Exiles, Vol. 14: The New Exiles

Exiles (2001) (Collected Editions)

by Tony Bedard, Jim Calafiore (Illustrator), Paul Pelletier (Illustrator)

Snikt, to the sixth power. With the Exiles fired, it's time for a new group of dimension-jumping heroes. Wolverine has always been known as the best there is at what he does, so six Wolverines must be really, really, really good at what they do. Can the Exiles get their jobs back from these scene-stealing Canucks? Collects Exiles #84-89 and Annual #1.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Superheroes, X Men, Comic Book, Science Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 2007

About the author

Antony J. L. Bedard is an American writer and editor who has worked in the comic book industry from the early 1990s through the present. He is best known for his work at CrossGen Comics, where he was under exclusive contract, and for his run writing Marvel Comics X-Men spin-off Exiles.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, with this volume, Tony Bedard’s run on the Exiles comes to a close and, I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it, for the most part. I thought Mr. Bedard had a great take on the team and shook things up while remaining true to the spirit of the book.

I’m pleased to hear artist Paul Pelletier is staying on the book for a while. Now, if I only I’d heard of this ‘Chris Claremont’ guy who’s taking over the writing chores... ‘Claremont’... Rings a vague bell...

[Tym · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a letdown after the last volume but still fun

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continuing the great X-read of 2017 that has now stretched into 2018...

Okay. So I am way behind on reviewing these x-books that I have been reading. So I am going to just kind of ramble about all of them and copy/paste my thoughts. Which will make for a bit of a mess and I am sorry. Quick ramblings:

Cable and Deadpool continues to be surprisingly good though a little more scattered in these couple of volumes.
X-Men the Blood of Apocalypse was rushed in my opinion...
Phoenix Warsong was pretty decent. Melodramatic but not a bad story. (and when is a Phoenix story not melodramatic?)
New X-Men is a good series with some great characters that grow volume by volume.
Uncanny First Foursaken was not my cup of tea really.
Black Panther: The Bride was probably much better to BP readers. As part of an X-Men run, it can probably be skipped.
Wolverine Origins born in blood was not particularly memorable.
Astonishing X-Men will possibly get its own review as it is a reread and interesting as such...
Civil War was one of the first times in my life that I could say that the movie was better than the book. For the most part, it was really boring to me. The X-Men universe tie-ins were only slightly more interesting to me.
X-factor continues to be a delight.
Exiles continues to be great.

I need to get back to writing reviews of these as I finish them. Reading them in quick succession like this, I begin to forget what happened in individual books (which I suppose equally speaks to the books themselves and my memory...)

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bedard starts off this new era with a team of Wolverines (nice tongue-in-cheek reference) and brings the Exiles back to the Crystal Palace to start over. An evil Silver Surfer makes his presence known, and we get a look at what's going on inside T-Bird's comatose dreams. The inclusion of the Exiles annual - featuring a new look at the original team - makes for a great coda to this volume.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I <3 Zombie Wolverine

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this volume the Exiles are fired and replaced by a team of Wolverines: Days of Future Past, Marvel Zombies, Albert and Elsie Dee, Patch, young James Howlett (funny how they kept calling his nightshirt a dress) and Weapon X are all placed on a team sent to defeat a powerful mutant, but as expected things don't work out as planned.

Then the Exiles are sent to a Universe where Galactus is the Restorer of Worlds and the Silver Surfer is the bad guy.

Finally we find the Exiles fighting...themselves? Of course, there's a twist. And still lurking in the background is Morph's secret.

Oh, and Paul Pelletier's art is still great.

[Lexie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ohhhhhh boy.

Welcome friends! Or not. I'm not quite sorry I'm dragging y'all into this quagmire with me. If I'm going to be in pain y'all get to be in pain.

I'm kind of...at a loss here. The end of volume 13 had a HUGE thing happen to Morph. But yanno instead let's have a mad duck adventure with multiple Wolverines...?

Whatever.

So that gets resolved and then its a Galactus the World Saver! That was mildly interesting, but again...very little ramifications of Morph?

And then a couple adventures without Blink (also T-Bird overcoming his demons to live his best life in his coma...which... I'm tempted to end the series there)

The final part is from the Exiles Annual and it finds our team facing...OG Exile Team.

