Exceptional X-Men #13 and also maybe full book review depending on what happens next year
“… thanks. For saving me.“
Aw man, 70s Kitty Pryde didn’t say a single slur in this book. Literally unreadable. Spoilers, and also, let’s for the sake of argument pretend this is the end of the book.
Alright, you know the deal— Age of Revelation is coming to replace these books until December, so the stories have wrapped up and we don’t quite know which ones are coming back or not. We have to assume for the sake of argument we’re not gonna be seeing this team and these characters in this same setup again next year. So, how are we saying goodbye to this book for the foreseeable future? It’s your favorite From The Ashes staple: trip down memory lane!
My dismissiveness aside, this one feels a bit more nuanced than the other 10 trips down memory lane the other books are doing. This comes as Kate (what we’ll call the older version) deals with her trauma from the Fall of X, and just reckons with the realities of her life ever since she was 13 And A Half in general. Kate Pryde realizing she’s a surviving child soldier is nothing new, but this is basically an entire book about that after she went harder than ever before.
Most of the Exceptional gang doesn’t have strong opinions about Kate’s struggles, but Bronze does give her a lot of space to explore this. They could actually just change history right here and right now, and she wouldn’t have to go through a conga-line of trauma from 13 to whatever age Marvel lets her be right now. It would never happen, of course, but that’s not the point of these stories— the point is to see how the character reacts to the prospect.
Exceptional is about many things, but it’s mainly about Kate deciding what to do with the rest of her life. Krakoa was a high she’ll never have again, and she’s had several lifetimes of fighting for those who hate her. In contrast, we get to see exactly how cheerful and full of life Kitty used to be as a kid.
Nothing fazed this girl, and she always had something positive to say. And in this case, we actually got to see the change happening in real time— from that time Magneto almost killed her, to workingwith Excalibur, to stringing slurs at people’s funerals to make a political point. Kate Pryde is not the kid she used to be, and the woman she will become is in limbo right now.
So there is some pathos to Kate deciding that, despite allowing Kitty’s childhood to come to an abrupt end in a few months, she ultimately loves the feeling of being a teacher to a new generation too much. Kate wants to be more than the violence she can bring upon her oppressors, as valiant and justified as that violence might be— she wants to be a source of good to someone else’s life, to give them what she never had and to make sure they have the resources to strike out on their own without having to flail like she did.
This, both as its own story and as a parallel to Emma’s own history with teaching, is a beautiful culmination of this character who was pretty big when X-Men first exploded in popularity but then lost her way a little over time. It’s fun to see Kate actually find something she cares about that isn’t just vague activism, or fun, stupid ninja shit. Yeah, it’s a bit of a re-do of some parts of previous runs, but isn’t that what From the Ashes is all about?
So, speaking of that— assuming this is most of if not the entire run of Exceptional X-Men, where does that leave us? What have we learned and how was this book?
Honestly I think it was pretty good, or that it has been pretty good so far. The new characters are full of joy and possibility, even though their powers are samey and a bit undercooked. I ended up really liked all of them and what they bring to the table, especially their interactions with the rest of the cast. Kate and Emma shine the brightest here, but I hope to see these kids in other books one day.
I think the actual problem is how the book didn’t quite seem to have much going on outside of its new mutants. Which is fine, but if that was the case, they should have probably named the book that instead of pretending it’s something it wasn’t ever going to be. The Sinister arc was a fun proof of concept for bringing these kids into the fray of a more dangerous battle than they should be in, and also as a way to showcase that Kate and Emma’s methods work, and they have a point about the Xavier vs Magneto of it all ultimately being useless from the perspective of actually taking care of children.
Easily the least interesting part was Bobby’s inclusion, I think. He was stuck in this weird limbo where he wasn’t quite telling the truth, and we didn’t know if he was here to stay or here for a bit role. In the end, he had no role, and didn’t really do or add anything other than some comic relief that, frankly, the exceptional kids had covered.
Kate’s girlfriend served a similar purpose at some point, but in that case at least I wasn’t necessarily expecting anything to come out of her inclusion in the story. Bobby is just kinda there, and the book never figured out why. Which is a staple of the Iceman character, so I guess it’s just the latest example of it.
I just can’t help but feel like this was the best effort in an ultimately fruitless, uninterested idea that was From the Ashes. It feels bad that the best we got was a fine unlabeled New Mutants book and some solo efforts that keep trying to make characters work in isolation, to the point where I constantly forget some of them are X-books. All of this so we can massive crossover event ourselves into yet another relaunch come 2026, and then probably another, and another, until something else works and peaks people’s interest again.
And it’s a shame, because much like Exceptional, this relaunch had everything going for it. Incredible creative teams on every book, boundless freedom, no responsibility to tell a bigger story, crossovers, new characters, new settings, new villains, and it… ended up feeling like a filler arc where nothing happened that was that particularly interesting. Obviously if you like it I’m happy for you, but genuinely, I might just not read X-books next year, and that depresses me. I just don’t trust the project right now.
But that’s not Exceptional X-Men’s fault, and if it comes back next year for more than a few issues to wrap everything up, count me in on the fans. These kids are cool and this is a fine cast, and I’m here for more of it. Cute end to a mini-arc that ultimately didn’t even use Ironheart that much, enough that I didn’t even mention her here.
Kitty should have said it, though.
