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.

Excalibur 6 - Inferno

The British based team get drawn to New York.

Excalibur #6

Writer: Claremont
Penciler: Davis
Inker: Neary
Colorist: Oliver
Letterer: Orzechowski
Editor: Kavanaugh
Boss: DeFalco

Rachel Summers (Phoenix) has a telepathic vision of her brother being tormented by demons and her mother so speeds off to New York to save him. The other members set off to follow her. At Euston station in London Brigadier Alysande Stuart leads a squad of the Weird Happenings Organisation (Who) including her brother and Who scientific advisor Professor Alistaire Stuart in investigating a mysterious steam train from an alternate timeline where the Nazis rule. Rachel flies into New York and assumes the Goblin Queen is her mother, Jean Grey, but it's Madelyne who rejects her. Rachel crashes down to the ground and into a bridal shop where someone turns her into a mannequin. The other four fly across the Atlantic, stopping off on a ship for a loo break, where Meggan finds herself struggling to control her powers to become what others desire. Arriving in New York her powers respond to the demonic energy and she becomes the "Goblin Princess". Kurt (Nightcrawler) is thrown to the ground whilst Kitty (Shadowcat) and Brian (Captain Britain) get pulled into a cinema and find themselves in an action movie.

This issue is from the early days of Excalibur which was usually the most obscure title in the growing X-Men family of titles. Although sharing a writer with Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine (which had just launched), it had a different editor and for the first few years it managed to steer clear of most crossovers, even having one-shot specials that stood on their own instead of annuals that had to be part of wider crossovers. Things changed a bit from 1993 onwards but before then it avoided just almost every X-Men and wider Marvel crossover going. But this issue and the next one are the exception as it got drawn into Inferno.

It's an awkward point in the series to do so. The team had formed in a special edition one-shot six months before the regular series launched and so this is de facto the seventh issue for the team. The title has been setting itself out as a cross between the Marvel UK Captain Britain stories and members of the X-Men who had been away from the team when it was seemingly killed of, with a strong dose of whimsy in contrast to the ever darker adventures in the other X-Men titles. The tone of the series is not a natural tie with a dark crossover like Inferno whilst this isn't the best way to introduce the series to readers passing through because of the crossover.

And yet it would be difficult to ignore it completely. With so much of Inferno revolving around the travails of the women and son of Scott Summers, could his daughter from an alternate future be ignored? But it would be complicated to work a third team into that part of the crossover and there's also the complication that the X-Men are generally presumed dead (along with Madelyne hence why Rachel automatically assumes the Goblin Queen is Jean) which was the reason Excalibur formed in the first place. And Rachel has not yet met her Jean or dealt with the implications retcon that Jean-Phoenix in this timeline was not the original Jean Grey but the Phoenix force impersonating her. That's an awful lot of baggage to handle in a crossover already working through so many other strands and thus it probably made sense to keep Excalibur out of the core rather than removing their raison d'être so soon or engaging in further complicated meetings that are best handled separately.

So instead we get this issue in which Rachel charges off to New York, gets swatted aside by the Goblin Queen before she can really do anything and then transformed into a mannequin, whilst the others make their way with a comedic stop off and then get into generic encounters with demons. For a book with the Inferno logo directly above the series logo, thus signifying a core part of the crossover (as opposed to the satellite issues with the logo in a triangle in the corner), this feels incredibly inessential and it's clear why it's been left out of most collections of the core of Inferno. (Its presence in the core rather than the crossover trade paperbacks seems to be more down to page lengths as they convert two hardcovers into three softcovers.)

There's one fun little subplot that shows a great adoration for Doctor Who. The Weird Happenings Organisation is clearly based on Unit with Brigadier Alysande Stuart's name clearly evoking Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and in a remarkable piece of prediction her brother Professor Alistaire Stuart looks and is dressed somewhat like David Tennant's Doctor but two decades before he came along.

