The Exceptional X-Men looks to be the next in that most important of X-Book staples: the teen team book.
Beginning with the very first issue of X-Men, teen teams have been the underlying bedrock of the franchise – the place to experiment with fresh characters and new team dynamics. The first X-Men spinoff was The New Mutants, and since then we’ve seen Generation X and New X-Men, each with various reboots which debut even more teen teams.
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Exceptional doesn’t announce itself as a teen team from the start – there is no neat team introduction, no Massachusetts Academy move-in day. Instead, the book illustrates why the teen team is necessary: there is no end of trauma and alienation for a new mutant.
Trista Marshall (soon to be known as Bronze) might not suffer the most bombastic of public outings (the New Mutant, Cannonball, was trapped in a coal mine cave-in; Jubilee got hounded by both mutant hunters and Reavers), but she nonetheless finds herself up against the threat of bigotry and violence. Refused entry to a concert, beat up on by a bouncer (who, inexplicably, carries a gun), Trisha finds herself rescued by the original second-generation teen, Kitty Pryde.
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The book spends its first half smartly illustrating Kitty’s attempt at a normal life, which has left her as overworked and unhappy as it does most 20-somethings struggling to support themselves (in a book about super powers, the most unrealistic thing in these pages is a restaurant owner encouraging their employee to take a break in the middle of a brunch rush). Kitty’s escape from X-Life has left her disenfranchised and directionless. Saving a kid is just what she needs to snap herself out of it.
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That the book will be using Kitty and Emma Frost as its infastructure – the adults in charge of all these newbies – is genius casting. The pair have one of the most compelling relationships in the franchise (Kitty’s traumatic mutant awakening was delivered, in part, by Emma), and both have a unique frame of reference on teenage drama. Emma is a longtime educator, and Kitty benefited from the very guidance she’s set up to deliver in this series.
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Artist Carmen Carnero’s work is lovely, filled with deeply expressive faces and dynamic panel layouts that set a delightful, endearing tone, while writer Eve Ewing captures a perfect Kitty and delivers insightful drama. The book is funny, sweet, and airy – there is no expositional burden, only straightforward emotional grounding and driving action.
Exceptional X-Men #1 is all warmhearted inciting incident, leaving the reader eager to meet the other new faces and dive into their melodrama.
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