“Yesterday’s” Comic> Exiles #1 (Ultraverse)

“This pose seriously hurts my spine. How do women in comics do it?”

Exiles #1

Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (August, 1993)

WRITERS: Steve Gerber, Tom Mason, Dave Olbrich, & Chris Ulm

PENCILER: Paul Pelletier

INKER: Ken Branch

COLORISTS: Paul Mounts & Moose Baumann

LETTERER: Clem Robins

EDITOR: Chris Ulm

Meet the Exiles, a team formed by Dr. Rachel Deming to track down “Potentials”, people with a virus that, if manipulated correctly, actually grants superpowers. They rescue a brat named Amber Hunt, whose dad is a lawyer apparently, who is sure she was kidnapped, but they were rescuing her from Deming’s rival, Malcom Kort, who wants to turn Potentials into his army to rule the world. (Figures.) While one of the team is hurt, they do manage the rescue, and so Kort puts his agent into the formula that awakens their powers…which is a rather nasty end if you don’t have the virus. Meanwhile, two more members try to rescue a boy named Timothy Halloran, but they fail and Tim’s mother is killed.

There are more problems here than positives, so let’s get through this. The concept wouldn’t be so bad, except there is already a method of creating superheroes in the Ultraverse, the supposed “jumpstart”. This feels unnecessary, like when they tried to elevate the Eternals in the comic because Disney didn’t have the X-Men movie rights. I think this is either a miniseries or was poorly received and only lasted four issues, and I can see why. I’m not sure if they’re ripping off the WildCATS, the X-Men, or the Eternals. Of course we have yet another evil businessman seeking power in the world of Ultras while not having any powers of his own outside of money. That’s getting old, Ultraverse! We’re up to four, plus two military groups. I miss the old mad scientists.

The heroes are a mixed bag. A few are jerks, one is a surfer dude apparently, and while it does give you a brief introduction to the Potentials concept and why it matters in this story, there are too many characters for me to even bother tagging…plus while trying to find the publishing date, well let’s just say a lot of these characters aren’t making it.

The only one of any real interest to me is Ghoul, and only because he was a character in the Ultraforce cartoon. He looks less corpselike here, more like a green zombie, and I think this is somehow less disturbing. You’re confusing me, 1990s. The art is okay. That’s all the positives beyond presenting the concept as best they could with the space allowed.

I’ll finish the miniseries, if only because survivors will be important later, and apparently the reading order list I’m using drops them all at the same time. We’ll see by the end of this how much or how little they really matter.