With some changes (Morph and Blink together? Mimic is introspective but not angsty? T-bird and Nocturne are still close though so not all things are weird).

The next (and final) volumes are not well regarded (which is saying something), so I'm prepared to be upset.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was...not very good. Not very good, at all.

If you've made it this far into the series then this was probably a let-down for you.

And if this was your first jaunt into the Exiles world, please don't judge the series on this book. Go back to the beginning. It's so much better in the beginning.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fun seeing all the wolverines but I'm not sure about the story overall. The fact that they got their jobs back so easily.

[Aaron Harvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 stars

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad to see this run by Tony Bedard come to an end, especially after how fun the World Tour arc was. In the early issues of this series, we saw a lot of "what if" universes. Bedard's run has been a rock and roll trip through Marvel's established alternate realities and that's been a nice change for the series. I heard the next stuff, written by Chris Claremont isn't so hot, so I might take a break for a while. Either way, I'm glad I went back and read this series through, it really is something cool.

[Villain E · Rating 3 out of 5]

my www.amazon.com review

What you need to know: The Exiles are a team of heroes conscripted by the mysterious Timebroker to travel from one alternate reality to another and fix problems in each timeline. Over the years a number of members of the team have been lost and replaced.

When Tony Bedard came aboard, he introduced the Timebreakers, an insectoid race who caused the fracturing of the multiverse in the first place, and who created the Timebroker and the Exiles in order to try to rectify their mistake. The Exiles found out about them and have now taken over and operate out of the Timebreakers' Crystal Palace.

I should warn you that I went into this a little biased. I hated the Timebreaker development. The Exiles used to bounce between realities seemingly at random and to much more dramatic effect, and now they control where they go. I hate the Crystal Palace as a backdrop. Everything is pink glowing crystal with no depth and no rendering. And the Timebreakers, who are still around to run the Crystal Palace, are just a bunch of whiny little bugs.

After the World Tour, the Exiles roster is now Blink, Morph, Sabretooth, Power Princess, Longshot, and Spider-Man 2099, with Heather Hudson coordinating everything from the Crystal Palace.

As this volume opens, the Exiles decide that they need some R&R so, against the Timebreakers' wishes, Heather takes them to her home reality. The Timebreakers use this as an opporunity to get rid of the insubordinate Exiles and cut off their access so they can't return to the Crystal Palace.

Then, using the Timebroker ruse, the Timebreakers recruit the best Exiles team there is at what they do: Wolverines! Yup, in case you aren't getting enough Wolverine in "Wolverine," and "Wolverine: Origins," not to mention the X-Men books and New Avengers, here's the all Wolverine team of Exiles. Maybe this was supposed to be funny, but I found it a bit annoying.

By the end of the story the Exiles are, of course, back in charge. Their next mission takes them to a universe in which there's a cosmic blight destroying planets, including Earth. Galactus, Restorer of Worlds, is doing what he can to fix everything, but his Rogue herald, the Silver Surfer, is set against him. The Exiles have to stop the Silver Surfer before he kills Galactus and the blight destroys the universe.

Then, while the Exiles look a little deeper into the changes in Morph due to the ending of World Tour, we get a glimpse into the dreams of Thunderbird, one of the original Exiles who was injured on a mission and is now in stasis in the Crystal Palace.

And finally, the Exiles find a reality in which the original Exiles are continuously saving the world. The Timebreakers have no idea who those other Exiles are, so our Exiles go to investigate.

The story concepts aren't bad, but I've always found Tony Bedards writing to be a bit bland. There's no dramatic flair in his "to be continued" moments and I saw the endings to all of his stories coming a mile away.

The saving grace here is the art. Paul Peltier illustrated the Wolverine and Galactus arcs, and, even though he's been around for quite awhile, his art just keeps getting better. Exiles staple Jim Calafiore illustrates a couple issues here and his work is as good as ever. And the last story is illustrated by Tom Raney, whose work I'm not actually a huge fan of, but a lot of people seem to like his stuff.

If you're already an Exiles fan, you're probably going to read this no matter what I say. If you're not yet an Exiles fan, I'd recommend going back and starting at the beginning instead of jumping on here.

