve as cursory vehicles for the character work and humour that are his strengths and the strengths of the book as a whole.

This month’s issue breaks with that formula in a very welcome change of pace and instead gives us a one-and-done issue focusing on Nocturne, and more specifically, on her relationship with the now-departed Thunderbird. Thunderbird was left behind and declared brain-dead on the world the Exiles liberated from Skrull rule in Exiles #8-10 after laying the smack down on the bahookie of Galactus, and this issue gets around to providing a series of flashbacks that fleshes out their relationship.

Characterisation is something Winnick does well, and this is some good stuff. It’s very straightforward (which actually befits the nature of both of these characters) and gets us a bit more invested in TJ. It’s not going to win any points for flash or subtlety, but then it shouldn’t have to – sometimes there’s something nice about a character piece being done in a straightforward way rather than all that subverting expectations claptrap that often seems to rear its ugly head.

Regular fill-in artist and Nocturne’s creator Jim Calafiore rocks up to provide his usual high standard of artwork. It’s not exactly the most action-driven of issues, so he does his best to make several sequences of characters having quiet conversations and looking a bit glum stand out and remain original (no Bendis-style re-used artwork sequences here, thankfully) and, for the most part, gets away with it, so the issue is nicely drawn and memorable.

It’s actually quite nice having returned to this topic after a lengthy absence to start by re-visiting this issue in particular as the repetitive nature of Exiles can become a bit much when doing in-depth looks at issues that have similar structure. This issue stands out as a nice character piece, but also (somewhat sadly) as the last good issue of Winnick's initial run, in my not-so-humble opinion. Things go downhill rapidly from here.


Next time – A formulaic issue where someone leaving the kettle on or something leads as usual to the destruction of North America.

Death Count – Two.

Tallus Crypticometer – the trusty Tallus gets a month off here. Hurrah!

Roster Count – eight.

Best cover – still Issue 4. This cover has a nice piece of Nocturne, and it’s really very good, also tying into the themes of the story which was something not a lot of the X-books did at the time as we were very much in the poster pin-up stage of covers (I believe this was yet another Bill Jemas mandate).

[Sandy Hausler]

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?

Exiles is, in my opinion, the best X-book since Dave Cockram left the X-Men (the first time)! Anything could happen. Heroes could (and did) die. And for the most part over its run, the quality of writing and art was high. (Unfortunately, can't say that on the attempted revival.)

[Captain Buttocks]

Exiles is, in my opinion, the best X-book since Dave Cockram left the X-Men (the first time)! Anything could happen. Heroes could (and did) die. And for the most part over its run, the quality of writing and art was high. (Unfortunately, can't say that on the attempted revival.)

It's interesting times for Exiles, as I feel that here is where Winnick really started to lose steam (he was of course negotiating with DC comics behind the scenes at this time so his attention would be elsewhere).

I enjoyed the early issues, but actually my fave time on the book (and one of my fave times in all comics) was Bedard's glorious nostalgia-fest that was the World's Tour. It gave me a warm guilty nerd feeling to see 2099 and the New Universe!

[Captain Buttocks]

(keep going, the end is almost in sight)

Exiles #17 - Wild Life Reserve


Exiles #17 was released on the 4th of September 2002 and sold 41,437 copies, charting at #38 in the North American sales lists. Another remarkably solid month, performing above the normal level of sales attrition one would expect.

It’s another single-issue storyline this month, as the Exiles show up on a world where North America is ruled by lizards, after the Spider-Man villain Lizard a.k.a Dr Curt Connors made some kind of mess-up with his origin story injection serum. There’s a bomb somewhere and the Exiles have to stop it going off.

It’s a hugely unsatisfying set-up which seems to have been written on the back of a post-it while Winick was presumably watching old episodes of MTV’s The Real World. The set-up of these alternative worlds has always been something Winick doesn’t really want to spend any time on, but this one is really pushing credibility to have the reader believe that not only did he spawn a race of lizards, but every building or structure in North America was now arbitrarily destroyed and replaced by a jungle in less than ten years.

The resolution to this situation is that the Exiles discover the original Curt Connors who has now regressed back to himself and wanted to blow the place up. Mimic talks to him and he instead commits suicide and Mimic continues the Mimic-feels-a-bit-disillusioned sub-plot, which included him being a bit snarky to Blink earlier in the issue. It’s all a bit unsatisfying, sadly. There are (thankfully) some decent character moments in the issue, with Heather getting a bit more to do and some bantery moments as the team make their way through the jungle.

