Welcome back to the Marvel Rundown! This week, From The Ashes continues with the last of the big three X-titles, Exceptional X-Men #1! For our Rapid Rundown, we’ve got quick hits on The Ultimates #4 and What If… Donald Duck Became Thor #1!
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Exceptional X-Men #1
Writer: Dr. Eve L. Ewing
Artist: Carmen Carnero
Color Artist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: VC’s Joe Sabino
Cover Artists: Carmen Carnero & Nolan Woodard
Reviewed by Beau Q.
Easily the best of the From The Ashes X-title of the trio, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
With the fall of Krakoa and the rise of X-Men ’97, C.B. Cebulski and Group Editor of the X-Men, Tom Brevoort, blew up the X-Men side of the 616 for three shiny new titles closer to X-Men’s comic shop dominance. Where the Krakoan Age lived in a time of gods, mutant life as a culture to be explored, and what it means to be a sovereign nation, the three From The Ashes X-titles have had to find their own identities. Where X-Men (Jed MacKay & Ryan Stegman) is the militant action book fighting racism head-on, and Uncanny X-Men (Gail Simone & David Marquez) the warm campfire rebuilding a safe space, then Exceptional X-Men is setting out to educate and literally lead by exception! That’s brilliant and wonderful!
Definitively written with intent and scope, Dr. Eve L. Ewing brings Kate Pryde to Chicago in an attempt to lead a normal, non-action lifestyle for normal, non-action people. Not for nothin’, she also goes back to Kitty Pryde. Through Kitty’s attempt at normalcy, she finds herself depressed, and unable to evade the call to action when a hate crime occurs at a concert. With a wealth of experience, Kitty swiftly aids Trista back home to safety and comfort. Kitty may have some regret jumping to action, but in her heroism, a brightness enters her life. Enter Emma Frost trying to start something up. Enter a nebulously evil app, Verate, that is asking users to “[enter] into an irrevocable genetic data-sharing agreement” in an X-book. This is where Exceptional X-Men is going in comparison to the other two From The Ashes launches.
We can stop there with the table set and multiple threads spinning some good ol’ Marvel yarn, but Dr. Ewing takes us a step further with her dialogue and caption choices. See, this is a book inherently about marginalized identities aiming to live normal lives, but constantly being thrust into situations where hate crime is a second away, and resilience is unfortunately required. Dr. Ewing wants Kitty and Emma to publicly mentor these marginalized identities, so they can lead fulfilling lives in a world built to specifically oppress them. It’s a real tale and the exact core of X-Men just delivered for a modern audience. It ain’t the new faces bringing the modernity either– it’s the sensitivity to approach a comic book about race with ethics, not just punching and powers.
What’s immediately impressive about Exceptional X-Men is Carmen Carnero’s immersive character expressions and never miss compositions that frame elements and eyelines into a melodic read that one must actually experience. Carnero’s playful though sometimes lazy layouts add visual interest while never sacrificing mood, pacing, and panel-specific composition, though compromises are made on the page-specific composition level (and that’s okay). With some downright concerning levels of verisimilitude where rendering extraneous background detail adds realism, Carnero’s lineart can easily become overwhelming to visually consume. I wonder how Carnero’s Exceptional will tread on shelves with how intentionally she deters from aesthetic appeal to ground the characters. Though triumphant, Carnero’s cover offers little to no insight into what this X-title offers over others other than it’s the one with Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde! None of this tends to matter much overall when the larger production team is attuned to these particular features and compensates, and it shows that Team Exceptional have covered each other’s failings with successes of their own.
Take for example that Carnero leaves negative space for eyelines and word balloons to propagate, but simultaneously fills that negative space with extraneous detail to add an immersive quality; uncomfortable with letting the Exceptional pages get too comically graphic in nature. Nolan Woodard has a choice here: push focal points with graphically ordained color swathes or maintain immersion with pointedly accurate painting. So, with a palette more concerned with nailing the time of day than color mood, Woodard presents less emotive color and rendering choices; though there are tinges that show an ability to push a scene’s mood. That’s not a knock when Woodard shows fully capable of using subtle shifts of hue and tone to highlight Easter eggs towards the end of the issue. It could be rust shaking off or getting used to Carnero’s Exceptional workflow, but also feels like an ability only used when an artist’s note specifically highlights it!
