Excalibur, Exiles

Excalibur: Mojo Mayhem

The X-Babies are the only reason I’m keeping this.  Them and Art Adams.

I mean, come on.  They’re frickin’ adorable and hilariously petulant.  Rogue and Dazzler are allowed to be as jealous as they want of each other.  Wolverine can indulge in all the child-like behavior he wants. It’s great.

Everything else in this book is ho-hum.  The issue revolves around the Agent fooling all the X-Babies into signing contracts binding them to Mojo forever.  But after Kitty thwarts him, all the kids end up returning to Mojoverse anyway in exchange for Ricochet Rita’s freedom.  Rita, of course, runs right back into the clutches of Mojo because she’s unable to leave the X-Babies behind. So...everything ends up the way they started.  The futility of it all is infuriating.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Fine

Exiles 1, 2, 34

X-Men from various realities are thrown together into a team that has to repair disruptions to the time-space continuum.  (Think the tv show Legends of Tomorrow, but with mutants.)  It’s a neat concept, but the primary reason it got my money for two issues is the return of Blink from the Age of Apocalypse.  By far the best part of that saga, I was ecstatic at her return. Judd Winick at the writing helm was a mega bonus.

The actual cover has all of the characters in color, but Blink's the only one who matters.

Also, it's impossible to use that composition without calling this to mind:

The first story arc is fine, but reads a lot like an Elseworlds story with no real stakes.  Sure, one of the team members gets killed (Magneto and Rogue’s grown up son, Magnus), but I hardly had any time to get to know him, so that moment didn’t have any emotional weight.  It’s like Thunderbird dying a couple issues after Giant-Size X-Men 1.   A quick skim through the comic’s Wikipedia article indicates that Winick and later writers had no problem killing off team members.  I can imagine how that’d actually be pretty powerful given time to grow familiar with the group.

I must have read a positive review of issue 34.  That’s the only reason I can imagine for me to buy this random issue after skipping the thirty-one in between.  It’s a tragic romance between Mariko Yashida (Sunfire) and Mary Parker (Spider-Woman) - They find love, only for Mariko to be teleported to another reality with no notice.  Winick does a nice job of showing how happy they are together, to make their abrupt separation all the more painful. I’m glad I picked it up, it’s hard to tell this kind of story well.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No (Yes for 34)

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine (Nice for 34)