Exiles Writer's Plans for Marvel's Dimension-Hopping Mutants

The myriad realities of Marvel Comics' Multiverse are rife with possibilities, where literally anything can happen. Of course, threats often arise that imperil one, several, or all of the worlds in the Multiverse, and when those dangers rear their heads, the Exiles are the ones to confront them straight on.

Introduced in a self title ongoing series that debuted in 2001, the Exiles are a team composed of alternate reality versions of Marvel characters that were both familiar and refreshingly different. The original volume of Exiles ran for 100 issues before being relaunched with a new series that came to a close in 2009.

This April, an all-new incarnation of the fan-favorite, reality-hopping team unites for a new volume of Exiles by writer Saladin Ahmed and artist Javier Rodriguez. Which classic team member is returning to lead them? What familiar Marvel icon will give them their marching orders? And how will their members be similar and different to the Marvel Universe counterparts they resemble? For the answers to these questions and more, CBR spoke with Ahmed about his cast and his plans for the book.

CBR: I imagine part of the appeal of writing Exiles is the freedom you get with characters and story, but how does that freedom translate into writing the book? When you have so many options is hard to decide on what exactly to do?

Saladin Ahmed: Yeah, it is. I've been a fan of superhero comics forever, but I've only been working with Marvel for about a year, and the thing you don't realize when you're new or not part of the industry is that all of the decisions about books are mapped out months in advance. Plus, a lot of those choices depend on like 80 other moving parts just within the comics world, let alone the other media. So you might have a brilliant story idea for, say, Captain America, but that doesn't matter if it contrasts with something already planned for him, or if it's similar to some stories that are coming next year

It's like that with all the heroes. So it's never as simple my brilliant Iron Man idea or knowing how I would do Spider-Man. With Exiles, though, it sort of is. Basically they're a team from all over the Marvel Multiverse, and you can make up any version of anybody that you want. There is some editorial oversight, but you have a pretty free hand. So it was a big, daunting and wild task. The path to this book was not a straightforward one. [Laughs] It's quite a long story that can't be told now.

There were some pieces of the team in my mind already when the concept started to cohere. So I had some sort of anchors, but yeah rather than asking, “Who's available here and there?” like you usually do with superhero comics I got to ask, “What sort of roles do I want to be filled on this team?” I was interested in dramatic roles, personality roles, and power set roles. The RPG nerd in me wanted to make this balanced team. [Laughs] You can't have all tanks or stealth characters, right? Another element people don't often think about is the visual aspect. A team has to look cool together.

So all of that was in play, and I think we came up with a pretty cool mix for at least what is our beginning team.

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Let's talk about those characters. At the center of Exiles is Blink, a character from the original series being pulled back into the role of protector of the Multiverse. What's your sense of how that effects her? Which elements of her character are you initially interested in exploring?

Because of the nature of Exiles she's had an insane number of adventures even just within this one book, let alone in some of the other books where she's appeared. The problem with any new #1 issue of a book is that you're trying to bring in new readers. It's not just for people who are like, “Oh, I loved Exiles 15 years ago!” This is also for people who don't know what Exiles was. So working on a character like Blink involves honoring what other people have done with her, but also whittling down to some core elements for the reader to latch on to.

I think the appeal for Blink is that she's had this astonishingly brutal life. She was born a mutant in the Age of Apocalypse, used as a weapon, experimented on, and then as an adventurer through time she's seen some pretty dark stuff. She's lost friends and people close to her. Yet, she maintains this kind of buoyancy and brightness. It's not a saccharine sort of optimism. She has this beacon like quality about her so even when things are dark she works really well to rally a team around her. In terms of her personality she's the anchor of the team. She's the team leader, and we're going to see that, but that also contrasts at times with her sort of youthful personality.

The man who tasks Blink with the mission of protecting the Multiverse in this new volume of Exiles is Nick Fury Sr who is now a being known as the Unseen. What kind of role does he play in this story?

He is in the non field general sort of role. Although, that's going to be quite complicated. It's not really his agency per se, so much as it the Multiverse sort of defending itself. It's very hard to explain. In terms of the framework this is a very cosmic and trippy book. We get weird, epic Marvel and there's a lot of time travel style paradoxes involved, but not in a way that weighs down the story.

So what we'll see in these opening pages of Exiles is actually Silver Age Nick Fury appearing before himself as he is now, the Unseen, and Silver Age Nick Fury seems to be on a mission. So people who have been missing the Old Nick will get some pretty cool glimpses of him in this book. He was really fun to write even for just the little bits that I did. That's something you can only get away with in a book like Exiles.

What can you tell us about Blink's teammate, Khan? She appears to be a grizzled, older version of the Marvel Universe's Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan.

So Khan . . . KHHHAAANN! [Laughs] I knew that everyone on Twitter would be quoting Star Trek when we revealed her, and I was okay with that.

EXCLUSIVE: Art from Exiles #1 by Javier Rodriguez

She is sort of the Sarah Connor version of Ms.Marvel. The idea behind her is that she's from a time line where the recent IvX event devolved into a war between mutants and inhumans that also drew humanity in. So, essentially she's from a timeline where there's been a three way mutant-Inhuman-human war for about 30 years. Most of her people have been wiped out. She protects her little corner of what's left as this kind of brutal super powered war has gone on for the past few decades. She's very different from the Kamala we know.