The banter is helped immensely by Jim Calafiore’s artwork, as he continues to excel, particularly in the visual representations of Morph’s humour, notably during a very nice four-page sequence where Morph tries to talk any of the female members of the team (barring Nocturne, for whom he wishes to respect her mourning for Thunderbird) into what he calls “snuggle time” and the rest of us likely know of as "the sex". It's possible that this hasn't aged too well in hindsight, but it's certainly not as egregious as some of Marvel's content at the time.

I do want to emphasise – this isn’t a bad comic by any stretch of the imagination. It may work as a sort of introductory issue to the team and concept, but we’re now nearly eighteen issues into this run and the book seems to be meandering. The characters are good, the dialogue is nice and the artwork is excellent, but it’s the fundamental lack of an engaging plot that just makes reading it a very forgettable experience.

Next time – We go utterly off the rails with a two-part Mojoverse story.

Death Count – Two.

Tallus Crypticometer – about a 2/10 on the cryptic scale, seems like it’s not up for putting much effort in either.

Roster Count – eight.

Best cover – still Issue 4. This month’s issue is about as bog-standard as bog-standard comes, with a perfectly cromulent group shot of the team and a surprising amount of black banner taking a chunk out of the top and bottom of the page.

[Captain Buttocks]

So Lame – the Exiles in the Mojoverse – Exiles #18 & 19

Exiles #18 was released on the 2nd of October 2002 and sold 40,444 copies, charting at #37 in the North American sales lists. Issue #19 was subsequently released on the 6th of November and sold 40,225 issues, charting at #38.

Oh boy. This one.

Despite my criticisms of some of the last few issues for their formulaic (almost repetitive) nature, I feel I have gone out of my way to reiterate that none of the issues are actually bad comics. The art is solid and the characterisation is good, and the humour usually hits the mark, so whilst being a bit bland on occasion in terms of plot and world-building, you can still get through the comic without wishing you hadn’t bought it.

Unfortunately these two issues have me scratching my head and wondering what Judd Winick was thinking when he wrote this story. The word “story” may in fact be too kind, as this is a mess, despite a reasonably promising start.

First, we need to discuss the Mojoverse. Invented by Ann Nocenti during her excellent Longshot mini-series from 1985, the Mojoverse was a universe ruled by the omnicidal despot, Mojo, the leader of the spineless ones. Alongside his sidekick, Spiral, he ruled the dimension and fought an escaped rebel slave leader, Longshot, who would later go on to join the X-Men.

Mojo in turn would become a recurring X-villain (usually in Annual stories) where the characterisation of Mojo as a media-obsessed mogul would replace Nocenti’s original (superior) vision of an genocidal deluded despot. Mojo was killed off and replaced by Mojo II The Sequel in Jim lee’s final X-Men issues. Then things go a bit odd.

Jeph Loeb’s dreadful final X-Force story would see Mojo returned to being in charge of the Mojoverse, however the subsequent Marvel Fanfare #4 & 5 would have Mojo II still in charge with Mojo nowhere to be found. With the Jemas-Quesada new broom came edicts about keeping characters with convoluted backgrounds (alternate universes, futures etc) to the bare minimum, and the Mojoverse was killed off in one panel of Uncanny X-Men #393 where Dazzler claimed that…*sigh*…Age of Apocalypse X-Babies had destroyed the Mojoverse and killed Longshot. It’s as stupid as it sounds.

Why all this focus on the Mojoverse? Two reasons – first being, it’s far more interesting than these actual issues themselves, and secondly that (most likely inadvertently) Winnick has undone one of the Jemas-Quesada edicts from the day. One can only assume the editors were as bored by the story as I was and didn’t notice.

So what is the story? It’s the same as ever other Mojo story since Nocenti, where he kidnaps someone and forces them to be on TV. The kidnapped member of the team is Morph, and Mojo drops the news that whilst there are loads of alternate universes there is only one Mojo, thus indicating that there is also only one Spiral/Longshot/Quary/Major Domo etc in all the multiverse.

Morph does some talk-show style humour which doesn’t really land, the other Exiles stand about for a while and then free Longshot so Winnick can make a mullet joke and then the Timebroker just arbitrarily stops everything and sends them on to the next world. Honestly it just feels like Winnick had a mullet joke he wanted to tell (and unfortunately it’s one of those “it’s like X on Y” jokes that Lee and Herring used to skewer so mercilessly) and built a whole two issues around it.

So the plot (if you can even call it that) is wretched. The focus on rubbish humour doesn’t work (the setting is already too zany) and it’s deeply unsatisfying. Are there any positives?

There’s some nice use of Nocturne’s powers as she escapes being tortured, and McKone’s artwork is as pleasant as ever, but otherwise…no. This is crap, skip it.

