Comic Info
Comic Name: Exiles (1)/Exiles: Days of Then and Now
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Chris Claremont/Mike Raicht
Artist: Clayton Henry/Ronan Cliquet/Steve Scott/Tom Grummett/Carlos Ferreira/Zach Howard/Paul Azaceta/Mario Gully/Arnold Pander/Wayne Nichols
# of Issues: 7
Release Date: 2008
Exiles (1) #98
Reprints Exiles (1) #95-100 and Exiles: Days of Then and Now #1 (August 2007-March 2008). The Exiles return to the Crystal Palace to find Heather gone and the palace deserted. The Exiles set out on a new adventure to a world where Victor Von Doom is leader of the Four Fantastics and Reed Richards is known as the Mole Man. The Exiles are scattered about time again and realize they must find their way back to the Crystal Palace, or it could be their last adventure.
Written by Chris Claremont, Exiles 16: Starting Over brings to a conclusion the first volume of Marvel’s Exiles series. Following Exiles 15: Enemy of the Stars, the collection serves as a direct tie in to the limited series X-Men: Die by the Sword by Claremont and also contains the stand alone issue Exiles: Days of Then and Now which is written by Exiles’ first editor Mike Raicht. The collection is also included in Exiles: Ultimate Collection–Book 6.
I like Chris Claremont, and I like the idea of the Exiles, but like many volumes of Exiles, I find this last entry a bit tedious. The first part of the story bring the “World Tour” home for a wrap-up adventure. The adventure however just doesn’t seem to flow. I kept looking back to see if I was missing portions of the story.
Exiles: Days of Then and Now #1
Much of what makes the Exiles work is the personalities and many of the characters are just lost in this volume. It needs to be about Blink, Sabretooth, Longshot, Morph, Psylocke, and Spider-Man 2099…especially if you are wrapping up a one hundred issue series. The characters deserve more than this.
Part of the problem with this series is that it is a tie in series. The Exiles and New Excalibur come together in X-Men: Die by the Sword #1-5 and some of this collection has ties to it. The 100th issue of Exiles is almost illogical. I didn’t read X-Men: Die by the Sword, and I had to look up what occurred on the series to understand what happened at the end of the long running series.
The stand-alone issue Exiles: Days of Then and Now however is fun. In the story, Blink takes the guise of the Time Broker to set another new Exile team in formation due to the fact the Exiles were gone on the World Tour when the world needed them. It is a fun little jaunt with once again fun characters…I wish that the previous stories had been a bit more like this. It isn’t perfect, but more in the spirit of the Exiles.
Exiles was a frustrating series. I read the entire series, but can’t say it was every anything but an average series. The reason that this is frustrating is that it could have been so much better. Exiles 16: Starting Over is a weak entry in a series with a number of weak entries. Exiles 16: Starting Over ends with this volume of Exiles but a new series New Exiles 1: New Life, New Gambit.
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