Part of what we're going to learn over the series is how she went from point A of this kind of teeny bopper superhero to point b of this bitter, post apocalyptic soldier.

Another Exiles cast member that's very different from their Marvel Universe counterpart is this team's incarnation of Wolverine.

In a storyline from many years ago the villain Mojo created the X-Babies, who were little versions of the X-Men. His rival though, Veech, created an even more annoyingly innocent version called the Adorable X-Babies. They were essentially X-Men Muppet Babies. That's who our Wolvie is.

He comes from a world where trees have cute little faces and caterpillars walk around with cute little caps. He goes to, I can't remember the exact name we gave it, but it's something like Xavier's Funtime School For Gifted Youngsters. So he's basically a living cartoon and he's really innocent of concepts like death and hatred. So why he was chosen to be part of this team is kind of a big question. He doesn't seem to be much of a fighter. So the things he learns after being pulled out of his reality are a big part of his storyline.

Your Exiles team also includes a character who appears to be Iron Lad from the original Young Avengers run. Is that correct?

Yes, essentially he is that Iron Lad, but he's been lifted from a time before Young Avengers ever started. Iron Lad is essentially a younger version of Kang the Conqueror, who Kang went back and gave power armor too. He was being bullied, and at some point he was nearly killed by bullies. So Kang went back in time to this teenage version of himself, gave him power armor, and said “Come become a time conqueror.” He was kind of being his own evil dad in a weird way. Nate Richards rejected that. He said, “No, I'm going to become a hero.” And he joined the Young Avengers.

In our story, he makes a different choice when Kang gives him the armor. He doesn't want to become a world conqueror, the same as the Young Avengers storyline, but he instead goes back to his own timeline and tries to get revenge on the bullies. That's when he gets plucked, while in the midst of trying to achieve his revenge.

He's a bit younger, and maybe a bit more maladjusted [Laughs] than what we saw of the Nate who became a true hero in Young Avengers. He's also the kind of brains of the group. So he's a lot of fun to write in relation to some of these other bombastic and experienced heroes around him.

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Exiles can be very plot driven because there's a focus of what problem are we out to solve this arc or this issue? From your descriptions of Khan, Wolvie, and Iron Lad though it sounds like this series will also be very character driven as well.

Absolutely, one of my inspirations for this book is old school Claremont X-Men. There are a number of reasons why those stories are so popular and meant so much to so many people, but a lot of them were stories about personal dynamics and people's personalities. They examined how those things came together and clashed. We also got to watch the characters develop and discover more about them. They seemed to be one way, but had this other dimension to them.

That all had a tremendous influence on me as a writer, and I think that's a team book at its best. So that's absolutely a big part of what's happening here, amid all the time traveling pyrotechnics.

EXCLUSIVE: Art form exiles #1 by Javier Rodriguez

Rounding out your cast is a character that appears to be the Marvel Universe version of Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie from Thor: Ragnarok. What can you tell us about this incarnation of Valkyrie and the world she hails from?

This version of Valkyrie is inspired by Tessa Thompson's performance as Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok. Visually, we attempted to capture Ms. Thompson's sort of brawn. She's not a big woman, but she really had this physical presence right next to Thor and all the other characters. She occupied more space than she actually does physically. So, really, my challenge to Javier [Rodriguez] was to draw this character in a way that made that literal. So this version of Valkyrie is a very big, brawling woman.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe does have its own designated Earth, and she is technically not from that reality. So she's technically not the MCU Valkyrie, but certainly the look and her boisterous, sort of drunken warrior appeal [Laughs] is definitely a tribute to that performance.

Valkyrie character design by Javier Rodriguez.

Plus, the version of Asgard she's from is a bit different. She's from an Asgard without Thor. She's known as the lone defender of Asgard. We won't know a lot about that, but we know that she seems to be not a Valkyrie, but the Valkyrie.

You mentioned artist, Javier Rodriguez, and I imagine a lot of what you've been doing on Exiles has been made easier and more enjoyable because of his design and storytelling skills.

Absolutely! This is a book that's sort of about pulling in every kind of crazy reference you can think of, building in different time periods, building little easter eggs, and drawing in different art styles. Sometimes I'm asking him to draw in 3-4 different art styles per issue. He responded to that like a fish to water.

It's funny because ostensibly there is a language barrier. He speaks English, but he is from Spain and was very apologetic when we first started talking. He didn't understand some of the things I was saying, but then it was just automatic. I would suggest an alt version of a certain character referencing a '70s storyline, and he would know it right away and have his own details to add to make that version even better.

So it's been great working with him. I'm really excited.

Can you leave us with some hints and teases about the worlds Javier will bring to life and the antagonists your cast will be up against?

[Laughs] I'm not sure how much I can give away. I think a lot of the fun of this book is going to be the surprises. So I'm holding a lot of them pretty close to the chest.

I think sort of between epic fantasy Asgard, cartoon land, and post apocalyptic Jersey City the first couple issues will have plenty of cool things. And there's a lot more coming.

Sounds like you've got a lot of fun ideas and surprises to fuel this ongoing series.

Yeah, if there was a book you could keep doing ideas for this is it. I should say that I'm indebted to Judd Winnick, who is the person who came up with the Exiles concept in the first place. I heard rumors that the original version of Exiles came out of discussions about rebooting What If? That's totally what I'm doing here. This is my What If? spliced with a Claremont X-Men book. And yes, [Laughs] I have lots of ideas for it.