Other than that side moment this is a really disappointing issue. As the next few years would demonstrate Excalibur did not need to be included in every crossover and this issue seems to know what it can't do and then just stumbles as it tries to unite the series's light-hearted tone with the dark sinister world of Inferno. It isn't a great introduction to the series for visiting readers either. Instead it's just an unnecessary issue.

Excalibur 14 - Acts of Vengeance

It's surprising just how many parodies "Acts of Vengeance" generated during its run. Over the course of these reviews I'll be looking at each one of them. Curiously this one appeared even before the crossover itself began.

Excalibur #14

Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: Alan Davis
Inker: Paul Neary
Letterer: Agustin Mas
Colourist: Glynis Oliver
Editor: Terry Kavanagh
Chief Correspondent: Tom DeFalco

Created by Chris Claremont and Alan Davis, Excalibur combined elements from both the Uncanny X-Men and Captain Britain. Based in the United Kingdom the team had a variety of unique adventures. Excalibur is otherwise one of the few mainstream universe Marvel series from this era to have escaped from "Acts of Vengeance". Maybe this is because the crossover fell right in the middle of the "Cross-Time Caper" storyline that meant the characters simply weren't available for an event on Earth (although as we'll see, this did not prevent other series from being caught up in the storyline). Perhaps it was a sign of creator autonomy, with Claremont being largely able to keep the title away from much of the Marvel universe and particularly from a rival's storyline.

This is the third chapter in the "Cross-Time Caper" which ran and ran (and ran and ran...) over a whole year, taking the team on a tour through many alternate realities. The first chunk of the issue is taken up with the conclusion of an adventure in a world where Arthurian magic has continued to the present day and where Prince William is about to marry Katherine. (I wonder if the real Prince William ever read this issue and got a hint...)

Later the team are taken to another strange Earth with a strong dose of parody of the regular Marvel universe. All the heroes and villains are fighting each other as part of "Acts of Vengeance" and each is a distorted version of their true selves. Meggan and Nightcrawler are shown a key source of the problems - two men each trying to outdo the other to generate "the latest cataclysmic cosmic cross-continuity caper". The men are drawn as Chris Claremont and John Byrne. The issue climaxes with the arrival of Galactus and an appearance by the Impossible Man.

Read in isolation this is quite a mixed issue. Interim chapters of structured sagas from this era are often somewhat impenetrable and it's a pity a full issue wasn't given over to the second reality. It's full of jokes from the Hulk with the mind of a baby to Goliath having grown so tall he reaches the edge of the atmosphere to Rick Jones being made into the ultimate fan sidekick. The digs at "Acts of Vengeance" and Byrne are fairly subtle, perhaps reflecting the limited amount that had been revealed about the crossover at that stage, though the point that each kept trying to outdo the other has something to it with the ever-growing size of these events - "Inferno" had about forty-five separate issues, "Acts of Vengeance" close to seventy with the banner alone. And the concept of heroes fighting each other’s villains isn't really delved into, although Phoenix encountering Galactus could be said to be in the spirit of the thing. All in all, this isn't really an essential issue for the event.

Excalibur #14 has been reprinted in:

• Excalibur Classic Volume 3 - Cross-Time Caper Book 1 (2007)
• Excalibur Epic Collection: The Cross-Time Caper (2018)

Essential X-Men volume 7

Essential X-Men volume 7 comprises Uncanny X-Men #214 to #228, Annuals #10 to #11 and the limited series Fantastic Four Vs the X-Men. Bonus material includes an article from Marvel Age about the "Fall of the Mutants" and a special promotional card for a competition linked to the crossover. Everything is written by Chris Claremont with the regular series drawn mostly by Marc Silvestri with individual issues by Barry Windsor-Smith, Alan Davis, Jackson Guice, Bret Blevins, Kerry Gammill and Rick Leonardi. The annuals are drawn by Arthur Adams and Alan Davis and the limited series by Jon Bogdanove.

