EXILES:
-I was a major fan of this comic while it was out (well... when it was good, anyways), and always MEANT to do builds of it, but for some reason I'd always delayed, and didn't get them done until three years into M&M's 3rd Edition, back in March 2014. Maybe it's because Blink struck me as a tough build to pull off, or the fact that I didn't really feel like re-reading the entire series (I mean, I was behind on my comic reading ALREADY). But I figured what the hey- I still remembered it well enough, and the characters were interesting for their time.
Exiles is basically directly inspired by both the TV show
Sliders, and
The Age of Apocalypse, an "Alternate Timeline" story in Marvel that involved a world in which Charles Xavier was murdered at a young age, and Apocalypse had taken over North America as a result. This story featured a TON of costume redesigns by hot artist Joe Madureira, and was enormously popular for a very dark period in comic history (especially in terms of sales).
AoA's use of deceased character Blink and villain Sabretooth as major heroic characters excited a lot of fans, and years later, Marvel FINALLY took fan demand for Blink's return seriously, and made her the central character of a brand-new series.
Thankfully, this was no mere attempt at capitalizing on a Doom Patrol Fandom for one character- by putting a TEAM around her, Marvel successfully made a good series instead of a sure-to-fail solo book. The Exiles were basically a bunch of Alternate Universe-drawn Marvel heroes (related to the X-Books, mostly... pretty much entirely, actually), set up by a mysterious Timebroker to "Slide" (like
Sliders, basically) into Alternate Realities and then "fix" something that went wrong. Blink led the team, and her teammates included the daughter of Nightcrawler (from another Alternate Future idea that excited readers), the son of Magneto, a heroic Mimic, an
AoA-like Morph, and various other characters. The recurring cast gave the book a heart, and the overall concept gave it a wide-open universe with endless possibilities. Being a more minor book with "unknown" or alternate characters meant they could also KILL people, giving the book an edge most Mainstream books lack entirely.
The book was written by Judd Winick at first (you can tell because it added a gay character when lots of books weren't doing that) and drawn by Mike McKone (I can always tell it's him because men's mouths always look funny- he sorta fixed this by
Avengers Academy), but other creative staff soon took over. Jim Calafiore basically took over the regular art chores, but I wasn't too big a fan- this and his
Secret Six stuff is full of really harshly-shaded, boxy-looking people with no pupils and angry-faces all the time. BUT, that said, he's probably every writer & company's dream- the dude NEVER missed an issue, meaning he was probably fast as hell (just as big an advantage to an artist as overall skill). Winick later dropped out, being replaced by both Chuck Austen (doing an... oddly okay job, given that it's CHUCK AUSTEN, one of the worst bastards ever to crap on the medium) and Tony Bedard (who wrote almost half the overall issues).
The Initial Cast:
Blink- A teleporting pink-skinned girl, drawn from Generation-X, who used her as an "Early Installment Fatality/Sacrificial Buddy", who died saving the team right away.
Age of Apocalypse made her a highly-requested star. She ends up the team leader, reading the "Tallus", which both Teleports the team to new Universes, and gives them their missions.
Morph- Shapeshifter and comic relief. Generally can't be serious, which of course makes him the heart of the team.
Mimic- Calvin Rankin, with lowered powers and a classically-heroic sensibility.
Nocturne- Nightcrawler & The Scarlet Witch's daughter, with the ability to Possess others (rarely seen).
Thunderbird- John Proudstar, not dead but horribly-mutated by Apocalypse into a Super-Powerhouse that can go out of control.
Magnus- The son of Rogue & Magneto, and our very own Sacrificial Buddy.
Sunfire- Mariko Yashida, now a teenage lesbian with Sunfire's powers.
They are also challenged by "Weapon X", a squad under the same mission the Exiles are, but are generally more "hardcore", and get the missions that involve killing and stuff. They end up being led by the
AoA Sabretooth (the mentor/father-figure of Blink), and feature more generic versions of nasty mutants, like Wolverine, Kane, Deadpool, Maverick, Mesmero and others. They frequently swap out members, and eventually include a Symbiote-powered psychopathic Peter Parker.
The Story of the Exiles:
-I actually don't have the first trade that introduces everybody and offs Magnus, but I've got most of the others, up to a point. A great one is when the team ends up on a Skrull-controlled Earth (which they'd taken over in the late 1800s), and plan to free it... when Galactus suddenly shows up. They end up having to lead an army of Super-Humans who've been forced into gladatorial combat for their entire lives (Spider-Man, Hulk, Thing and pretty much all the classic guys) against Galactus & Terrax, fighting them off with raw numbers. There's a FANTASTIC moment where Winick builds up how these guys have never known freedom in their entire lives, finally got out of captivity, "... and they see THIS idiot standing in front of them"- at which point every hero on Earth screams out with an "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" and annihilates Terrax in seconds. This mission leaves Thunderbird comatose, and he's replaced by Sasquatch (a black version Doctor Heather Hudson).
Other missions include a world dominated by Namor, an Earth crushed under the Phalanx, in which Sunfire falls in love with a lesbian version of Mary-Jane, who has Spider-Man's powers; their relationship is both cute and tragic- Mariko is TWICE forced to "slide" away from her. There's another where an evil Mimic dominates as the top villain with his Brotherhood, and demands to know secret to why our HEROIC Mimic didn't turn out as awful. Thinking that Mimic was just born lucky, and had an easier life, he digs through Mimic's entire life story... finding that every bit of it is exactly the same: the rough start, the life of crime, etc. The only difference? When Charles Xavier offered his help, our Mimic joined him. The villainous one spit in his face. Realizing that his entire dark life was entirely his own fault, he turns it around and eventually becomes known as a great hero in his own right.
