Tini Howard and Marcus To continue to cast a spell in Excalibur #3. As Captain Britain and her knights battle the forces of Otherworld, •┤Ȧ├• finds the key to his experiments in Julio Rictor.
Nola Pfau: Welcome to the latest installment of Excalibuddies! As always, Charlie and I are here to provide you some in-depth commentary on Excalibur, issue-by-issue as it comes out. I’m really looking forward to this issue in fact, between some significant development of the Otherworld plot and a couple of scenes featuring Rictor at last, it really feels like there’s a whole lot of complex, intelligent discourse to be h—-Charlie? Charlie are you okay?
Charlie cannot come to the phone right now. Please leave a message after the beep.
BEEP
NP: …well. It appears something has happened to Charlie. At any rate, Excalibur #3 opens with the kind of content Charlie’s been craving, and that is, a scene of Rictor, alone, feeling very sad. It’s the kind of melodramatic introspection that X-Men is classically famous for, and…you know what? I can’t do this justice, really. Let me give Charlie another ring.
Ring Ring Rictorious
CD: …Hello? Ugh—hang on—Hello? Nola is that you? I’m sorry for missing your call earlier. It’s hard to get to the phone when your spirit has left your body and you just don’t have a corporeal form anymore.
My existence at this time can just be summed up as that Simpson’s scene where Ralphie is sitting on the bus and he says “I’m in danger.” I am very much in danger. I asked for it and Tini Howard came out of the shadows with a beautiful ebony blade and stabbed me right through the chest. As I gasp for air and clutch at my wound, I would like to inform you that Ric is here and he’s made several bad decisions concerning alcohol, a DIY dirt coffin and what appears to be Reddit, but for mutants.
I’d call him a dumbass, but honestly Rictor has never been more relatable. Somethings happened to his powers and in the reverse opposite of his X-Factor Investigations issues, they seem to be dialed up to 11. He can’t step outside without the earth screaming at him and chaos ensuing, so in typical Rictor fashion, he’s pushed everyone away and just—decided to wallow.
NP: The dirt coffin is very interesting to me! That’s a thing with a very specific connotation [Ed. note: Read: Draculas] and we do know how much Tini loves applying things like that to a new context. Is Ric a tectonic vampire now? That doesn’t even make sense! BUT WHO KNOWS.
I did really appreciate his entire wallowing-in-self-grief deal in the opener of this issue—it’s both a mood I empathize entirely with and a great character beat. Readers, you don’t know this, but in preparation for Excalibuddies, yours truly has been combing her way through 90s X-Force as a project to grow more familiar with my dearly departed co-writer’s favorite mutant. Speaking of, Charlie? How’s that corporeal form coming?
CD: I’ve managed to grasp the concept of typing relatively well without one. Just remember that phones and computers can both be inhabited by ghosts! There are a couple things at work here. I do admit I was surprised that we were going back to the well of “Rictor’s powers are broken and he’s extremely depressed about it” after his last big story did the exact same thing, but the difference here is that it feels much more like something thats a trigger for Ric’s big depressive swings. We know he has a pretty deep connection to the earth and when that gets tripped up, it messes with him a lot more than I think he wants to let on.
Rictor is a character with a history of mental illness. His depression, much like mine or anyone else who suffers doesn’t just go away because you want it do. I have a suspicion that in his depressive episode that he’s pushed his boyfriend Shatterstar and everyone else away because he didn’t want to or couldn’t go to Krakoa. There is a particular line noted on the data page that is a screen shot from mutant Reddit in which someone asks if he has someone that can hold his hand when he goes to Krakoa for the first time. His response “No. Thanks anyway.” completely gutted me. Rictor is a volatile mix of stubbornness, pride and self loathing at times. Tini does a great job of telling me just where he is here and it’s not a good place. I am interested in the dirt coffin, I suspect it’s so he can feel closer to the earth, but I’m just not certain. [Ed. Note: This is Rictor’s way of expressing that he feels like trash.]
NP: Going by this logic, my superpower is sleeping, since when my sleep schedule is out of whack I also get way worse depressive episodes! This is definitely scientifically true now [Ed. Note: Our resident science expert is shaking his head saying he needs a peer-reviewed double blind before making any statement] and I will not be taking any arguments to the contrary.