I found this volume of Exiles to be okay, not outstanding, but certainly not bad either.

[Fizzgig76 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reprints Exiles #84-89 and Annual #1 (September 2006-February 2007). The Exiles learn that they have been fired from their jobs and replaced by a team of Wolverines from different worlds. When the Wolverines mission fails, the Time Breakers ask the Exiles to come back to save the day. The Exiles also find themselves in battle with the Silver Surfer and facing the original Exiles in a game of power.

Written by Tony Bedard and art by Jim Calafiore and Paul Pelletier with art by Tom Raney, Mike Norton, Tim Smith, and David Nakayama on Annual #1, Exiles 14: The New Exiles continues collects essential four different storylines. The series had a strong fan base despite so-so reviews and criticisms.

Following Exiles 13: World Tour Volume 2, the Exiles’ stories continue to be very episodic. In an era of six issue storylines, there is something kind of refreshing about the two issues stories and stand-alones. Exiles almost feels like a throwback to ’80s team comics with a simpler plot and story structure. Despite the nice retro feel of the series, there is also something lost in the shortened stories that doesn't allow for much character development.

I've read the Exiles up to this point, but Exiles doesn’t feel like it is really getting a shot to explore some really fun characters. The joy of Exiles is that they can have weird characters like Morph, Spider-Man 2099, Longshot, Blink, and Squadron Supreme’s Power Princess…unfortunately with the stories in this volume, you don’t get to really enjoy the characters and see any dimension to them. Storylines involving Morph (the whole Proteus thing) seem out of place here and don’t make much sense in you aren’t caught up with the rest of the series.

I generally like the art in Exiles. Pelletier and Calafiore don’t try to reinvent the wheel with the comic and just present solid art to go along with Bedard’s story. They tell the story in a very simplistic way that works for the type of stories. I much prefer their art to the art of the Annual which I think isn’t very distinctive at all.

As a fair weather fan of the Exiles, Exiles 14: The New Exiles left me a little bit empty for what I like about the Exiles. The very segmented stories is alright, but what makes the Exiles are the Exiles combining with the fun dimensions they explore. The Exiles never really get their shot in this volume, and I want to see the fun characters, so more stand-alone issues might be nice. Exiles 14: The New Exiles is followed by Exiles 15: Enemy of the Stars.

[Centauri · Rating 3 out of 5]

these multiverse stories is a way to make fan-fiction writers happy; they are a means to tell a story using characters people love without messing with the continuity.

this volume was drawn well and the flow was good. I did not care for the grandmaster story at all; not really a fan of the "all powerful imp" stuff. just ridiculous to me. fun, sometimes, but ridiculous. and the wolverine story, well, I am so tired of all this wolverine everywhere. the writers at marvel (film, animation, comic) have played an awesome and mysterious character right into the ground. he's not even interesting any longer

I liked the parallel universe with galactus being the restorer of worlds though. I could read multiple issues on that tale. that story alone earned a star or 2

[Adam Stone · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a pity that volume 13 wasn't Bedard's final work on the Exiles, as it wrapped up his dangling threads. He doesn't appear to know quite where he wants to go in this volume, so he throws a bunch of ideas out, and none of them quite work. Reintroducing the Time Broker? Yawn. Replacing the team with an entire cadre of Wolverines from different timelines? Interesting meta-commentary on the X-books, but the story doesn't go anywhere.

It's definitely not the worst run of The Exiles, but it's a pity that this ends up being Bedard's exit.

**************
2023 Reread Update: Before I checked out this review, I was going to update it pretty much word for word to say what's above. This was a drag to read, and I still feel bad that Bedard couldn'thave gone out during his previous book

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is particularly episodic. That's both good and bad, as some of the episodes are much better than others. And the episodic nature means that there are some ridiculous moments, in terms of overall plots (like when the Exiles forgive some pretty major treachery part of the way through.) Anyway, it's pretty middle-of-the-road. Not really terrible, but not really great. Fun enough, but not really worth spending too much time on.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Exiles take a break and the Timebreakers decide to replace them. Lots of fun with many wolverines, and a gamesmaster. The gamesmaster storyline was surprisingly the best in this volume. A decent read.