Exiles is one of the books I can deal with fairly briefly, because it's Exiles doing what Exiles does.

Actually, that's a little unfair, because writer Tony Bedard is playing around with some possibilities of the format that haven't really been tried before.  The Exiles don't generally tend to meet their own counterparts, and this is also the first reality to be waiting for them in advance (thanks to the local version of Destiny).   It's a minor thing, but it's nice to see Bedard finding twists on the set-up that haven't been done before, even 50 issues into the book's run.

The set-up here is that the local version of Mystique has replaced Blink and is trying to get the Exiles to break the local Mimic out of jail (since he's the big Magneto figure in their world).  Admittedly, the plot does call for tremendous suspension of disbelief, since Mystique's impersonation is pretty dreadful.  While she can get the visual side of things down properly, she's never really seen much of Blink and she seems to be guessing her way through the character.  The Exiles prove surprisingly tolerant of her very ropey improvisations.

Still, Exiles is a book about straightforward plots and bright, colourful art with plenty of spandex-related action sequences, and that's what you get here.  The closing twist teeters dangerously close to sappiness, but ultimately gets away with it, largely because artist Mizuki Sakakibara pulls off a suitably ridiculous visual of the reformed Brotherhood.  It wouldn't work if we were really being asked to take it seriously, but that's not the angle the creators are going for.

Fun.  I'm liking the book with the new creative team.

Rating: B+

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