Fan-favorite X-Man Blink once joined a team destined to save not just the world, but the entire Multiverse. And now, her teleporting talents are needed once again! When a mysterious threat begins eating away at the fabric of the Multiverse, the Unseen – the man once known as Nick Fury who now can only observe Earth from a lofty post on the moon – must recruit a champion to save it. But she can’t do it alone. Who will join Blink’s new team – and can they ever go home again?

I tried reading the Exiles back in the day and it never quite appealed to me. And that’s ok. Not every comic is for everyone. Now, with writer Saladin Ahmed taking on Blink and a new team in a new adventure, I thought I’d check it out again.

Exiles #1 brings the band together as Blink is tasked with saving the Multiverse from something that’s destroying it one Earth at a time. Who is this “Time Eater”? We get a view of it at the end of the first issue and out of everything, that has me the most intrigued. The first issue is pretty straight forward as Blink meets Nick Fury, now the Unseen, who sends her along her mission. She recruits two members before the issue’s end and it’s pretty standard stuff. There’s a lot of explanation as to who the characters are, especially Iron Lad, and it’s all… ok. Ahmed has done better with other series but this one feels a bit slow in the start. The issue suffers from story decompression.

The art by Javier Rodríguez, ink by Álvaro López, and color by Jordie Bellaire is good. The characters look solid and there’s some cool takes on some characters but in a comic where you can literally do anything, it all feels pretty mundane and doesn’t push the envelope at all. Each location is pretty standard but they do vary. There’s the standard apocalypse. There’s the standard future tech type location. The visuals are good but not challenging. They don’t take advantage of what can be done.

There’s nothing bad about this first issue but it also doesn’t push the envelope enough… yet. This is a comic where anything can be done, so to stand out it needs to take advantage. What’s presented is a standard get the team together story with half the team gathered. We’ll see what this is like when the entire team shows up as the character interactions will potentially make it stand out but for a first issue, this is pretty standard stuff.

Story: Saladin Ahmed Art: Javier Rodríguez
Ink: Álvaro López Color: Jordie Bellaire Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover: David Marque, Matthew Wilson
Variant Cover: Javier Rodríguez; Mike McKone, Jesús Saiz
Executive Editor: Tom Brevoort Editor: Wil Moss Associate Editor: Sarah Brunstad
Story: 7.0 Art: 7.5 Overall: 7.0 Recommendation: Read

Marvel provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review