MARVEL 2002: Exiles, "A World Apart"

 

The Exiles land on an Earth conquered by Skrulls and are forced to fight for their lives as gladiators -- and that's just the start of their troubles!

Exiles #8-10 originally published March-May 2002. By Judd Winick, Mike McKone, Mark McKenna, Transparency Digital and Sharpfont's Paul Tutrone. Edited by Mike Raicht and Mike Marts. Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, President Bill Jemas

(This post was originally featured on the Uncanny X-Cerpts Patreon and may be subject to formatting issues)

Debuting in 2001, Exiles had an irresistible premise, taking a disparate group of mutant characters (and mutant-adjacent ones) through a series of alternate realities. Given a heroic mission by their time-travelling Apple watch the Tallus, they move on once the job is complete. The series trades in the kind of fervent "What if things went different?" curiosity baked into comic reader DNA and stoked by series like Marvel's What If...?, but given a solid throughline of a regular ensemble -- the thing was an easy sell as "Sliders, with X-Men."

Helming the series was Judd Winick, the former MTV's Real World castmember who was poised to become a comics It-boy for the new decade with his witty, wacky but also socially-conscious comics. Providing the art for most issues was the versatile and stylish Mike McKone, whose potrayals of familiar Marvel characters marries the iconic with the askew, making him perfect for the Exiles assignment.

At this time, the Exiles' co-leaders are Blink (the AOA Fave) and an ensoulpatched Mimic, much more of a sensitive guy than the hothead we met way back in the 1960's X-Men comics. 

Rounding out the team are shapeshifting prop-comic Morph, in a version that echoes his AOA breakout version but was in fact from a more conventional superhero universe, Nocturne (TJ Wagner) the future daughter of Nightcrawler and Scarlet Witch, Thunderbird John Proudstar from a universe where he survived the encounter with Count Nefaria but was made into Apocalypse's horseman War, and Sunfire, who in this universe is a perky, double-ponytailed Mariko Yoshida (with her cousin's usual powerset and reversing her demure Japanese Princess depiction from our regular comics.)

Early on, Exiles signaled it was going to play fast and loose with its characters' lives and fates, as Sunfire was a replacement for original member Magnus (the son of Magneto and Rogue) who died in their first adventure. Since part of the book's concept is visiting with a rotating cast of crazy alternate versions of characters, there's actually some incentive to kill off your cast.  

As we begin, the newly-named Exiles have been at it for a while: we've seen a few of their adventures and the series sees fit to burn off a bunch of premises in a montage to show their growth outside of real-time. It's a pretty confident move that shows that the series has something big up its sleeve for us.

In this particular reality, the Skrull Empire took control of Earth at the dawn of the 20th century, well before it had any superheroes to protect it. But, as fate would have it, various superpowered beings ended up cropping up anyway -- and not just mutants, but somehow the likes of Spider-Man, the Hulk, and the Thing, who all got their powers from outside sources in the world we know.

The Skrulls do the sensible thing and pit these slave warriors against each other in Gladiatorial combat. And unfortunately, four of the Exiles -- Mimic, Thunderbird, Nocturne and Sunfire -- have gotten themselves caught up in it.

Blink and Morph mount an unsuccessful infiltration of the Skrull Arena and are reaching their wits' end -- if they can't rescue their friends, they'll never be able to complete their mission, whatever it actually is, and move on. Plus, their friends might die in Gladatorial combat. Actually, it's never mentioned, but maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing, because then the Tallus would wrangle up some new Exiles who weren't captured, am I wrong? Tell me I'm wrong.

But yeah, doing the hero thing means you should probably focus on saving the teammates you have. I'm just trying to explore every possible avenue, you know?

Time is of the essence, too, because a pair of Skrull technicians stationed in a ship orbiting the planet are mysteriously obliterated...

Who is responsible for this carnage you ask? Well, I'll give you a hint -- he's big and purple and he wears a headpiece that could only have been designed by Jack Kirby...

Yessir, that's my Galactus!

Down on Earth, the free Exiles have managed to improve their lot, however -- as their hopeless yet spunky attempts to free their friends has earned them an audience with the secret braintrust of the free humans:

As Caveman Reed tries to impress the heroes with his latest invention, a radio (it doesn't even have a clock in it) he overhears that something has got the Skrull panicking. They are evacuating the planet en masse.

That causes the doors to the cells holding the Gladiators to unlock, and when they get out and find that some nasty alien herald of Galactus called Terrax is wrecking the joint, they are raring to go.

So wait, you're telling me that even in a world ruled by Skrulls for a century, Karl Lykos still managed to make it to Tierra del Fuego and become cursed to be Sauron? That happened?

At first, the newly freed heroes are overwhelmed by he who wields the power cosmic, but soon the heavy hitters come in.

Soon they're able to overwhelm and defeat Terrax, but the question still remains, how do you defeat a god?

Right, right, but um, what are they gonna do after that?

Well as it turns out, Morph, from his experience, knows about a Thingy that the Skrulls have, some kind of weapon they can use against Galactus. Pretty ballsy, considering the Skrulls preferred to evacuate the planet rather than try to use it themselves. We have to assume that the plan hinges on the willing participation of 800 Marvel Heroes.

As the Exiles circle up to co-ordinate their plan, John volunteers Nocturne for "staying back and doing nothing" duty. The group is confused -- is she hurt? Sick?

Not exactly...

Not only that, but John is the father, prompting a ha-ha-larious aside from Morph about everything working on the big guy.

TJ knows the risks though, and knows she is needed as part of this fight.

Although they suffer heavy losses, the assembled heroes are able to break through Galactus' shield thanks to a giant bomb placed underground by the Mole Man (who still managed to fall underground and become leader of a race of moloids and monsters while under Skull dominion, got it) and are soon dogpiling on the demi-god.

