I’ve been a huge Eve L. Ewing fan for a long time. I’ve adored every single comic she’s written, between Champions, Photon, Black Panther, and Ironheart, but there’s one thing they all have in common: they’re all extremely short! Ironheart was the longest series she’s written at 12 issues, and while it didn’t end as abruptly as I felt Black Panther did, I still wanted more because she did such a wonderful job. Ever since then, I’ve been waiting patiently for her to get her big ongoing break, and I don’t want to jinx it but I am hoping and praying Exceptional X-Men is that because this comic rules.
Overall, “From the Ashes” has been a pretty mixed bag for me as far as line-wide initiatives for X-Men go. The big standouts so far have been X-Factor, Uncanny X-Men, and X-Men, but neither of them have brought out some real emotions in me. I’ve been left wanting for a little more and finally I got that book. Exceptional X-Men takes the challenge of following up on the Krakoa era in the most interesting way. Acknowledging how great it was for everyone, Kitty Pryde included, while also expressing how frustrating the era was for her as well. A mutant who has been at the forefront of the X-Men for decades, the first teen breakout character of the X-Men, and for a long time the ride along character that the audience related to the most. In Krakoa she probably had one of the roughest times because she really couldn’t enjoy it as much as she really should’ve been able to. She was able to do big things as a Marauder– rescuing mutants and bringing them to Krakoa– but unfortunately, her most memorable moment was her death, resurrection and then eventual revenge against Sebastian Shaw. For an era that was going for mutant paradise, that shouldn’t be her big break during the era.
So how does Exceptional X-Men tackle Kitty’s feelings towards Krakoa and losing that paradise? Eve Ewing does it the only way you could with an island nation that was good to so many, but rather pretty awful for someone as far as actually being on the island goes, even if that was her most mature direction up to that point. Exceptional X-Men goes even further with that. Kitty is lost. She’s left wondering what everything the X-Men did was really for if they were all going to go back to the status quo. It feels very meta in-so-far as asking Marvel why tear Krakoa down when it was so good for mostly everyone involved. The real answer is, it wasn’t good for everyone and that was quite actually the point from the jump– something that would be echoed by Temper in X-Men #3. So now, Kitty is left trying to take it easy, not deal with any mutant vs human nonsense, and keep busy as a bartender. It’s an extremely interesting approach to Kitty as she quite obviously is suffering from anxiety, anybody in her situation would of course, as she tries to move on from experiencing several traumatic events as an X-Man. THIS is the most mature and complete take on Kitty Pryde that we’ve ever gotten since she became an adult. I feel so strongly in this and I am glad that Eve Ewing got her hands on this title and this character. It felt like Kitty on Krakoa was nebulously around 21 years old, which was fun to see because she was very explorative, loud, and super headstrong. However, in Exceptional X-Men #1 she feels her cocoon phase is over. It feels like she’s blossoming as a level-headed adult who has trauma and is trying their best to deal with it. Someone who has ”been there, done that” as a young mutant and is now capable of showing others how to go about it as well.
This issue starts with Kitty tending to a bar in Chicago. She’s opening up to the readers about where she feels she is at during this point in her life, being the rather adaptable person she feels that she is. The X-Men became her home, and now that Krakoa is gone, she’s just drifting, trying to keep busy and trying to have a social life while obviously having unresolved trauma she needs to work on, and it’s very explicitly at the forefront of this book. It’s handled so well, and it’s something that definitely should have been addressed for Kitty at several points in her publication, as she is the first main poster girl of the X-Men, and for a long time was sidelined until Krakoa. All the pompous “new gods” stuff wasn’t something she really wanted, of course, she just wanted peace, she wanted to feel normal. All that baggage kind of weighs her down because at that point Krakoa becomes too big for what most mutants really want. They wanted a paradise, but not at the cost of feeling like they must conquer humankind. That’s not to say what Hickman laid down was bad or wrong, it was effective, it made sense. To create a paradise for an oppressed people you must show you are stronger than your oppressors. That comes at a cost though, and that cost is only paid when it all crumbles.
