Expatriate X-Men #2: Set Adrift On Memory Bliss

Age of Revelation has fun moments, but all in all it feels like an event that is still trying to find its purpose. There are a few bright spots sprinkled here and there, but it can be hard to care at times when you can’t really tell which books matter to the overall event. Stories like these build to something, but the Age of Revelation has proven itself more gilded than gold.

As for this issue of Expatriate X-Men, there are a few interesting moments and ideas sprinkled throughout but they struggle for relevance. Shinobi Shaw’s appearance is notable highlight as he is a character that has been getting more visibility since Krakoa, mostly in the recent Psylocke series, the mystery of what happened to Kitty continues to grow, and we get more context here when we finally lay eyes on a severely altered Colossus. Outside of that, the other components of the story feel more bog standard. The “Blue Dashers” as they are called are fine enough, but we don’t get many layers added to them. Bronze and Colossus have formed a bond built through their mutual love for Kitty Pryde, but other than that Piotr does nothing of real note in this issue. 

Melee gets some expansion as she has formed a physical relationship with the mutant Lyrebird that they rescued in the first issue but it serves more as window dressing than anything, Rift is just there, and Kamala is still Kamala. The crew is coming apart at the seams, but since we haven’t spent much time with them in this incarnation it’s hard to be invested in it as a whole. 

There is also the little tidbit that the event that put the team at each other’s throats happens in Un-Deadpool #3, which hasn’t even been released yet. This brings me back to the problem of the timeline of these books in relation to each other. If you haven’t gotten invested in this book, or maybe you just aren’t interested in reading the book that depicts this moment, it feels a bit disingenuous of Marvel to expect you to buy this completely separate story. 

Eve Ewing’s script is overall fine, but the somewhat abrupt nature of the events in the story makes it a bit hard to care about what’s going on if you don’t have an attachment to the characters. She’s doing the best she can, but the lack of direction for the overall event kind of brings things down. 

Francesco Mortarino’s art is still pretty good to look at with a few standout splash pages that are heightened by Raul Angulo’s vibrant colors. A few standout action scenes make up an otherwise fairly standard issue.