The Big "M"

• Writer - Tony Bedard
• Artist - Mizuki Sakakibara
• Colorist - JC
• Lettering - Dave Sharpe
• Ass't Editor - Stephannie Moore
• Ass't Editor - Cory Sedlmeier
• Editor - Mike Marts
• Editor in Chief - Joe Quesada
• Ass't Editor - Sean Ryan

Summary

  Exiles is one of the books I can deal with fairly briefly, because it's Exiles doing what Exiles does.

  Actually, that's a little unfair, because writer Tony Bedard is playing around with some possibilities of the format that haven't really been tried before. The Exiles don't generally tend to meet their own counterparts, and this is also the first reality to be waiting for them in advance (thanks to the local version of Destiny). It's a minor thing, but it's nice to see Bedard finding twists on the set-up that haven't been done before, even 50 issues into the book's run.

  The set-up here is that the local version of Mystique has replaced Blink and is trying to get the Exiles to break the local Mimic out of jail (since he's the big Magneto figure in their world). Admittedly, the plot does call for tremendous suspension of disbelief, since Mystique's impersonation is pretty dreadful. While she can get the visual side of things down properly, she's never really seen much of Blink and she seems to be guessing her way through the character. The Exiles prove surprisingly tolerant of her very ropey improvisations.

  Still, Exiles is a book about straightforward plots and bright, colourful art with plenty of spandex-related action sequences, and that's what you get here. The closing twist teeters dangerously close to sappiness, but ultimately gets away with it, largely because artist Mizuki Sakakibara pulls off a suitably ridiculous visual of the reformed Brotherhood. It wouldn't work if we were really being asked to take it seriously, but that's not the angle the creators are going for.

  Fun. I'm liking the book with the new creative team.

  Rating: B+

Summary

  The Big M narrates: when the Brotherhood were public enemy number one, the focus was always on him, Mystique, or Blob, but when they were all in prison, Destiny was the key to their comeback, by foreseeing the arrival of the Exiles.

  *Blink calls Avalanche on her cell and makes sure Clarice is still unconscious; he has her tied up and sedated. Calvin finds *Blink and asks who she's calling; she claims to have convinced Avalanche to meet them, and then kisses him to stop any further questions; the ploy works, and they go to have some time alone.

  Avalanche goes to check on Clarice's dosage, but he sees she's missing. She teleports behind him, grabs the hypodermic, and teleports the drug directly into his brain, knocking him out. She consults the Tallus, doesn't understand what "the Big M is," and does an internet search. This world's Mimic killed thousands including Magneto, Xavier, and everyone at Xavier's school.

  Afterwards, Calvin lies in bed, planning how to break into the Vault without killing anyone. *Blink says they'll take out the generators, disabling the power inhibitors and letting the Big M free himself. She notes the difference between the two Mimics: Calvin is "so soft, clean and pure"; he tells her he isn't, and he killed many.

  That night at the Vault, Avalanche hasn't arrived, so *Blink needs another way to break in. Meanwhile, the real Clarice has teleported in and finds the Big M in the Omega cellblock. He's tattooed, smirking, and ignorant of what his teammates are planning. She says she's there to make sure he doesn't escape; he mocks her, saying her powers were inhibited when she walked in the door.

  There's an explosion; Clarice knows the battle has begun. The Exiles help the Brotherhood fight the guards, but Calvin gets angry when they start to get too brutal.

  The inhibitors disabled, the Big M mimics Clarice's power and teleports out of his cell. He has Cannonball's power and activates a personal force field so she can't hurt him; he has Magneto's power and destroys the inhibitors; he has Xavier's power and reads Clarice's mind, learning all about Calvin, "the candy-coated version" of himself. In his cell, he had time to think, and had wondered how he would have turned out if he'd had an easier life. He rushes to find his other self and grabs him by the neck, and plans to erase every good memory from him to see what kind of man he really is.

  He's shocked to learn they had the same dirt-poor childhood, and the only difference is that he accepted Xavier's offer. Calvin disagrees and, having mimicked the Big M's telepathy, shows him the rest: as an Exile, he's had to make tough decisions and even kill, till he realized if he sank lower he would never get back up, so he swore never to kill again.

  That's how the Big M's life turned around, and he rebuilt Xavier's school on a space station, where he's completed telling his story to the students. The Brotherhood are now his staff, and they've made the world a better place. The Exiles, having completed their mission, teleported away.