The Good

Let's be honest, comic books often contain absurd plots and stories. That's part of the charm of reading the crazy adventures. I am digging the concept and direction of this series but I can't imagine anyone reading the first page recap without chuckling. Especially over the fact that we have a severed head of Professor Xavier along with a hunt for other evil Professor X's. I would say you can't make this stuff up but that's exactly what Greg Pak is doing.

There is definitely an EXILES feel to this series. We have Dazzler from the 616 universe along with other versions of Professor X (the severed head), Nightcrawler, Wolverine and Emma Frost. They have to journey into other dimensions in order to kill evil alternate versions of Professor X. We get to see the team arrive in an alternate world full of characters we know with completely different backgrounds. That's what makes this fun.

Last issue I was a little leery over the concept. Again, it felt almost exactly like EXILES and that series started out great and went downhill. Now that the team is together and they're on their first actually mission/world, we get to see how they handle things. It could be because we haven't seen countless alternate versions of familiar characters in a while but it's interesting to see what Pak does with them. He's literally creating a whole new world and having to come up with backstories and motives for those involved. It's also good to see that the team may be spending more than one issue on one world. That gives us a chance to see more and appreciate what is going on.

Stephen Segovia does a good job in creating the visuals for the new world along with the designs for the characters. They all have to be different but still familiar to us. It was also pretty impressive to see a severed head floating in a glass bubble actually bow down to someone.

The Bad

Maybe it's because we haven't see a lot of Dazzler lately but she seems a little angry and impatient. Perhaps she's a little upset at not being featured in the X-titles even though she's been part of the team since they moved to San Francisco. Aside from that, she seems to have easily adjusted to the idea of traveling through alternate realities with different versions of her friends. But she did spend some time in Mojoverse doing who knows what.

I do still have concerns over how this will feel as the issues continue. Can the characters and settings still feel fresh when we get random variations one after the other. The antagonists here are almost a bit much to handle. It's good to see extreme takes (no pun intended) on the familiar characters but some almost feel too evil, just for the purpose of the story.

The Verdict

I was a little unsure how this series would separate itself from the idea of being a different version of EXILES. There is a different hook and goal for the characters. We do get that familiar mysterious feeling of not knowing what a new world might bring to the team. Greg Pak is setting up a deeper story that will hopefully continue to be fresh as they travel from world to world. Segovia has the task of creating the visuals for Pak's different worlds along with new and different versions of the characters we know. With so many different X-titles it might be easy to question why there is a need for this but because it is so separate from the others, you can easily just focus on this series and not have to worry about a ton of other X-MEN books. If you're looking for a fun ride through the multiverse this comic is your ticket.