I do like the idea of tying power functions to emotional states, though! It’s one of those ideas that just makes sense when you think about it. Depression is a dysfunction of biochemistry, and given that mutants are born with these powers, it makes sense that the function of them would directly influence their wellbeing. It ties back to something Hickman put into one of the first HoX issues, in that mutants using their powers feel better, which also ties back to some of the concepts introduced waaaaay back during the Stan and Jack days of the original X-Men book.
Speaking of mutant Reddit, “mutantsunmuted” is a great name, and I really liked the way the team used it as a data page here; both in that it’s immediately apparent that he’s using it, and as a demonstration of modern mutants using online resources and social networks in a natural capacity, instead of, you know, a giant 20 foot monitor in front of eighty-seven keyboards, as is the usual X-Men way.
CD: It really grounded a lot of this for me. It was slipped in and was in just the right spot. I have a feeling that we are going to get to talk about Ric and his depression a lot more over the coming issues, so while i’m still haunting this computer, shall we get to another thing that floored me this issue? Because…Shogo in Otherworld certainly needs to be talked about.
Another Dimension
Another Dimension
Anothe—
NP: Otherworld in general! Directly after mutant Reddit we’re given a scene of Morgan Le Fay sashaying about imperiously, demanding to know why the Krakoa vines aren’t already gone. It’s here too that we get another reference to something I mentioned in our first piece, which is the idea that as a citizen of Krakoa Betsy has dual nationality with the UK, and that’s something that can be a bit…difficult to navigate, when you’re wearing the flag of one of those nations on your chest.
Shogo is SUPER interesting to me. Babies have always been a kind of magical mcguffin, and it’s nice to see that being textually acknowledged here, with Betsy going so far as to say it outright. It’s an enjoyable thing, too, because it means that Shogo has all of the power of imagination and none of the life experience to use it truly effectively. He is a dragon because he wants to be a dragon and dragons are cool, but what does that mean? He doesn’t know! He doesn’t care! HE’S A [Ed. Note: F-Word] DRAGON.
CD: Exactly! It’s honestly a trope I love. I also just love that everyone just shows up a little different in Otherworld. It’s a really cool shift and I love how Betsy interacts with Shogo here. It’s nice to see this side of her even if she’s maybe not thinking straight. It’s easy to forget that with all her years of experience that she’s kind of been thrust into all this. First with being in her own body for a change and second with being pushed into the role of Captain Britain. That second part clearly hasn’t sunk in yet because she keeps referring to Brian as the Captain. It was really good to see Betsy expanded on not just through her words but through her terribly desperate actions. She wants to save Brian, but she’s also pushing forward with a reckless abandon that might just be her undoing if she keeps going this way.
NP: Her thoughts, like her very self, are not straight. This is as it should be.
Bringing up the bit about her referring to Brian as the Captain is a good call because that’s definitely a MAJOR recurring theme in the run so far; Betsy’s refusal to truly internalize and accept her role is evident in her thoughts, and she’s never going to win in Otherworld until she overcomes that. I don’t just mean that in a thematic sense, but I mean by the literal rules of fae folklore; her refusal to accept herself and what she is weakens her in a formal sense, and the rules of formalism matter in Otherworld. It’s how Morgan was able to take Brian in the first issue, and it’s as relevant here, because it means her thoughts about it, even her subconscious ones, give power to the other side. When Brian calls her ‘pretender’ later on, that has a weight beyond a mere taunt, because it’s a nagging thought within her own brain. [Ed. Note: T H E P R E T E N D E R B E T S Y B R A D D O C K] Shogo’s form here is another example of this; Belief, as a concept and a power, can alter Truth in Otherworld! The more people there are Believing that Betsy does not deserve her power, the more True it is!
CD: I love it. I talked about the power of names in magic and it looks like Tini is pulling from those rules even if they are a little nebulous. I really, really look forward to having our own mutant magic rules. That said, it looks like we finally have a little bit of an idea about mutant magic. Of course the mutants using their powers is magic! Of course! Why wouldn’t it be. It’s all become rather crystal clear after this issue. Magic has rules but at the same time it doesn’t. Science used to be magic to some and even if the X-Gene causes mutation in a very specific biological way there is no reason it can’t also be magic. It’s kind of amazing the more I think about it.
NP: Well, there’s that famous quote about sufficiently-advanced technology, isn’t there? Speaking of people for whom magic entirely makes sense and is not at all a new thing, let’s talk a little about •┤Ȧ├•. I’m fighting the urge to call him Big Daddy •┤Ȧ├• here because, whew he’s giving off those vibes, right? Like, right from the cover. [Ed. note: I hear Rictor is single now…]
•┤Ȧ├• Real Game Changer
CD: I mean one could. This one cover set off a few days of speculation about Ric and •┤Ȧ├• relationship here. I love everyone, and everyone’s ship is valid, but you’ll pry Ricstar from from my cold DEAD hands. Which you may be able to do considering my current state. Uh—someone should probably put me on ice or something.
