A relaunch of Alpha Flight and two Chuck Austen books.  Not exactly a banner week, is it?

Exiles continues "A Blink in Time", so-called because Blink doesn't have much to do in it.  In fairness to Austen, this has all the hallmarks of an editorially mandated deck-clearing exercise, where he's got three issues to pare the cast down to the characters required by Tony Bedard when he takes over in May.  And within that remit, it's actually not so bad.

True, it's got plot holes you could drive a truck through.  Illyana's main aim since he was introduced has been to complete all the missions at any cost and get home.  So it makes no sense whatsoever for her to try and ally herself with Hyperion, who has been doing the exact opposite.  Nor does it make any sense for Hyperion to start killing everyone once he learns that that's the mission, since that will simply move him on to the next universe and he was doing just fine with this one.

These being the fundamental (indeed, virtually the only) character traits of Illyana and Hyperion, it's a bit of a shame that Austen seems to have lost sight of them in favour of "Ooh, they're eeeevil."  Especially because they were both interesting ideas that messed about with the concept of the series.

But to give him his due, it's quite well paced, and Morph's reaction to the death of Sunfire has been reasonably well handled.  It's one of Austen's better efforts.  The plot holes aren't really fundamental disasters, and the basic concept is fair enough for this sort of exercise.

For those of you who are really on tenterhooks waiting to find out who survives, by the way, the May solicitations largely give the game away.  There are six characters in the cover art for that month's issue (five of whom are immediately recognisable).  So go and look it up now, or avoid it like the plague, depending on your attitude to spoilers.

Flawed, but actually quite readable.

Rating: B-

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