This volume covers a somewhat odd period in the X-Men's history as they try to cope with the fallout from the "Mutant Massacre" and really stumble around more than anything else until the next big event, "Fall of the Mutants" (a pun that doesn't translate well). The lack of direction is extenuated by some vague questioning as to what the overall purpose of the team is, but it doesn't really get very far. Significantly, this is the first volume to be completely devoid of any of the original team, leaving the long-term continuity in the hands of Havok and, to a surprising but small degree, Magneto. But the Master of Magnetism makes rather fewer appearances in the regular issues than one would expect. Instead his main contribution comes in the limited series.

The "Vs" limited series was a curious phenomenon in the 1980s whereby characters from two titles would meet for a special story but one told in its own release rather than as a crossover between the two regular titles. It has the advantage of allowing a single writer and artist to handle the project (at least under normal circumstances) but it can also wind up dancing on the periphery of the regular series, trying to adapt to ongoing developments whilst also telling its own story. From the perspective of this volume Fantastic Four Vs the X-Men is fortunate in this regard as it is written by the regular Uncanny X-Men writer and comes at a time when not too much is happening in the main title. However it has to leap through some hoops in order to include She-Hulk amongst the Fantastic Four's line-up, a point commented on in-story. The series seeks to justify its place by resolving the worst of Shadowcat's injuries that have left her trapped in her intangible form and slowly dissipating, but does so amidst a struggle of mind games between Doctor Doom and Reed Richards. This limited series is actually quite a good Fantastic Four tale that delves into one of the biggest question marks surrounding the four's origin and looks at Reed Richards's approach to those around him and Doctor Doom's ultimate goal in their struggle. But amidst all this the X-Men are something of a bolt on to provide recurring conflict. Any group and problem could have served their purpose in the story and it wouldn't have made much difference. Even Shadowcat's recovery is not immediate and as she doesn't return to active duty with the team before the end of the volume it doesn't have much of an impact on the story. The one notable feature is the continuing rehabilitation of Magneto, with the Fantastic Four slowly coming to accept him, but in the battles which break out too easily his magnetic powers prove more dangerous than helpful when he accidentally nearly costs Kitty her last hope. Overall this is good Fantastic Four, and in the very long run a good audition piece for Claremont eventually taking up the main series in the late 1990s, but rather forgettable and inessential X-Men.

The two annuals both feel somewhat superfluous to the main narrative beyond the first one introducing Longshot, previously seen in his own limited series, to the regular series. But it does so in a very awkward way by giving him amnesia and then comes with some awkward continuity as the presence of Shadowcat, Nightcrawler and Colossus implies it takes place before the "Mutant Massacre" in the previous volume yet this doesn't explain why Longshot is then absent for several issues of the regular series and both his amnesia and ongoing culture shock goes against the idea that he has been exploring the world around him. Otherwise the annual sees the X-Men's first encounter with Mono and the wackiness of the "Mojoverse" but it's never been a very good fit with the more gritty style of the X-Men's adventures and just feels like silliness for the sake of it. Amidst this comes a piece of role reversal as the New Mutants temporarily step up to the role of being the senior team, complete with individualised costumes intended for when they graduate. Meanwhile the X-Men are reduced in age in one of the examples of babyfication that was all the rage following the Muppet Babies, becoming cute toddler versions of themselves. Were it not for Longshot and later appearances by Mojo, this annual could be so easily forgotten. The other annual is also trying to incorporate elements from other series into the mainstream Marvel universe with guest appearances by Captain Britain and his girlfriend Meggan, even though neither is essential for the story told. In it the X-Men and guests are captured by Horde, a never before seen alien, and taken to a strange citadel to secure a crystal of incredible power, in one of the most generic plots going. Whilst making their way through the citadel the group gets picked off one by one and offered their hearts' desires by the citadel itself. It's a minor character study that doesn't leave much of an impact beyond the scene where Wolverine is killed by Horde but his whole body regrows itself from a single drop of blood, aided by the power of the crystal. The whole group gets returned home to exactly when they left with memories fading, making the whole thing no more significant than an obscure dream.

