This review contains some spoilers for Exceptional X-Men #2, on sale now from Marvel Comics
It’s interesting how there are always so many standard plot points that always come up in comic book stories, and the trick is really to see HOW these plot points are executed. In other words, many comic book team-up titles involve bringing a handful of superheroes together to form a superhero team. Everyone knows that it inevitably HAS to happen, so as a writer the challenge is to craft a story that the audience knows HAS to happen, and yet do it in an interesting way. In Exceptional X-MenEve Ewing does a good job of having Kitty Pryde do everything she can to AVOID forming a new X-Men team, and she just can’t help but form one, while a group of young mutants decide to essentially form a team. AROUND Kitty…until Emma Frost intervenes.
Exceptional X-Men #2 comes from the creative team of writer Eve Ewing, artist Carmen Carnero, colorist Nolan Woodard, and letterer Joe Sabino), and it continues Kitty Pryde’s attempt to abandon the world of super hero for simply becoming a bartender in Chicago. In the first issue, Kitty saved the life of a young mutant, and the mutant is now Kitty’s biggest fan, and in this issue, Kitty adds two more followers as she can’t help but make a difference in the lives of young mutants.
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Kitty is so conflict averse that we see that even at the bar where she works, she does her best to AVOID bar fights. This is a woman who is one of the most talented martial artists in the world, and she would rather spend her time stopping drunk assholes from fighting over baseball in a bar. If you’ve heard the term “The Lady Protests Too Much”, then it’s really Kitty Pryde trying to convince herself that she wants nothing to do with the mutant world.
However, while she’s clearly not being true to herself about wanting to get involved in the mutant cause, one thing she’s legitimately interested in is returning to the dating world, as we see her finally go to the meeting with her. I never got a chance to continue in the first issue, showing us Kitty’s first date with another woman in the comics. As I noted in my review of last issue, the fact that Kitty is bisexual is pretty much a given to most fans, but hey, it’s one thing to be something that everyone accepts as being true, and it’s another to see it written down. a story, so it’s still quite remarkable to see.
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Kitty Pryde begins a new phase of her life with the debut of Exceptional X-Men
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Emma Frost could make Kitty Pryde think about the X-Men
At the football game we meet two other new mutants, one of whom is a member of the football team and the other is just a high school student trying to support his friend who is on the team. One of the things Ewing has done best at in this series is emphasizing the fact that the world of mutants is much larger than Krakoa, in the sense that for every mutant who has embraced life in the mutant nation, there There were at least two or three who never left their hometown and can’t even imagine the idea of going to a place like Krakoa. It’s a bit like during hurricanes, where people were all like, “Why didn’t you evacuate?” and there are a lot of people where they don’t have the means to evacuate, because they don’t have anywhere to evacuate. People’s circumstances are different all over the world, and Ewing does a great job with the three New Mutants at the heart of the series.
In the first issue, we saw how the young mutant Kitty saved, Bronze, really knows NOTHING about being a mutant, and we see that continue in this issue, where Axo, whose mutation renders him incapable from “passing” as a regular human, just wants to try to live his life the best he can, and also knows nothing about being a mutant, while the soccer player, Melee, knows JUST enough about the lives of mutants to learn their secret. “I’m a mutant hand signal that was introduced during “From the Ashes,” and yet when she shows Axo, he just thinks she’s trying to recruit him into some sort of gang.
We often feel like kids are hip to every fad imaginable, but there are a lot of teenagers who are just in their little Midwestern bubble, and where Melee thinks she’s trying to build a mutant unit with Axo, Axo just thinks Melee is weird. However, when cultish humans try to force the fight, Kitty must step in and save Melee and Axo. She connects them with Bronze, thinking it will get them all out of her hair, but in reality, this makes the trio even more determined to seek advice from Kitty… and that’s where Emma Frost comes in, who is bored, as she sees Kitty accidentally recruiting new mutants, and Emma wants in, whether Kitty (or the young mutants) want her to be involved!
Emma’s introduction at the end of this issue was exceptional. Carnero did a great job with the character work in this series. Kitty is clearly going to be sidelined by Emma Frost’s actions, and it will be fascinating to see her interact with Emma over the course of these young mutants’ lives.
Source: Wonder