By Jim Beard
Exiles fans will tell you straight up: what a long, strange trip it's been!
After a hundred issues, the dimension-bursting series comes to an end – but not really. Chris Claremont wraps up EXILES this month with a landmark issue #100, but come January, Marvel unveils the next chapter in the eclectic team's saga: NEW EXILES, written by Claremont with art by Tom Grummett (THUNDERBOLTS).
However, before the new era begins, EXILES: DAYS OF THEN AND NOW wraps up a bit of unfinished business, and in 48 big pages of pulse-pounding adventure covers the past, present, and future of one of the most rockin', sockin', mind-expanding band of do-gooders of them all! Helming this instant collector's item is a very special Exiles alumnus, writer Mike Raicht – the first editor of the EXILES from when it launched in 2001.
But what is DAYS OF THEN AND NOW? A nostalgia tour of all-things Exiles? A glimpse of alternate Earths not yet seen? A bridge between EXILES and NEW EXILES?
"I'd say it's all of these things," remarks Raicht. "The main thing [editors] Mark Paniccia and Jordan White wanted me to do with this book was to make it a nice little gift wrapped package of all that came before as well as a send off for the new book. I think we pulled that off while also introducing something a little extra.
"We open in a reality where things have gone terribly wrong. Only a few heroes remain. Quentin Quire [from Grant Morrison's NEW X-MEN] is the leader of one of these bands of heroes and is told by a future seer that a group of heroes is destined to come help them but he must reach out to them first. So begins our search for the Exiles."
The Exiles, as their fans well know, constitutes a cornucopia of fascinating personalities, all hailing from different realities. Their line-up always in flux and their leadership often in question, the Exiles were charged with cleaning up cosmic conundrums and multiversal muddles, tasks that defined danger and destruction.
Raicht, now providing the Exiles with words rather than editorial guidance, finds himself in an enviable situation: getting to know a
famous super-team from all ends of the spectrum and setting up further exploration of the concept for a creator the caliber of Chris Claremont. But what's been the coolest for Raicht, editing or writing the Exiles?
"Working on [the] Exiles as the writer or the editor is just cool
period, to be honest," explains Raicht. "It's a place where just about anything can happen. Not only on the world you are visiting but within the team itself. Sometimes in other books that freedom to create and destroy doesn't present itself. As an editor I could say to [writers] Judd Winick or Chuck Austen, 'Wouldn't it be cool if...' and in the next script [they] could make it work, or go in an even nuttier direction.
"I'm excited to have come full circle back to the book I loved so much while I was an editor. When I was working as an assistant, associate and then editor on this book I usually just threw out ideas. After I left Marvel I knew writing was something I'd like to try. And of all the books, EXILES is the one I'd like to be involved with the most, so this is a great opportunity for me."
DAYS OF THEN AND NOW rockets between realities in fast and furious motion, revisiting myriad moments from EXILES history. Raicht reveled in choosing those moments, with an eye towards both impact and depth of feeling.
"I tried to spread the moments between the different writers who have written the book," says the writer, the scenes dancing before his eyes. "A couple moments from Judd Winick, one from Chuck Austen and a few from Tony Bedard. All of it was set up to dovetail into Chris Claremont's take on the characters and where they are headed. I tried to choose moments that made sense within my story."
Characters both familiar and strange take center stage in the one-shot, exhibiting that all the potential that alternate "might-have-been" stories possess. Raicht giddily proclaims his love for these characters, especially Quentin Quire, who finds himself front and center in DAYS OF THEN AND NOW:
"The original point of EXILES was to give some characters that don't exist in Marvel continuity a chance to shine. To give fans a chance to see their favorites like Blink and Sabretooth from 'Age of Apocalypse,' a new version of Magik, and fun new combinations like Nocturne and Sunfire, while also giving them those awesome holy cow world ending moments month after month. I wanted to draw from that while also revisiting important characters and moments from Exiles history.
"Quentin is probably one of my favorite new characters from my time in the X-office. I always I thought he was a very cool but tragic figure. A mutant with unlimited potential trying to fit in and not really being able to. He's a kid whose life turned on a few rather sad moments which left him pretty scarred emotionally. And his ultimate 'triumph' ended in the death of the girl he was desperate to impress. It just felt like of all the characters out there, he was the one who, with just a better moment here or there could have been a force for good."
Raicht also digs being one of the lucky few who gets to create new alternate versions of established Marvel characters whole cloth.
"It's about the coolest thing ever," he confesses. "I imagine if this story is eventually revisited that would be the icing on the cake.
"This is first and foremost a thank you to the fans who have read the book for years. Hopefully they will enjoy the look back and the journey forward. For new readers it might give them an idea of who and what the Exiles were. What they stood for and what they accomplished. They made a difference throughout the multiverse, hopefully for the better."
And how does Raicht keep all the Exiles minutiae, all the characters, all the adventures, and all the dizzying time-hopping straight?
"A lot of comic book reading," the writer laughs. "That's a big part of the job. How cool is that?"
The big wrap-up in EXILES #100 is due December 12. The hammer-to-anvil action and startling revelations of EXILES: DAYS OF THEN AND NOW is slated for January 2. And the explosive beginning of the next generation of Exiles goodness with NEW EXILES #1 hits the racks on January 16.
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