Over in the regular issues the team continues to develop. Injuries meant that both Shadowcat and Nightcrawler are off the active roster and stay that way when big changes come though Colossus has returned to the team just in time. He's not quite the same Peter of old as his injuries have left his armoured form as the default norm with a great deal of effort required to turn to his human self. Also rejoining the team is Havok, who finds himself in the curious position of being the earliest member of the X-Men yet is treated by the others as an untested member. Returning to the team after Polaris is possessed by Malice and joins the Marauders, Havok finds himself in the horrific situation of having to either let her go to harm others or else stop her permanently - and winds up releasing a plasma blast though Malice/Polaris manages to block it and escape. Alex is somewhat taken aback by what the X-Men have become, particularly their alliance with Magneto, but doesn't really have the long-term history with the team that allows him to perform the role of keeper of the original aims. Nevertheless he stays around, particularly to help protect his sister-in-law Madelyne Pryor who has had her husband walk out on her, all records of her past erased and who is now being hunted by the Marauders. There are signs of an attraction between them but they're not developed just yet.

The other new addition to the team is also driven to them by the actions of Malice. Since the end of her own series Dazzler has been trying to rebuild her career, starting out as a backing artiste but both her own ambitions and the interference by Malice soon put paid to this. Alison soon accepts the protection of the X-Men and undergoes training to refine and enhance her light powers, putting especial emphasis on being able to use them as a laser, but there's an ongoing tension between her role as an X-Men and her ambitions to be a singing star, making for an especially tense confrontation with one fan, none other than the Juggernaut. Also causing tensions is the presence of her old enemy Rogue, with Alison making it clear she hasn't forgiven the past enmity until another battle with the Marauders where she risks her all to save Rogue from drowning. At this stage Dazzler is still the only member of the team to have had her own series and as well as her past battles with Rogue the series is also echoed by the return of O.Z. and Cerberus in a tale about a mutant drug dealer.

The old ways also come up in another fashion when Storm is kidnapped by the Crimson Commando, Stonewall and Super Sabre, a trio of old heroes fighting against the values of the modern world. They take Storm and another girl and release them to be hunted in the wilderness. Later on they're captured and agree to join Freedom Force, which continues to skate the line between a government sanctioned team of mutants and a group with its own agenda. The hunt also puts both Storm and Wolverine to the test as the former faces up to the fact she may well need to adopt her comrade's ethics of kill or be killed whilst the latter struggles to retain his humanity as he faces confusion all around him. The threat level is also raised by the introduction of the Marauders' master, Mr Sinister, but for now he remains a dark force on the edge of things.

A lengthy storyline sees Storm searching for Forge in the hope that he can restore her powers, helped by Forge's shaman mentor Naze. In the process she also finds it in herself to forgive him but also discovers the presence of a demon known as "the Adversary". Meanwhile Destiny of Freedom Force has a vision of the X-Men all dying in the near future. The storylines merge and climax in the "Fall of the Mutants" issues, #225 to #227. This was an unusual crossover between the three mutant titles as they shared a theme of big status quo changing events, rather than a single storyline running across them all. The X-Men find themselves first battling Freedom Force and then facing the end of the world due to the magic of the Adversary and the past mistakes of Forge. In full view of a camera broadcasting to the world, the X-Men set out to risk their all to build a better world. It's a dark moment for them but a great one for mutantkind, setting up a new position for the future. However we don't get to see that in this volume as the last issue has all the feel of a standby fill-in being pressed into service, hastily turned into a flashback.

Overall this volume isn't a particularly great period for the X-Men. It's a time of stumbling more than anything else, with no great sense of purpose or direction. The newer members of the team help to keep the cast fresh but rarely bring any particularly exciting story elements with them. Overall this volume shows the team going from one big event to the next with not too much of note happening in between.

Essential X-Men volume 6 - creator labels

Yes this volume has a lot of creators so this is the standard extra post.