•┤Ȧ├• clearly had machinations of moving mutants and Krakoa itself into Otherworld and even though that all becomes much clearer here, we have still only scratched the surface of what’s really going on. Then again, does •┤Ȧ├• really even need a reason to do the things he does? He states he needs someone with a mastery over stone and the earth itself and SOMEHOW knows exactly where to find Ric even though he’s sequestered himself away. Curious. He rips Ric from his pine box and posits that there isn’t anything Ric could destroy that he wouldn’t be able to fix. Now even though seeing •┤Ȧ├• at your door would be a shock to the system, the only thing that’s not working for me here is that Ric, seemingly after what may have been weeks of seclusion if not months decides to just go with him. I’m certain his friends and loved ones have been trying to help him, so what’s so special about •┤Ȧ├•?
NP: I think the real problem here is you need a large blue mutant to restore you to life in much the way that •┤Ȧ├• has pulled Ric from his self-imposed grave.
As for what’s special? Well aside from being large, I suspect •┤Ȧ├• has the sort of firm, no-nonsense approach that Ric needs for this particular wakeup call. His dialogue here is really something special, too, from the “Hush, young man” and “I’ve come to take you home” to the “There is nothing you can break that I cannot fix” that you mentioned. I understand your affinity for Ricstar, but there’s uh…some meat here, for at least a side fling. Ficcers, get your keyboards ready. What’s the ship name? Vibrocalypse?
I really like the way in which •┤Ȧ├• is being used in general here, though; expanding his cult in a new direction creates a wealth of new possibilities outside of the strict evolutionary vein he’s known for. It makes sense, too! He’s from a time before the advancement of science, before industrialized society, before any of it, and it absolutely makes sense that he would know the old ways of the world, just like it makes sense that he would h=]
ave abandoned those ways as they gave way to science, because that adaptation is precisely who he is. I feel like we’re just at the point in this arc that all the pieces are in place, and now it’s time to light the fuse on that powderkeg. Or I guess, going back to what I said about the first issue, the circle is drawn, it’s time for that spell to be cast.
CD: I will accept the well realized story potential, but I have my principles and I will not budge. I will not ship them here or there. I will not ship them anywhere. What everyone else does in the dark is entirely up to them. I don’t want to get too wrapped up in the story Tini is weaving here without talking about Marcus and the incredible work he’s putting in here. He’s drawing •┤Ȧ├• large and imposing in the panels like he’s the only thing there taking up space. He’s drawing A DRAGON for at least half the book and making it look easy. Everything is clean and solid. It’s just really something great and I think this issue was much tighter than the last as far as the art is concerned. I’m seeing the grandiose now. It’s very, very good. Tini and Marcus are working literal magic and to bring it back around, •┤Ȧ├• is absolutely one of the most fascinating parts. Re-contextualizing him was vital and they pull it off beautifully. We leave Ric and •┤Ȧ├• at the end of this issue with a bit of a twist I didn’t see coming. Pete Wisdom. We all should have known.
NP: Pete Wisdom feels like one of those characters where everyone should just curse when he shows up. [Ed. Note: I legit did.]
X-Traneous Thoughts
- HBiC now stands for Himbo Brian in Chains. I don’t make the rules, that’s just how it is.
- Someone was calling Ric on the phone asking him to come home. The use of his real name really makes me think it was ‘Star. (that was telepathy!)
- Gambit really isn’t having any of this s-word.
- Thinking Betsy face is something that I will forever be grateful to Marcus To for.
- I’m VERY curious about what’s messing with Ric’s powers.
- I’m not sure how I’m supposed to make it through the subsequent weeks of this book. Tini is just…it’s all very good.
- Krakoan: Word to the wise
- Check out our coverage of X-Men & Marauders too!
Charlie Davis is the world’s premier Shatterstarologist, writer and co-host of The Young Ones.
Nola Pfau is Editor-in-Chief of WWAC and generally a bad influence.
Charlie Davis is the world’s premier Shatterstarologist, writer and co-host of The Match Club.
Nola Pfau is Editor-in-Chief of WWAC and generally a bad influence.
