That entrepreneur who wanted gene data on everyone? The one who gave teen mutant Axo an internship? Pretty Sinister, as it turns out. Now, our favorite diamond-headed, DNA-obsessed, silver-skinned supervillain’s captured Axo and sent a fake teen to take his place. Find out what’s next in Exceptional X-Men #8, written by Eve Ewing, drawn by Carmen Carnero, colored by Nolan Woodard and lettered by Travis Lanham.
Eve Ewing and Carmen Carnero’s Exceptional X-Men remains, well, exceptional. It’s the one X-book I’ve been recommending to all and sundry, including the absolute newcomers, during this (to put it kindly) hit-and-miss era. Some issues (not just the first) make superb jumping-on points, pointing, introducing or reintroducing the stubborn mutant mentors Kitty Pryde and Emma Frost along with their new teen pupils in Chicago, Axo, Melee and Bronze.
Other issues start in the middle, end in the middle, advance the story a little and do cool stuff you’d only ever recognize if you’ve been reading the book for a while. This installment in the Exceptional story belongs securely in that second longbox. If you’re not already caught up, please (seriously, please) go check out issue #1. Or #2. Or #5. Or even #7. Every Marvel comic could be someone’s first, but this issue shouldn’t be.
OK. Still with me? Mister Sinister’s holding our well-disposed, empathy-powered, color-changing (though most often green) pal Axo in yet another of Sinister’s Bad Guy Labs. Despite the cover (which seems designed for next issue, not this one), we don’t see other mutants, nor their duplicates, captured in goo-filled tanks. It’s just Axo, muzzled, kept flat on his back, hooked up to tubes and wires, and generally held captive while Sinister villain-splains: Our least-favorite diamond-headed gene expert wanted to learn about, even to experience, the emotional openness that Axo projects as his mutant power, and (according to Sinister) empathy’s not worth the time and energy — it lacks “oomph.”
The words Ewing gives Mr. S. in these opening pages echo real-life speeches, given recently, by a self-anointed tech genius, about the supposed real life perils of empathy. Draw your own conclusions, True Believers. But Sinister, unlike anyone in our world, has an X-gene based plan: He wants to use Axo’s powers to create psychological profiles for everyone whose DNA he’s already collected, in order to “create epigenetic portraits more complex than anything I’ve ever built.”
What will he do with those portraits? Who knows? Maybe we will, next issue. For now, and for the rest of this issue, and for fun (this part’s a lot of fun), we get to find out why Axo’s friends don’t notice he’s gone: Sinister has created an almost startlingly crude fake Axo. Faxo (for so I shall call him) always stays orange, has no idea how things taste (he puts orange juice and coffee grounds on what looks like arroz or paella), and exhibits neither the real Axo’s empathy powers nor actual empathy. It’s all extremely Body Snatchers.
And it all falls apart when a thrifting expedition turns into superhero business. Carnero’s been drawing these teens for a while, and these scenes show the benefits of consistent art: We know how these characters move, how they see one another, how their body language changes in an emergency, and why Faxo suddenly looks like he doesn’t belong. Bronze gets to be a real hero, too: We see her fuzzy boots, and her tentacles (the reverse of Sinister’s; they grab and save people), and her star-power pose. I love it.
And I love the secret, whispered conference between Bronze and Melee, in which they learn that Faxo ≠ Axo. It works for their characters, but it also works as cape comics meta. What do you do, gentle reader, when you start to feel like the current version of your favorite hero, the one the comic you’re reading this week or this year, just doesn’t feel right, or acts out of character, or Would Never Do That Thing (that they just did)? How does it feel? Whom can you tell?
In our world, we can complain to our friends, or complain online, or wait for a new writer to give us back the hero we know, or answer with a fix-it fic. Bronze and Melee, however, can run back into a diner to check on Faxo, intending to locate Axo, and discover Faxo has … melted into a pile of goo? What? Why? Maybe the so-called tech genius who hates empathy, wants to control everybody and would love to seed the world with his own genetically altered creations … isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. Maybe.
That’s all you get, if you’re reading for the plot: a well-forged link mid-chain in a well-made story. And that said: If you’re reading for the plot, you’ve missed the best thing about this comic book, and about all my favorite X-comics, going back to the 1980s New Mutants run that Ewing — I’m nearly sure — still has in mind. I’m reading for the moments that light up the characters — for the looks and communicative understandings Bronze, Melee and Axo share, and for the ways that Kitty Pryde in particular tries to adult, and to superhero, and to teach, and to build the life she wants, even when all those goals collide head on.
What’s Kitty doing? She’s … taking a shower. Surrounded by steam. The way Ororo, during the 1980s, used to do. On page. A lot. In other words, Kitty’s definitely an adult, and she’s occupying, for her new students, the role that Storm once played for her. She’s also singing (Dazzler lyrics, I think — there’s a Dazzler subplot I don’t understand yet) in the shower. She’s taking good care of her naturally wavy hair. Have we seen quality hair care in X-comics before? Ever? With a hair dryer? And she’s … on the phone with her things-are-getting-serious girlfriend, Nina. Who may not know the whole history of Kitty’s powers. She may — though it feels unlikely at this point — not even know that Kitty has powers at all. Get ready for a secret-identity-lite, romance-vs.-superhero-business subplot, the sort that Spider-Man fans have recognized, or endured, for ages. This time it’s Kitty, though. And she’s dating a girl. I’ll take it.
Points of Pryde
- We’ve covered this one before, but Carnero and colorist Nolan Woodard absolutely excel at drawing non-superhero, non-costume clothing — not only the clothes that our countercultural, with-it teen heroes wear, but the racks and hangers full of clothes in the thrift shop they visit, whose patrons they rescue. More like this one, please.
- Someday an adult will ask Bronze about the cat ears that she’s never not seen wearing, and Bronze will either explain the cat ears or tell that adult to shut up.
- Kitty’s hair! That’s it: that’s the note. When’s the last time we’ve seen her as happy as she looks on Page 21, Panel 6? When can we see her that happy again?
Buy Exceptional X-Men #8 here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)
Stephanie Burt is Professor of English at Harvard. Her podcast about superhero role playing games is Team-Up Moves, with Fiona Hopkins; her latest book of poems is We Are Mermaids. Her nose still hurts from that thing with the gate.
