Expatriate X-Men #1: A Pirate’s Life For Us

X Years Later, the X-Virus has devastated the Earth, humanity is on the brink of extinction, the X-Men have all but fractured, but freedom, while fleeting, lies just beyond the Revelation territories.

Used as a verb, to expatriate means to “banish or exile” or “to withdraw (oneself) from residence in or allegiance to one’s native country”. As an adjective, it means to “live in a foreign land”. In reality, the former definition is more apt for the characters of this book than the latter, but I understand that X-Men are nothing without their various adjectives (minus those times when the adjectiveless title is the book). 

With Eve L. Ewing as our storyteller for this tie-in, we follow three of the cast from her Exceptional X-Men book: Bronze, Melee, and Rift (EXM supporting character Reggie McNair). Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan is here as well, leading this already bickering team on their mission to save captured mutants from United States internment camps (I’m sure that’s not supposed to be a reference to anything at all).

This first issue is reminiscent of the Marauders book from the Krakoa Era, and that certainly feels by design. Not that that is a bad thing at all. The stakes are set up at about the midway through the issue when the team is given a job by Mystique to take a recently liberated mutant to the Limbo Lands.

This adds a bit of a deeper layer to our team as their “liberations” are not clearly as heroic as they make them out to be on the surface. This is very harrowing for the normally very virtuous Kamala, so that is certainly a dilemma that will hopefully be explored as the book moves forward. As for Bronze and Melee, their older more serious selves are certainly a departure from their light-hearted more casual selves in Ewing’s Exceptional, but with the virus spreading further, Emma having her own troubles in Iron & Frost, and Kitty being who knows where, it makes sense that the two would be forced to grow up to survive their harsh new reality. As for Rift, their time jump power makes for some interesting visuals, but their overall character hasn’t stood out much as of yet. 

Francesco Mortarino has moved over from the sadly short-lived NYX book to here, and their pencils are still a marvel (no pun intended) to behold. Assisted by Raul Angulo’s deep colors, the book is definitely a stand out in the art department, Rift’s power display being a notable highlight.