Zippity doo-dah, zippity a, my oh my what a load of marlarky today! Welcome to the 10th volume of Exile, which is directly tied into an event from 2005ish I don't remember because I was on an extended break from comics then.

Lemme be upfront - despite my love of Blink I ain't never read the Age of Apocalypse original event (AoA hereforth). Closest I got was the Blink mini-series. I know what its about - the X-men Animated Series certainly gave way to that, but no first hand knowledge.

What I do have knowledge of is Blink from this series and her 4-issue mini-series Nd Sabertooth from this series. So in the three issues this volume covers (more on that in a moment), please understand when I say they are hella OOC.

I don't even remember, on screen, Blink telling Mimic she was sent to the world where Sabertooth was raising a psychopath tyrant. So was all the times Mimic asked off screen? Okay, sure.

Nor did Blink seemed terribly...shooken up when she came back. So evil psychopath tyrant made her do awful things, not surprising. I feel like if this was before the original writer (Judd Winnick I think?) left we would have seen more then a couple flashbacks with voice over to explain vague bad things.

Why is Sabertooth, who was in previous appearances rather...reasonable and thoughtful suddenly more like his jerky self that's so well known?

On top of which, and this really annoyed me, suddenly the Timebroker REALLY went for broke (ha) and acted evil. No nuance or subtly. Actual red eyes. It was jarring and abrupt. You're telling me this guy who, to this point, showed nothing but patience in his scheming suddenly went "idgaf anymore"??

And Sasquatch and Beak just... disappear. Poof. After Beak was supposed to be sooooo integral they nixed Nocturne (in-verse I realize it was because she joined the Prime Marvel Universe for a bit, which is cool, but come on).

And this volume? Priced at $12.99 (so like $19.99 now), just the same as the other volumes? Had three issues ONLY and then the AoA Official Handbook, which was basically a brief rundown of events, comic checklist to "collect all issues" and then character profiles of the major players from the original event and this tie-in.

Ughhhhhh ( )

This 10th collection (#59-61, and The Age of Apocalypse Handbook) is decent but not too interesting. Apocalypse has joined onboard the team and, as can be expected, he is not willing to bow under the Timebroker's instructions. There's some slightly confusing sub-story with a crystal and the team ends the story trying to work together. They're not completely agreed on the course of action, so this should make interesting reading...next time. Even if the story is an important turning point when it comes to the series, for some reason it just wasn't that captivating; hard to put my finger on the exact reasons.

Instead of being filled with editions like usual, half of this collection is a guidebook: "The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: X-Men Age of Apocalypse 2005". Each page is a bio of the character, their strengths and purposes, and an illustrated drawing of them. For completionists, this is a must get for the series just to have that alone.

Sabretooth has returned and plays a large part in the story along with some angst with Blink and a small mystery that is unveiled about that.

Overall it's cool they included the guidebook for fans, but it still feels like this edition is a bit short compared to the others. ( )

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