So now, Kitty is living with her old childhood friend Priti, and we learn that Kitty has a date at a concert. When she arrives, she’s left waiting to meet this mysterious girl, thinking she was stood up and almost loses it, until Kitty realizes she arrived a whole day early, and it was her only night off so she’d have to cancel. Instead of just leaving she decides to try and enjoy her only night off anyway as any single girl does and instead she witnesses a new young mutant, Trista Marshall, activate her ability while trying to gain access to a concert. The security shoots at her and Kitty comes to the rescue and manages to escape through the concert with Trista, and takes her home. It’s a very simple plot, but I think it’s profound because Trista is very similar to Kitty. She doesn’t want to be a mutant, but Kitty is now in that mentoring role and is going to teach her to be proud of who she is. We even get a moment with Trista and her grandma who echoes to Trista the same message. Her grandma goes even further to tell Trista that she comes from strong people, and while she may not want to be strong, it’s imperative that when someone bothers her to give them hell. Afterwards, Kitty goes home and wonders what she has even done with her life, for the X-Men to do everything they did and to end up right back where they have been for most of their existence. It’s very unfortunate and you have to sympathize with her. Krakoa felt like the next natural step for mutantkind, however, from the jump it was jeopardized purely for the fact that the leaders weren’t the best people to lead. Krakoa was always too perfect to be true, and that was unfortunately the point. We end with Kitty continuing the next day to work with a little more optimism than she usually has and she’s telepathically contacted by Emma Frost, because Kitty can try as hard as she can to run from the X-Men, but she never truly can.
At its core, Exceptional X-Men #1 is a beautiful, down-to-earth exploration into the mutant metaphor and what it means to those with visible and non-visible mutations. At the end of the day it IS deeper than mutants vs humans. It’s about embracing who you are in a society that mostly hates you, and dealing with it tastefully. It’s something I’ve always figured only POC storytellers can put on display and I’ve been proven right. Eve contrasts the struggle of those with visible mutations so well by showing how Kitty has the obvious privilege of looking like a normal human so the issues don’t easily affect her, yet and still she puts her life and existence on the line because she recognizes that privilege and puts it to use. I’ve been waiting for an X-Men book like this, and Eve L. Ewing knocked it way out of the park and we’ve hardly gotten the full image of what we’ll be dealing with. Yet, it feels so much like what Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod laid down back in 1982 with New Mutants. I am excited for what’s to come.
Another thing to standout is Kitty’s sexuality too, for years the fans of X-Men have been waiting for Kitty to be openly confirmed as gay or bisexual, and while this comic doesn’t explicitly state where she falls, she is very clearly dating girls now and that’s exciting to see. It’s finally time for Kitty to be allowed this space and I’m glad, I don’t even care if it’s with Magik or not.
The art is also hands down some of the best in this era too. Carmen Carnero is seriously one of the best artists in the industry, and it shows in spades here. Eve Ewing is writing a seriously dramatic book– it reminds me a bit of an adult sitcom in a way just with less jokes– and Carnero and Woodard’s art and colors, respectively, work with Ewing’s words in tandem to create a very serious comic with incredible commentary on the mutant metaphor, what it means to Ewing, and how it affects Kitty and new mutants. It’s wonderful, and I can’t say enough about how it works, they’re a well-oiled machine.
I do have to address a huge elephant in the room though: Marvel’s marketing with this series. Marvel has seriously dropped the ball with this book. At announcement, Exceptional X-Men was touted as being one of the three main flagship books of the “From the Ashes” X-Men initiative, with MacKay and Stegamn’s X-Men and Simone and Marquez’s Uncanny X-Men being the other two. However, the marketing for this comic is severely disproportionate to that. X-Men and Uncanny have received so much more buzz from Marvel’s X (formerly twitter) account, even X-Factor and NyX has, yet there hasn’t been a single post made about Exceptional X-Men since May 10, 2024. That’s unacceptable. Even with the comic trailer they put out on the day of this issue’s release, it just comes all too late, there should’ve been way more coverage. There’s a clear difference between this comic and the other X-Men titles, obviously that being Eve L. Ewing is a black woman. I don’t– and will not– say that’s why there’s been a lack of marketing, but as a black man, I know all too well the truth. It’s frustrating to see this as Eve is an incredible writer, she, Carnero, Woodard and co. deserve all the marketing that X-Men and Uncanny have received as well. It’s a huge shame, but I am hoping that even with that, Exceptional X-Men is able to thrive because it deserves it, it really does. Go out and support this book, it’s wonderful.