Reviewer: Ben Morse
Story Title: “Earn Your Wings pt. 3 of 3â€
Written by: Tony Bedard
Penciled by: Mizuki Sakakibara
Inked by: Mizuki Sakakibara
Colored by: JC
Lettered by: Dave Sharpe
Editor: Mike Marts
Publisher: Marvel Comics
There was a time when Exiles was that book that got me excited to get done with my last class on Wednesdays and run to the comic store. The characters were likeable and unique, their plights were intense and there was a genuine feeling that anything could happen at any time. Judd Winick balanced humor and poignancy and Mike McKone’s characters and landscapes seemed to come alive.
That was a long time ago.
Winick ran out of steam on the title long before he departed last year. Chuck Austen had a surprisingly energetic run that was all too brief. The big draw on Exiles during the “X-Men Reloaded†event was the debut of CrossGen’s hot writer Tony Bedard. I was unfamiliar with Bedard’s CG work but had heard good things from many peers here at 411 whom I trust. Thus, after planning for the better part of a year to drop Exiles from my pull list, I decided to give Bedard the opportunity to either dazzle me and keep me onboard or turn me off of the title for good.
Three issues in and I haven’t really decided in which direction I’ll be going.
Bedard’s first issue was very disappointing; it was a cookie-cutter jumping on issue that dulled down characters who are much more interesting and three-dimensional than they were portrayed as. The second issue was a little better, with Bedard breeding a good bit of life into his first Exiles creation, Namora, but it still lacked significant flair. The conclusion to “Earn Your Wings†sets enough interesting things into motion that I want to see play out in the plot, but the characters are still feeling very flat and there were holes in the story big enough to lose a U-Haul in.
In particular, Bedard seems unable to key in on the qualities that made Morph and Mimic the breakout fan favorite characters of the early days of the series. Austen did a good job with both of these characters, so I don’t buy the excuse that only Winick, their creator, can write them.
The last forty five issues before Bedard came on board showed that there were layers to Morph far beyond being the class clown. Bedard seems to regress him, having him there for the sole purpose of spewing one liners (and the lack of wit in the barbs Bedard has Morph spitting out makes me appreciate the clever humor of Winick’s early work much more). This is all the more upsetting as Austen wrote Morph so well and set up the potential for him to grow into the natural leader of the team while not losing his funny side during the last arc.
Mimic hit a high mark of complexity before McKone left as a natural born hero losing his idealism after being forced into a near-impossible situation and being forced to kill for the first time. After Blink left the series, this sub-plot seemed to get lost as Mimic was forced into the leadership position, but, again, Austen did a nice job of bringing some of it back, capitalizing perfectly on the great set up Winick left with the death of Sunfire; three issues in, Bedard has ignored Mimic’s potential and made him wallpaper. Any regular reader of Exiles knows that the wallpaper position has been filled by Sasquatch for years now (and I will say that Bedard continues the proud tradition of giving Heather absolutely no character development or anything useful to do other than fill the traditional strong guy/gal role). Indeed, the majority of the Exiles team has seemed devoid of personality and meaning during this arc, simply existing to provide the impetus for the story; these characters are better than that.
The one veteran Exile that Bedard does seem to “get†at least somewhat is Nocturne. He does a good job of staying loyal to the dual sense of mischief and responsibility the character’s creator, Jim Calafiore, reinforced during her two-part solo tale a couple of months ago (I’ve accepted the fact that Bedard is probably never going to bring up the topic of Thunderbird and we’ll never get another beautiful issue like the one shot “Nocturne and Evensong†so I’ve decided not to even bring it up outside of this, the world of the parenthetical). As such, Nocturne is an effective narrator for the issue and holds it together well.
Warning: Plot Spoilers Ahead!
While Bedard writes a good Namor (and thus a good Namora), I was thoroughly disappointed with his use of the Fantastic Four, Mr. Fantastic in particular. I hate it when good characters are used as exposition devices just because they’re “the smart ones,†as Reed is in this issue. The deus ex machina of Reed just being really really smart and thus figuring out the (pretty dumb and obvious) riddle the team needed to solve to move on from this reality was another big plot hole.
After doing such a good job last issue of building up Namora as a character and creating a very interesting question of why the team trusts the Timebroker without question, Bedard seems to drop both balls in this issue. Hopefully the Timebroker thread is not anywhere near over, but the ease with which Namora eventually agrees to go along with the rest of the team undermines all the good stuff that was done with her last issue.
Ok, the bottom line: I have never ever liked Beak as a character and his insertion into the cast of Exiles, at the expense of Nocturne, whom, as I mentioned above, was the only Exile that Bedard really seemed to have a good handle on, does not put a smile on my face. Beak is such a tired cliché, the underdog nerd who makes good; I know that his “inspirational†struggle to prove himself a hero will probably detract from revisiting Mimic’s guilt over the deaths he has caused and Morph’s growth as a character and a million other things I’d rather see happen in this title.
For all the bad, there was some good in this issue. As mentioned twice already, Bedard does a good job with Nocturne and her narration is a treat. Also as already mentioned, Bedard writes a nice Namor and Namora; their fight is fun. And, of course, I bit big time on the last two pages; I’m intrigued enough to give Bedard at least until issue number fifty.
Mizuki Sakakibara is very unspectacular as an artist. The work is technically sound, but nothing more; at times it is very flat and at no time does the action leap off the page. I don’t understand why Marvel insists on putting under whelming artists like Sakakibara and Clayton Henry on this title when Jim Calafiore is just waiting to move up from the fill-in role he’s been excelling in for nearly four years.
All in all, I found there to be far more wrong with this issue than right. The good thing is that the stuff that was right, principally Nocturne’s narration, ran throughout, and thus at no time did the story become unreadable. Bedard sets up some interesting potential storylines with the Timebroker thing and the final two pages. To win me over, he’ll have to follow up on both and also treat the Exiles (and not Beak) as the complex characters they have the potential to be again and not just as gawking onlookers.
The clock is still ticking for me on this title, as it now has been for like two years, pretty soon I’m just gonna throw the damn thing out the window.