The plan is for Hulk -- er, Banner-Beast -- to pop the Galactus-killer device (an antimatter bomb) into Galactus and blow him up, as narration explains that it has credibility as "a very, very powerful weapon, I assure you."

Hulk? A gladiator with a metal headband? That'll never catch on.

With Banner off the field, the only one around who can complete the mission is...

The bomb goes off in a spectacular flash. It does not kill Galactus, but it does severely irritate him into leaving the planet, which... job well done, I suppose.

Back at the appropriated Skrull base, John lies in the ICU. The scanners indicate he is brain dead, but TJ holds out hope -- he was enhanced by Apocalypse, he heals real good. There's hope.

Until there isn't. The Exiles have their new member, Sasquatch. It's time to go.

And that's where we leave off.

At 14 years old, this story was one of the heaviest things I had read. Not, perhaps, as tragic as the climax of the Dark Phoenix Saga, which I had long since absorbed, but inordinately weighty for just your average comic off the racks. It really felt like Winick and McKone had done the work to imbue it with meaning and sentiment that would linger. And I thought about this story for years, so it was a job well done.

Coming back to it as a Serious Adult Enjoyer of Literature (ahem) my opinion is slightly moderated. As I mentioned, the entire concept of Exiles is geeky as folk, an exercise in "Look what we can do with our wonderful toys!" So you're going to get alternate versions of heroes you know, but unless otherwise stated, the heroes are pretty much just who they are in the comics you know -- in a universe that diverged from the Marvel mainstream a century earlier, Reed Richards still managed to get himself, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm transformed with the same powers, Peter Parker still got bit by a radioactive spider and Steve Rogers still gains enhanced abilities and the title of Captain. Even Morbius is there! Morbius the living vampire!! I get that you need to fill out the crowd scenes somehow, but... harumph. Watching the book jump through hoops to say "Go with it" -- while also trying to wedge in some ha-ha-larious "How do you know about X" jokes that feel like they must be done, can be tiring to someone who's not in it for continuity gags.

Still. All this leads to one certifiably cool moment in Exiles #9, where Mimic is matched up against The Captain, the Skrull-made version of Steve Rogers. Mimic holds the powers of five mutants (in this incarnation, he can wield five powersets for an unlimited length of time, making him an ideal character to have on the universe-hopping Exiles.) They've seen him fly like Northstar, bounce like Beast, and use his Wolverine claws. But he's been holding back one secret weapon...

Using his never-before-demonstrated optic blast, Mimic wrecks Steve's shit in one move, humbling the poster boy for Skrull supremacy and making a huge political statement. Like I said, I'm not in it for the "Yo bro, you know what would be sick?" moments, but this is pretty cool, and it's a bit sad that the whole thing ends up being for naught as the story moves on to the Galactus escapade.

While Mimic was always an awkward fit for mainline comics, he is perfectly-cast as a dimension-hopping Exile.

Considering that a common complaint about modern comics is that everything is stretched out to fit neat six-issue arcs, this three-parter actually could have used a little more breathing room as the situation is established as insurmountably dire, until it's not. Galactus is defeated in relatively short order, so while the scope and scale of it will resonate with longtime Marvelites who know how big of a deal Galactus is always going to be when he shows up, in a vacuum, it's somewhat unsatisfying.

As it turned out, Exiles was always going to be a game of "Top That," and as long as I read the series it never beat this moment for marriage of triumph and tragedy. And that probably is because this three-part story loads up on alternate-universe tropes to the point of overdosage and eats up a ton of future potential stories. Pacing yourself, you could do a conquered-by-Skrulls story, and/or a Gladiator World story, and/or a Galactus story, but this one goes for broke with all three and the climactic tragic sacrifice. No wonder this one seemed so epic. It also helps to get access to a bottomless trove of Marvel heroes to play with -- the trick of being able to dial up that universe's Reed Richards, or Tony Stark, or Thor, or just happening to know where the Anti-Galactus Bomb might be kept, is not a card that should be played too often. It would be nice to see the Exiles win by virtue of being the Exiles, not because they have access to various iterations of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

Where have I seen this before?

I'm not saying it's bad, but the story's success might have been to the detriment of the series overall. This was one of the first "World completely wrecked" stories Exiles did, but as it racked up more and more of them, they began to have less effect. Eventually, under a later writer, the book turned back on itself, revealing the terrible secret of the Timebrokers (the enigmatic beings that set the Exiles about their work), somewhat derailing the series' concept.

This book came at an awkward time. It was based around snappy, brief jaunts to different realities, just before the wave of Decompression hit and comics were taking longer and longer to resolve stories. It has early-2000s humor to diffuse some of the clunkiness, but sometimes makes it clunky itself. And it really did have heart -- we only knew Thunderbird a brief time (longer than in the regular comics but still) but the book really cared about its characters. Winick absolutely knew how to get us to sympathize with his characters. A lot of work was put into making this John a sympathetic figure, and his budding relationship with Nocturne was indicated in the previous story, February's wordless "'Nuff Said" issue. It rushes through considerably more than a modern comic might, but it was not unusual of ineffectual for the time.

"A World Apart" promised huge things for the Exiles -- big, crazy adventures, big stakes, and a real beating heart to its characters. It really did try to deliver on that promise but, as long as I was reading it, never could match this height. Still, Exiles Volume 1 lasted as astonishing 100 issues, was rebooted for another 18, (with Chris Claremont at the helm!) and then brought back a few more times after that. The idea is durable and I hope that in some 136 further issues that I mostly never read, it was able to live up to its potential and really regain some of its luster.