Exceptional X-Men vol. 2: The Deep End

New mutants Melee, Bronze, and Axo are all cool with being trained by Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost, and Bobby Drake to hone their mutant gifts.  That won’t always pay the bills, however, so when a group internship opens up at Verate, the home of the social media app that uses people’s personal information to help them be their best selves, they jump at the opportunity.  Only Axo winds up connecting with the company’s owner, Sheldon Xenos, who really seems like he wants to make the world a better place.  We all know how that’s going to go, and so does Kitty who really starts feeling like her whole life as an X-Man has been a mistake.  So when she gets the chance to go back in time to change it all, will she take it?

Vol. 1 of “Exceptional” was a real surprise in that its character-driven approach turned out to be much better and less formulaic than I was expecting it to be.  Vol. 2 is still fun, but it doesn’t hit those same heights.  We get an opening storyline that’s geared more towards superhero action, but still has enough characterization to be memorable even with its too-busy and too-long climax.  The second storyline is shorter and reads like it was forced to wrap up early as the line closed down to make way for “Age of Revelation.”  It has its moments, even as it struggles to make them stand out against an outcome that’s as obvious as it gets.

Carmen Carnero returns to provide art for most of this volume and their work here is still quite good.  They’ve already shown they can do people talking really well in the previous volume, and their action chops turn out to be pretty solid too.  Federica Mancin provides more than capable follow-up work in the second arc; though, their most memorable bit is the goth-Victorian mindscape scenes in issue #10.  All of this is enough to ensure that vol. 2 isn’t really a bad follow-up, yet I’m left hoping that the title’s reinvention into “X-Men United” delivers a better balance of character and superhero stuff.