Robert Secundus: Today on ComicsXF we are joined by the writer of Age of X-Man: The Extremists War of the Realms: Giant-Man, X-Factor, X-Men Black: Emma Frost, What If? Magik, The Amazing Mary Jane, The Trial of Magneto, Gwenpool Strikes Back, and the forthcoming comic (R)ender. We will be discussing Exterminators #1, the first issue in the new mini-series by Leah Williams, Carlos Gomez, Brian Valenza, and Travis Lanham, in which several of the X-Men’s most explosive members experience a grindhousesque series of thrills, chills, frights delights, blood, guts, mayhem, et cetera, et cetera.
We will be focusing on the most important question on everyone’s mind: Which. Exterminators. Vape?!
Leah Williams: I thought about this a lot, and I’m going to start with who doesn’t vape, and then work our way on a spectrum from no vaping to most vaping.
Does Not Vape
Leah Williams: So. Starting with [I.] No Vaping Whatsoever, never under any circumstances:
Dazzler would never vape. She would never dare mess with the sanctity of her lung power. (For, you know, vocalization reasons). She’s not going to disturb the perfect singing formula that she’s already arranged.
Has Vaped
Leah Williams: And so moving on to [II.] Would Vape Once or Twice, Laura Kenny. I think that she would try it just to try it and then immediately be underwhelmed by it. She probably doesn’t care if people vape around her, or anything like that, but she’s not a habitual vape enthusiast, I’d say.
Rob: So she’ll give anything a go once.
Leah Williams: It’s just not for her. She doesn’t care for it.
A Little Vape
Leah Williams: So the next category is like, the person who thinks smoking when they’re drunk doesn’t count. Like drunk cigarettes. [III.] Drunk Vapes Don’t Count — and that is Jubilee. I think when she’s partying, when she’s relaxed, when she’s off the clock, you know, she’s not going to say no to a lot of enjoyable substances. I think she’s going to continue having fun. But I don’t think she owns a rig or anything like that.
DEFINITELY Vapes
Leah Williams: And last, but not least, our final category is [IV.] The Vape Enthusiast and of course that is none other than Tabitha Smith, Boom Boom. I think she has a tricked out vape rig. I think she smokes vape juices with names like Fatboy Fall and Jazzy Boba. She’s an aficionado, she has a rewards card. She’s into it.
Rob: Is she pulling off sweet vape tricks?
Leah Williams: Oh yeah, I think that she probably started vaping specifically because she wanted to be able to do those tricks, and then oops! Accidentally got addicted to nicotine because I wanted to blow smoke rings! That’s a very Tabitha Smith thing to do.
Rob: If X-Terminators’ four protagonists opened a vape shop together, what would it be called?
Leah Williams: I want to say Up In Smoke.
Rob: Ha! That’s so good.
Leah Williams: I think I think that fits!
Rob: Thank you, Leah Williams, for providing the readers with this important context for these characters. Is there anything else you would like our readers to know about exterminators, your work, or even the products, the industry, the concept of vaping, etc?
Leah Williams: I would like to say that the first issue of X-Terminators comes out on September 21, and it’s a super fun book! And my personal experience with vaping is I wanted to know what it was like to smoke a strawberry, so I bought a little vape kit and nicotine-free vape juice, which is basically fruit flavored vegetable glycerin, and it was enjoyable. I have no regrets.
Robert Secundus is an amateur-angelologist-for-hire.
