10 june 2001

EXILES is the last of the X-books' relaunches, and if nothing else it marks a distinct improvement on the very poor Blink miniseries which preceded it.

On the plus side, the book has some wonderful artwork from Mike McKone and Mark McKenna, who have deserved a high profile assignment for ages. Last I heard of them, they were working on Keith Giffen's very short-lived Vex series, where to be honest they were probably doing slightly better work. Comedy plays to their strengths more than adventure, but since the series is already setting up plenty of banter between the cast, they've got enough to work with here.

In terms of the writing, the strength here lies in Judd Winick's ability to make the cast appealing. They don't really come across as terribly strong personalities for the most part, but they do seem like people who'll make pleasant company and entertaining protagonists, so that's a good start.

The problem with this series, and it's a big one, is the incredibly contrived premise. I believe at this point I'm meant to mention Sliders, but I've never seen it, so I'll go for the second most obvious reference and mention Quantum Leap instead. The gimmick is that these six characters from different realities have been brought together completely arbitarily, and are being packed off to different realities to fix "breaks in the chain of time" that have erased their own timelines.

In other words, they're going to go to a different world every storyline, and fix something. Like on Quantum Leap.

Blink has a little device she wears which tells her what they need to do, though nobody else can hear the voice. Like on Quantum Leap.

It's just generally rather like Quantum Leap.

The dramatic difficulty with this, I've always thought, is that it means that in every storyline, the characters' aim is to achieve something completely arbitrary which they're being told to do by a handy deus ex machina which explains the plot to them right at the beginning. Quantum Leap used to be very bad at that sort of thing, and would often ask its viewers to believe that all sorts of hopeless trivia was of such cosmic importance that the protagonist really did need to fix it.

It remains to be seen whether Exiles will fall into the same trap, but straight out the bat it seems to be going for one of the other dramatic cheats rather common in this formula, namely hopelessly vague instructions. The thingie that tells them what to do informs Blink to "find the one who would lead you. Find your greatest teacher." Why it can't just give her a name, I have no idea. Except, of course, that that wouldn't give them an opportunity to plough off blindly to rescue this world's version of Professor X, only to find that he's a villain. I have a sinking feeling that the idea here is that they've misinterpreted the instructions. After all, the Tallus (for that's what it's called) was talking to Blink, who's never met Xavier in her life. This is a rather cheap way to generate drama.

On the plus side, while none of the other cast members seem to come from particularly distinctive realities, Winick has at least resisted the usual temptation to make them all inhabitants of nasty Earths. Most of them seem to come from worlds as pleasant as the mainstream universe if not more so. It's been a long time since the X-books showed us a nice alternate Earth, so hopefully Winick is going to show a bit more imagination in his alternate worlds than we've been used to. Mind you, he also sends us for the first storyline to a world that's wiped out all its superhumans, which isn't all that original.

The opening half of the story, gathering the team together, is also shamelessly contrived. They all turn up together, and a mysterious cosmic butler recounts their origins and explains the plot. None of this entirely makes much sense, although it does at least get the characters together with minimum fuss.

The upbeat tone and likeable characters carry the book, for the moment, past its grinding structural flaws. It remains to be seen whether Winick can continue to resist the pull of the plot black holes that series of this sort tend to rapidly fall into.

Oh god, X-MEN: THE HIDDEN YEARS again. Only one month to go.

John Byrne does his usual retro superhero routine, and by now you undoubtedly know whether you like it or not. I find this dull enough at the best of times. When the story starts crossing over with a Fantastic Four story from the early 1970s, and wheels out Ikaris for a guest appearance with no real explanation of who he is - along with another character from Byrne's Lost Generation series - I switch off.

I really could not give a toss about anything in this issue.

I haven't read any of the material that Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale did for DC. I did notice them getting rather good reviews over there, which came as a mild surprise to me given that Wolverine/Gambit: Victims wasn't exactly a classic, and Loeb's work on Cable and X-Force was workmanlike but nothing particularly special. Clearly it was going to look very nice, but I wasn't altogether convinced about the content.

DAREDEVIL: YELLOW is the first thing the duo have done for Marvel since that Victims miniseries, and it kind of confirms my suspicions. Or prejudices, if you prefer.

This is a flashback story recounting how Matt Murdock ends up cavorting around in pyjamas. It's not his origin story - Matt already has the superhuman powers as the story begins. It's just the story of why he chooses to become a superhero. The series title reflects the short-lived yellow costume that Daredevil wore at the outset of his series, before dumping it in favour of the infinitely better red one.

Naturally, it looks wonderful. Sale has decided to take the period approach and illustrate the story as if it was set in the publication era (rather than update it to about 1989, in line with current continuity). That's probably the sensible choice here, given the rather dated nature of the story they're playing off. It works more effectively as a period piece. A curious exception is the presence of a black female judge, who I suspect were rather thin on the ground at that time, but there you go.

The story has Matt, as a law student, following his father's boxing career as he has a surprising late surge in middle age. Murdock Sr is potentially in line for a title fight. In fact, all his opponents have been bribed to take dives (which I think is an original story element, but makes a certain kind of sense). When asked to take a dive himself, Murdock refuses, and from there we segue into the established storyline where Matt starts wandering around in a costume in order to get revenge.

The story is obvious assuming a prior knowledge of the character, since it makes no effort to explain where Matt got his powers from, nor for that matter to explain any of the Stick material that justifies his fighting skills (which will become a point in issue next month). I can understand eliminating those elements, since they have nothing to do with the story in hand, but it does mean that the story will read oddly read in isolation.

The key word here is "sentimental." It's a decently told story, it looks great, but it's basically about your upbeat inspiring Hollywood messages. We even get a panel of Matt's graduation with him being told "You have shown us that no matter how large the adversity, the individual can triumph." Which is, of course, bollocks. Frequently, the individual will do no such thing. But that's the sort of thing that this story's about.

It's low-calorie art - all the appearance of serious, intelligent artistic endeavour, with none of the stodgy content. Approach it in that way, and you'll get on just fine. Expect more of it, and you may end up disappointed.

I don't watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I try to avoid mentioning this publicly, because it's one of those shows that has the sort of fans who will phone you repeatedly at 3am in the morning to demand to know why you aren't watching their beloved programme. If you are such a person and were about to e-mail me to recommend the show, then don't. I don't want to hear it.

While I'm at it, the same applies to readers of 100 Bullets, from whom I have heard more than enough over the last year.

I mention the fact that I haven't watched the show (well, I think I made it to an opening scene once), because FRAY turns out to be a sister concept to Buffy, set in our old favourite, the dystopian future. Melaka Fray, who has a surname that doubles as a title and therefore turns me against her right from the outset, is the slayer of the future. Cue much muttering about the chosen one.

I am aware that Joss Whedon has a reputation for writing more than averagely intelligent television. There are some cute throwaway moments in Fray which tend to support that, but for the most part we're in exceptionally generic territory here. Call me jaded, call me an unreceptive audience - and you'll be right - but if I never see another frigging dystopian future again, it'll be too soon. It's old, it's tired, get over it.

The storytelling is fine for the most part, and the dialogue's pretty decent aside from a hopelessly clunky openly segment of people saying "She has no idea what is to come", which is meant to be setting up a serious tone for a change of pace on a page turn, but fails because it's so cliched. The art's perfectly decent. There's nothing much wrong with this book if you like that kind of thing, but it leaves me cold.

No doubt the Buffy fans will have enjoyed this and will have seen all sorts of convoluted internal references which will mean nothing to me. If so, please don't e-mail me about it.