If you want to talk about books past their expiration date, you just have to cast your eye to the X-Books, and Exiles is one of those on the list. Originally a neat way to use out-of-continuity fan-favorite characters in What If? stories but with subplots to keep it all a bit more ongoing, it has lost much of its fire since its original creator Judd Winick took off, and the novelty value wore off even before he left. That said, it is a book that caters to a specific brand of nostalgia fan, the fan who is nostalgic for What If? or X-Men spinoffs, and every so often those interests align with mine. This three-issue storyline looks like one of those times, as Bedard drops the team smack dab into the middle of Kulan Gath's New York, a memorable two-issue tale from Chris Claremont in the '80s, and along with Calafiore and McKenna, does a pretty decent job of capturing the fun and sense of weird that story had.
It kind of amuses me that the original story was two issues, and the sequel is three. In all fairness, though, Bedard is so far not engaging in padding or stretching the story beyond its boundaries. He does a lot of neat setup in this issue, introduces the twist that throws the Exiles into the mix and hits upon the coolest aspect of the original storyline, showing us Marvel heroes and villains as members of a brutal fantasy guard. I quite appreciated seeing third-stringers like Morbius, Wendigo and Werewolf By Night in prominent roles, and the role of the big bad guy is also a nifty choice from the one-time "Midnight Sons" subgroup. It's a very specific segment of fandom to appeal to, but I happen to fit into it.
The essential problem for me is an insurmountable one built right into the concept: We've seen it before. Sure, we haven't seen this specific setting, but the generalities, which include setting up the world and then dumping the heroes into it, have been there since the very early issues of Exiles. If you're enthralled by the very concept of a "What If?" premise, this is great, but if you were hoping for a story with consequences, you're not really going to find one. The characters even spend most of their time in the fugue inspired by Kulan Gath's spell, meaning that any subplots or characterization-based stories are lost to a very plot and premise-driven style of storytelling. It's fun in a "spot the character" way, but the central story so far doesn't have any urgency to it, or any sense of consequences in the near future.
I also have to say that while I find Jim Calafiore's work to be solid, it has only rarely risen above that level, and he doesn't really manage it here. Half of the fun of this kind of setting is the visual redesigns of the character using a fantasy filter, and Calafiore's designs are mostly kinda dull. Wendigo, Morbius and the Werewolf are all very generic monster, and the fantasy versions of the Exiles don't really sparkle either. There are exceptions (Beak in a jester's outfit is pretty fun), but in general the work here falls far short of the visual style that John Romita Jr. brought to the original story. When the whole thing is based to some degree on the weird look of this new world, simply solid visuals aren't gonna cut it.
It seems only fair to point out that there's nothing really wrong with this comic. It's not breaking any rules or continuity, it has a solid storytelling structure and it has at its center a relatively neat idea. For that matter, you can't really blame the creators for anything except maybe not thinking a little bit more outside of the formula of the book. It's just that at this point, Exiles is very much stuck in a "been there, done that" mode, and when it's part of an exceptionally bloated line of X-Books anyway, that makes it look pretty expendable in terms of reading time and money. 6/10
