3 out of 5

Exiles is not a very good book.  Let’s go ahead and establish that.  I don’t know if anything from Malibu was really that great.  It sort of had the big and bold Image look combined with the newish computer-coloring quality that was the rage in the 90s, then slobbered a unified universe shtick onto the whole thing and spat out some books that introduced new characters left and right without much heart.  There were some good ideas there, and some of it had a cheeky feel to it that made it tolerable, but on the whole, no one’s standing behind any particular Malibu title as a long lost gem.

And so Exiles doesn’t break that mold.  It’s not that Gerber wrote it straight – he’s written plenty of books without his characteristic randomness, but he had such a firm fanboy grasp on pap that he could pull it off entertainingly.  But in the Malibu world, where writers were attempting to push some barriers without going all blood and guts, it’s just a such a weird balance of spandex silly and big muscle fights and “serious” ideas that it’s hard to qualify the good writing from the bad.

The art also lacked personality.  But I honestly think that’s due more to the new computer techniques at the time, since a lot of books – DC and Marvel as well – had a samey feel at that point, all the inking and colors losing personality and just acting as lines and tints on the pages.  R.R. Phipps art certainly does the job.  Panels show the action, the direction is clean, character design is big and notable.  But, y’know, meh.  It’s just another superhero world where we all have names like “Hardcase” for no reason at all.

Yet – three stars.  Well, I don’t mean to reward novelty, but Exiles was… novel.  And it’s there from the start, though you don’t realize it.  Spoilers and all, but the point with this 4-issue series was to write a group of new superheros – The Exiles, who are good guys possessing a ‘Theta’ gene which morphs them into powered up peops – and take them to their logical end.  Which, for over-powered, un-trained kids is going to be destruction and death.  It’s business as usual for the first couple issues, which is what actually moves it beyond novelty.  Steve doesn’t rub our faces in the point or do the opposite and pull the rug out in issue 4 – innocents die, public areas are destroyed – all in the name of pointless superhuman battles.  Steve mentions it, but the characters fly away to avoid police scrutiny; they don’t ponder their actions too much, so we giggle at the big bustle of it all and we don’t either.  But when most of the characters do end up dying pretty stupidly (but believably within the context of the narrative) during issues 3 and 4, you realize that the ignorance – and our ignorance of it as readers – is part of the whole package.  Is it earth-shattering?  No.  The effect is pulled off subtly, but by the same token its delivered with all of the bang bang bombast of its era, so… take ‘subtly’ with a grain of salt.

This works better if you reread it a couple times so you know what to just skim.  An interesting concept that would’ve been nifty to see Steve whip into a non-unified universe creation, since he also was tasked with working it as the opening to the publisher’s then-upcoming crossover mega-event, Break-Thru.