New Exiles #9 - Marvel

This book has 3 great things going for it. First of all is the incredible cast of characters. This book has gone through a lot of transitions . . . essentially, that's the nature of the book. But, I think, right now it has the strongest cast of characters that it's had throughout it's entire run. We have Sabretooth, Psylocke, Rogue, Mystiq, Cat (there's a lot of mystery to this one), Morph, Sage and Gambit . . from an Earth where he's actually Namor and Susan Storm's son. Next, and I don't feel the order is necessarily in importance . . but, next we have the incredible scripts of Chris Claremont. Chris came on board shortly before the end of the first run, and he's been going all out ever since. The only thing I'm sad about is that Excalibur isn't around anymore. Chris was writing that one, but when this book was relaunched they did the mini that kind of melded the 2 books together. Well, as far as the multiverse / omniverse thing goes. And the end of that series, Sage basically absorbed all of Saturyn's knowledge of the omniverse, so now she's it's protector. I guess that's the best way to describe it. And last, but not least, is the incredible talent of Tom Grummett. This guy is seriously under-rated as an artist. I really think that he is the glue that has been holding this book together for the last 20 or so issues. Yes there's been a couple of fill-ins, but essentially it's been all Tom. He's done a fantastic job of creating the unique image of these characters. I look forward to his action scenes every issue. Right now in the story our team is on this Earth where there's basically 3 powers . . the English, the French and the Atlanteans . . the last of which rules over all because of their technology and modern warfare equipment. That's really why our team is there . . to protect the Queen. But, we also have a subplot going in that Psylocke has been found by Ogun . . this Earth's Betsy Braddock's sensei. But his Betsy was taken from him by Slaymaster, so he's intent on turning Betsy into Lady Mandarin . . the protector of the Chinese Empire. Then we also have Cat, back at the Crystal Palace, trying to figure out why there seems to be universe after universe disappearing. So, as you can see, this title is definitely not short in the action department. And, as I've said before, I like this book much for the same reason that I like the Ultimate Universe so much . . . anything can happen, and often it does.