Excalibur 7 - Inferno

Rachel is about to have the wedding of the season.

Excalibur #7

Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: Alan Davis
Inker: Paul Neary
Letterer: Agustin Mas
Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Editor: Terry Kavanaugh
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco
Creators: Claremont & Davis

Crotus, N'astirh's lead henchman demon, is wandering through the streets of New York bemoaning this master when he sees Rachel Summers turned into a mannequin in a bridal shop and decides to take her for his own source of power by marrying her. Elsewhere a cinema drags more people off the street into its screen where it shows "Teenbimbowargoreshocker 23" starring Brian Braddock as "Fast Buck" and Kitty Pryde as "the Victim". Within the picture Kitty (Shadowcat) faces off against Brian (Captain Britain) who alternates between a violent servant of the Goblin Princess and himself. Both change appearances with Brian becoming a slasher in a mask and Kitty a cheerleader, a role she hates, and he chases her through a weird high school. Then they encounter Meggan, transformed into the Goblin Princess, who transforms them into ballroom dancers and puts them into a dance for all eternity. Meanwhile Kurt (Nightcrawler) gets eaten by a living dustcart where inside other humans attack him as demon, giving the cart such indigestion they are vomited out. He is then befriended by an animated stone gargoyle and then finds shop mannequins coming to life and attacking shoppers. He learns how the mannequins have come to life and switched places with humans, turning them into mannequins and swapping clothes with them, and realises this has happened to Rachel. Capturing the mannequin in Rachel's costume with the help of the gargoyle they head off to gate-crash the wedding. Brian collapses from exhaustion and Kitty finds herself transformed again as Illyana's Soul Sword appears which she uses to free Brian and Meggan from the spell. Rachel is restored to human form but the gargoyle is destroyed in the resulting explosion.

This is a much more intense issue than the previous one, putting all five members of Excalibur through some nightmare scenarios that manage to parody many elements of culture from crap blockbuster movies with umpteen sequels to classic Hollywood to Doctor Who to Ghostbusters to slasher movies. There's even a visit to the New York branch of Forbidden Planet. The series has firmly settled on the perimeter of the crossover event and is determined to have some fun in the process rather than exploring any of the deeper ramifications.

In part this is done by having Rachel be an inanimate object for the whole issue. Although the mannequins coming to life and attacking people is a clear homage to one of the best known scenes in classic Doctor Who, the idea of humans being switched with mannequins has a more direct influence from an issue of Superman the previous year. In the post Crisis introduction of Mr Mxyzptlk (written and drawn by John Byrne) had briefly done this to Lois Lane but the story treated this as nothing more than a shock moment and it's not hard to see this making more of the plot device as a subtle swipe by Claremont at Byrne as part of the two's ongoing feud.

But also it's notable that Kitty is not present for the final events surrounding her best friend Illyana. Instead she just experiences the Soul Sword and armour suddenly appearing on her and remembers how the last time this happened was when the Beyonder killed Illyana but they reverted when he resurrected her. She just doesn't want to think through the consequences and instead leaves this for post Inferno issues. It's as though someone suddenly remembered all the connections between the characters in this title and the other X-Men books late in the day - in terms of publication Excalibur only joined Inferno with its November issue (cover dated March) when other series had crossing over as early as August (cover dated December) - and then threw these two issues together to explain why Rachel and Kitty hadn't come to the aid of their brother/best friend respectively with a whimsical take on a very dark environment at the same time.

And so we get two inconsequential issues that are Excalibur effectively saying it's a series to stand apart from the other X-Men titles even when it gets dragged into a crossover. Given the way the comics industry was going in 1988 it's actually quite refreshing to find a series that tried to do its own thing rather than getting tied into umpteen other titles and crossovers requiring its to reader to "have" to buy loads of extra comics just to understand the story in their regular one. But for issues whose covers present themselves as core parts of the crossover and a series that was part of the emerging X-Men family of titles there is invariably a disappointment to find such a bolt-on. This is a good satellite issue but that's not what it presents itself at.