In 1981, Marvel Comics published Uncanny X-Men #141, the first part of “Days of Future Past,” where Kitty Pryde’s mind is sent to 1980 to prevent the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly. His death at the hands of the Brotherhood of Mutants would create a grim future with mutants hunted and detained by Sentinels. This began many X-Men time travel stories. Scott Summers and Madelyne Pryor’s son, Nathan Christopher Summers, is sent to the future after being infected with the techno-organic virus. The same child is later raised by Scott and Jean Grey, posing as Slym and Redd in The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, and is revealed to be Cable, leader of X-Force and a time traveler. Rachel Summers and Lucas Bishop are also major X-Men characters who travel from the future and join the team. The X-Men love time travel.
Exceptional X-Men #12 is another time-travel story with Kitty Pryde. At the end of issue #11, Kitty disappeared. In this issue, we learn why: Bronze’s classmate Reggie, a closeted mutant who can create space-time portals, accidentally makes one, and Kitty falls in. Emma uses telepathy to enter Reggie’s mind and learn the truth. Reggie can’t control his powers, but Emma plans to teach him how to create portals at will.
Back to the current problem of the issue: Kitty Pryde is missing. Bobby wants to go through the portal to rescue her, but Emma stops him, saying they are both too important to Kitty’s life to risk a time paradox. Rule one of time travel: no paradoxes. So, only Axo, Bronze, and Melee can time-travel safely. Riri Williams, aka Ironheart, makes a device to track them through time.
Marvel Comics
The plot of the issue, and the plan, is fairly straightforward: travel back to the past, locate Kitty, and then bring her back to the present. This sounds simple enough, but of course, something has to go wrong; otherwise, there would be no conflict. When Axo, Bronze, and Melee travel back in time, they find themselves in Deerfield, Illinois, where Kitty grew up. Instead of finding their adult Kate Pryde, they accidentally find a 13-year-old Kitty Pryde from before she joined the X-Men. Uh oh. How will Axo, Bronze, and Melee find their adult Kate Pryde, and can they do so without messing up the timeline? We will have to find out next month in Exceptional X-Men #13.
The next issue should be interesting as we see how these mutants will interact with the 13 year old version of their teacher. Kate Pryde’s fate is also unknown, as her location remains unrevealed in the issue. Exceptional X-Men #13 is the last issue of the title before the Age of Revelation event, in which all of the From the Ashes titles will be relaunched to coincide with the event. For example, starting in October, Exceptional X-Men will be released as the new title Expatriate X-Men, and features Ms. Marvel, Bronze, Melee, and a character named Rift whose identity has not been revealed. Perhaps Rift is Reggie now operating using a codename? The name “Rift” could be alluding to Reggie being able to open rifts in space and time.
Overall, Exceptional X-Men #12 is a fun foray into one of the most frequently used tropes in X-Men comics as we see Emma and Kitty’s “new” mutants going back in time to save one of their teachers. It is an enjoyable subversion of the classic “Days of Future Past” storyline, as this time around Kitty is mistakenly sent back in time and needs to be rescued, rather than Kitty being sent back in time to prevent a terrible future from becoming reality. Axo, Bronze, and Melee encounter an obstacle in their mission when they inadvertently encounter the wrong Kitty Pryde.
Ultimately, not too much happens in this issue, as it mostly serves as setup for the next issue, where I imagine we will spend most of our time with Axo, Bronze, and Melee in the past, with a 13-year-old Kitty Pryde, while adult Kitty is trapped in the past. Perhaps this issue would read better in a trade where the reader can read Exceptional X-Men #12 and #13 in one sitting. It will be interesting to see how the students prove their worth in a solo mission of their own without adults like Emma supervising them. I am also curious to see if Reggie will join the Exceptional X-Men cast as a permanent member, or if he will be a supporting character for this arc alone.
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