NOTE – this is the second time in the first 18 issues that a future member of the roster rocks up. AoA Sabretooth has already shown up leading Weapon X, and around 50 issues from now Longshot will join the team as part of Tony Bedard’s fabulously nostalgic World Tour storyline. Read that instead of this.

Next time – Vi-Locks and we say cheerio to a team member.

Death Count – two.

Tallus Crypticometer – two issues off for the Tallus as the cryptic is provided by the Timebroker rocking up at the end to bring a close to this horrorshow.

Roster Count – eight.

Best cover – still Issue 4. The Morph-as-Elvis cover to #18 is nice though. Issue 19 just has a standard team shot.

[Malachi]

I don’t remember the worlds they visit that well in the 10-20’s span. Probably speaks to how the plot was a bit lackluster.

A problem of course with the exiles was always going to be how not to kill the breakout characters. Nothing wrong with Heather when she joins but she isn’t as memorable as Sunfire or T-bird.

[Nullviahomo]

Great series. Such a simple idea with huge scope for stories that the writers took full advantage of. A cracking roster of characters who, straight off the bat, jumped past the usual 'bland multiverse variant who will probably die' stereotype into 'Hell yeah, these are X-Men' territory. Blink was already there from A0A, but Nocturne, Morph, Thunderbird and Mimic were all on that level.

I remain surprised that none of them (or versions of them) have made that jump from Exiles into the main continuity. Even more surprising that no writer has 'fixed' the problems with 616 Mimic by bringing him into line with his Exiles counterpart, which would be pretty easy to do. Just say that his father's mutagenic gas screwed up his natural X-Gene, which led to power incontinence and a chemical imbalance in his brain that manifested as mental issues. One quick trip through the (pre-SOS) Resurrection Protocols, with a pit-stop in Doctor Nemesis' lab ("Stop everything! I have spotted a genetic anomaly that your pedestrian brains would melt to contemplate!") to identify and strip out the post-Gas damage and voila, he's back to the 5-power at 50% limit he always 'should' have had with no more brain-troubles.

[Captain Buttocks]

I don’t remember the worlds they visit that well in the 10-20’s span. Probably speaks to how the plot was a bit lackluster.

A problem of course with the exiles was always going to be how not to kill the breakout characters. Nothing wrong with Heather when she joins but she isn’t as memorable as Sunfire or T-bird.

Agree completely about the strength of the initial characters (barring Magnus, obviously). It says a lot that T-Bird only lasted 10 issues initially but was hugely popular, thanks to his memorable design and Winnick's knack for characterisation.

Great series. Such a simple idea with huge scope for stories that the writers took full advantage of. A cracking roster of characters who, straight off the bat, jumped past the usual 'bland multiverse variant who will probably die' stereotype into 'Hell yeah, these are X-Men' territory. Blink was already there from A0A, but Nocturne, Morph, Thunderbird and Mimic were all on that level.

I remain surprised that none of them (or versions of them) have made that jump from Exiles into the main continuity. Even more surprising that no writer has 'fixed' the problems with 616 Mimic by bringing him into line with his Exiles counterpart, which would be pretty easy to do. Just say that his father's mutagenic gas screwed up his natural X-Gene, which led to power incontinence and a chemical imbalance in his brain that manifested as mental issues. One quick trip through the (pre-SOS) Resurrection Protocols, with a pit-stop in Doctor Nemesis' lab ("Stop everything! I have spotted a genetic anomaly that your pedestrian brains would melt to contemplate!") to identify and strip out the post-Gas damage and voila, he's back to the 5-power at 50% limit he always 'should' have had with no more brain-troubles.

Nocturne did actually make the jump to 616, where she starred in New Excalibur for a bit. And yes, I'm surprised, after his positive reception here that more hasnt been done to bring 616 Mimic more into line with Exiles Cal.



Updates to this thread - hoping to get #20-22 up this weekend, thats Winnick's last story with the Exiles team (we'll discuss his departure over the next two stories). After that its the oddball Weapon X three-parter and then Winnick (and this thread) are done!

[Nullviahomo]

Nocturne did actually make the jump to 616, where she starred in New Excalibur for a bit.

She did, didn't she! I'd put that down to a fever-dream I had. So, does that mean she's still knocking around somewhere (wasn't there something about a heart condition that stopped her using her powers) or has she been shunted off into another alt-universe to be with another version of Thunderbird?

Because if she's still around, giving her the opportunity to hook up with the resurrected Thunderbird (who could certainly do with a little bit of love in his life) seems like a no-brainer.