Blink eventually leaves (and is replaced by an amoral Magik), and Nocturne switches places with Beak (back when he was a major character), leaving her in the Mainstream Marvel Universe. Blink soon returns, saving the Earth from Ego (who basically "birthed" a new sentient planet in the Earth, who fights against daddy alongside some Celestials), and the team has to square off against the evil, lethal Hyperion, who slaughters various Earth's heroes wholesale and tries to set himself up as a God on every Earth he finds himself on. This is sort of the big arc of the whole story, as he wipes out a chunk of heroic characters (including some of the team), finally stopped by Beak (who was generally useless in a fight, but fairly clever).
The Series Falters:
Next, they end up fighting the body-hopping Proteus, and this is about when I dropped off the series. They kinda kept certain things going a bit too long, the writing had gotten weaker, they revealed The Timebroker to be a bunch of space bugs (a "WTF" moment to top all "WTF" moments- they had the biggest mystery in the series and THAT was the best they could come up with?!?) and they'd pulled an
Oz by killing off too many interesting characters and replacing them with weaker ones (in the end, only Blink & Morph remained of the original cast, and the newbies were useless and boring by contrast). Moving into the boring-as-hell
New Universe world didn't help, and neither did the fact that the first collection I didn't get was like FIFTY DOLLARS or something ridiculous- I basically refused to buy it on principle, and never picked up another issue.
The series ended up dying a horrible, slow death, as Chris Claremont got a hold of it, and replaced everybody with his favourite female characters, then went on another "Cross-Time Caper" like his
Excalibur run, featuring Saturnyne, the Captain Britain Corps, and others. He had LONG since delved right into self-parody about this, but plopping Shadowcat, Psylocke (the actual, 616 version), Rogue AND MOTHERF*CKING SAGE into the book just to get his jollies off about his favourite Pet Characters on a book that was at the time totally different from anything else in comics was just WAY too much for fans to take. Sales dropped and the book was cancelled- Claremont killed off "Cat" (their Kitty Pryde) and had Rogue marry a Saurian on a world dominated by HYDRA, then hooked up Sabretooth with Psylocke. The team at the end of the book is Sabretooth, Psylocke, Sage, Morph, Valeria Richards and Mystiq (a variant of Mystique).
New Exiles (Failed Reboot):
-Jeff Parker and Salvador Espin created a second series in 2009, but it only lasted from April to October- a truly pathetic run. Alternate versions of The Witch, Beast, Forge, Polaris & The Panther are picked up and join Blink, who pretends to be new to this. Their Witch is killed and replaced with an alternate Scarlet Witch in secret, and Blink soon reveals that she intended to teach the team and give them some experience, and then fake her death and find her own replacement, thus allowing the Exiles to continue on their mission without her. In the final issue, the team (who had been snatched from their "moment of death" to be kinder and less disruptive) decides to remain together, while Blink trains new teams. Nocturne and Morph are also seen with this squad, while all the other previous Exiles are revealed to have been stuck inside the Panoptichron for some reason.
Following this book's failure, the mainstream Psylocke was returned to her homeworld. AoA Sabretooth was killed sacrificing himself to stop some X-Terminators from killing his home's X-Men. Sage joined Dazzler's own multiverse-spanning team with much the same role as the Exiles. Spider-Man 2099 ended up in the "Spider-Verse" event and getting a new lease on life.
Another Failed Reboot:
-2017 saw a new attempt at an
Exiles book, but this one failed spectacularly, not even lasting ten issues before it was cancelled. This team was formed by Nick Fury, and featured Blink, Kamala Khan, Iron Lad, Wolvie & Valkyrie. Morph was also featured.
The Rest of the Cast:
Sabretooth- The
AoA version, who basically has a Wolverine-like personality, right down to the attachment to young girls.
Sasquatch- Heather Hudson, a black doctor.
Magik- A nasty, amoral Sword-wielder with no demonic link.
Beak- Well, I already statted him. He's the one guy smart enough to realize that when you have access to alternate universes, you should fight an unstoppable Hyperion with OTHER, GOOD HYPERIONS.
Namora- A blue-skinned Atlantean chick version of Namor, with the same imperious personality. Basically a fanservice/Powerhouse character.
Holocaust- The evil son of Apocalypse. Basically the same as the regular comics version, I think.
Power Princess- Already statted her, naturally. The Squadron Supreme character became the new Powerhouse of the team.
Spider-Man 2099- Because they weren't using any of those guys, so why not?
Psylocke- The mainstream version, and Claremont's pet. Later hooks up with Sabretooth.
Sage- Claremont's favorite Pet Character from
X-Treme X-Men, also joining the team.
Cat- An alternate Kitty Pryde.
Longshot- I think the mainstream version. He's only there for a little bit, because Claremont adores him.
There's a TON of alternating people who joined the team after this, but I wasn't reading then and so I'm going to assume they all either sucked or were just like their Earth-616 counterparts (in a few cases, like in Claremont's favourites, they WERE the same characters).