New Exiles #12 - Review

The Good…

• End of the first year and this book finally looks somewhat promising.
• Kitty finally seems like she could be an interesting character.
• No use of Gambit, Rogue, Sage or Mystique.

The Bad…

• Kitty vs. Wolverine climax happened off panel.
• No use of Morph or Psylocke.
• Story is still pretty bad.
• The bastardization of what was once a great title continues.

Full Review

Okay, lets face it, when I heard that Exiles was being re-launched as New Exiles, I wasn’t thrilled. I got interested in this book thanks to my love of Blink and was sad to find out she wouldn’t be on the team. Then I heard that Chris Claremont was taking over the writing and I had some hope. I mean, lets face it, the man re-defined the X titles during his tenure at Marvel so I was optimistic that he’d keep New Exiles as awesome as Exiles was before it. But it was not to be.

The writing has been completely uninspired and cheesy, one issue contained the words “This is so weird” no less than 4 times in situations that are not weird at all. The characters are TERRIBLE!!! Mystiq is kind of like Mystique except a dude. Gambit is the sun or Sue Storm and Namor. Nothing in this title really makes sense.

Now that you understand my disgust with what the Exiles have become, I can get to this issue. This has been the best issue of this run so far. The basic point is that the bad guys (Led by Sue Storm as Madam Hydra, and also including evil Wolverine and the Slaymaster) have been traveling dimensions looking for different versions of Psylocke and Sabertooth and killing them. Creed finds out and decides it’s time to take the fight to them and gets his ass handed to him. Just as he is about to be killed he gets phased into the ground and transported (thanks to the spinning of the Earth) a ways away from the fight. Kitty tells him that to keep them hidden, they’ll have to stay phased but that it will prevent him from healing (bad idea.) Eventually, (evil) Wolverine finds them and, since Creed couldn’t heal, continues the ass kicking from earlier. However, Creed gets in a few hits and counters and Wolverine decides to pull out the gun he brought along (which is lame as hell, why would Wolverine use a gun in a fist fight???) and shoot Creed. Kitty phases him and the bullets go through him (good thing too because since Wolverines claws didn’t kill Creed, I bet those bullets would have!!! Ugh.) Anyway, Kitty has seen enough and kicks Creed off of a cliff, and out of harms way (Bullets = Bad, Fall off of a cliff with a hard landing below = A-OK!)

Kitty manages to destroy Wolverine’s gun (Phasing through gun = destroyed gun) but Wolverine manages to get her in the stomach with his claws. She shrugs it off and makes her parents proud by accessing the gymnastics she took as a child and dodging everything Wolverine can throw at her. Eventually, Wolverine claws her in the stomach again, but this time she was phased. She smirks and unphases, which removes Wolverines claws from his fist. The fight ends with a climactic “YEARGHHH!” off panel and Kitty comes down to Creed with a pretty necklace made of Wolverine’s claws, picks up Creed and they go home.

So that was the issue. All things considered, the writing is bad… but not as bad as it was for the first 11 issues. The story was alright, I’m glad to get some closure to part of this story. The art is alright, nothing spectacular, but not that bad. I think I want Claremont off this book. I’ve been saying for awhile that I’d give New Exiles until issue 12 before I decide to drop it. I’ve decided that I’ll buy #13 but I’m going on an issue by issue basis now. If there is one more bad issue anytime soon, I’m done with this series.

New Exiles #12

5 out of 10 stars