Same can be said of VC’s Joe Sabino’s lettering, which offers nothing except faint glimmers of creativity with text popups and one very dramatic BANG that is clearly taken more seriously than other gunshot sfx. But this is more a fault of Marvel’s approach to lettering than Sabino’s. Marvel lettering is almost entirely about uniformity, so the reading experience is mostly undisturbed from book to book, but mostly ignorant of art style, and at the detriment of really communicating the vocal intonations of each visual aesthetics. Carnero’s art is less Marvel house style, and more a perfect conduit for emotional catharsis than most Marvel comics, so when paired with the Marvel house style fonts and house style balloons, something genuinely gets lost in translation. I’m willing to bet the current Marvel comics production timeline disproportionately gives time to the artists and color artists (which they should!), but by shrinking a Marvel letterer’s timeline to a sliver of time to ship the book to print. Thus, plug and play lettering. Thus, uniformity maintained over naturally occurring lettering. RANT OVER.
All in all, Exceptional X-Men is without a shadow of a doubt the best X-title coming out of From The Ashes. I just hope Marvel readers can engage with a title so unlike anything else being offered at Marvel. BUY. If I wasn’t clear from the above, that’s a BUY from me. BUY this book in print, ya heard it here first.
Rapid Rundown!
The Immortal Thor #15- If you didn’t know Al Ewing knows cosmic, he knows epics, and he knows comics. He’s proved it with the Ultimates, the Hulk, and now with Thor. The current status quo has All-Father Thor supercharged with the power of Zeus and preparing to face the enemies of Asgard and Earth. For the past year, Ewing has been tormenting Thor with epic quests and situations that test more than his strength and power, slowly enlightening him to become a better All-Father. Artist Jan Bazaldua and colorist Matt Hollingsworth‘s visuals bring home the point with some powerful moments rendered in this issue, they remind you that Thor ain’t one to play with. This run can be a bit of a slow burn but this epic drama, mixed with cosmic intrigue and comic book spandex is everything you want in a title. – GC3
- The Ultimates #4
- There is so much to unpack in issue 4 of The Ultimates from writer Deniz Camp, joined in this issue by artist Phil Noto. The story plays out as a series of vignettes that play across different time periods in four stacked panels that run horizontally throughout the issue. The story runs chronologically from left to right within each row, but the individual pages also interact and inform one another. It’s an exciting exercise in formalism (fourmalism) that works as a metatextual comment on the construction of a comic book page as well as a heartbreaking tragedy unveiling the origins of Ultimate Doom, and a glimpse at the depths of the villainous Maker’s petty evil. Camp’s Ultimates has managed to marry big, bold superhero action with timely social commentary but this issue is a sprawling statement on Marvel Comics as a concept, starting at its foundation — the Fantastic Four (the issue number is no coincidence!). Noto’s art, with its Norman Rockwell painterly influence is the perfect choice for this issue that tears apart the fragile idealism of the Space Age and its heroes as it is distorted and turned monstrous. VC’s Travis Lanham smartly embellishes the art with SFX that have a subtle mid-century modern edge. Every issue of The Ultimates is must-read comics and #4 is no different. – Tim Rooney
- What If… Donald Duck Became Thor #1
- Marvel’s venture into publishing comics with Disney characters continues with another What If… starring everyone’s favorite recently nonagenarian water foul. Last month saw Donald become Wolverine in a riff on the Old Man Logan story. This time, the script from writer Steve Behling dares to ask what would it be like for Donald to be Marvel’s God of Thunder. Echoing Thor’s first appearance in Journey into Mystery #83, Donald and the nephews visit Norway so the lads can earn a medal. Aliens land and trap Donald in a cave where he finds a cane that turns him into Thor. If you’ve read Journey into Mystery #83, you probably know how this goes. The Donald being Wolverine comic, which should have been a natural fit for two characters with similar temperaments, worked too hard fitting characters with unwieldy names and references to almost 40 year old Marvel continuity. Turning Donald into Thor strangely feels more natural. This actually reads like a What If… for both a Marvel and a Disney comic. Yes, the boys and Donald would go to Norway. Encounter duck aliens? It’s possible. Artist Riccardo Secchi and colorist Lorenzo Pastrovicchio recreate classic Jack Kirby panels with Donald, but also fuse it with the style of a modern European funny animal comic. There’s Stone Ducks from Saturn! Goofy looking spaceships and a dragon attacks fighter jets! Kirby dots! Truly there’s a lot of fun to be had in this one shot. – D. Morris
Next Week: Saladin Ahmed & Martin Coccolo’s Wolverine #1, Steve Orlando & Cory Smith’s Avengers Assemble #1, and more!
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