The road to X of Swords continues as Excalibur marches towards the Starlight Citadel. Tini Howard, Marcus To, and Erick Arciniega forge a new tale in Excalibur #11
Nola Pfau: Charlie, I’ve been thinking about that kind and benevolent character who has never done harm to a single person in his entire life. The periwinkle patriarch. The azure ancestor. The sapphire sire himself. What a nice guy, right?
Charlie Davis: Hey Nola? I’ve been saving my answer to this exact question in my back pocket for weeks. WEEKS. What a coincidence that it comes up just after reading Excalibur #11. This is a PG show and I respect that, but #%$& that blue guy. You and I have had suspicion ever since we read that first issue of Excalibur all that time ago and hell, I’ve had mine even before that, but this issue makes it explicitly clear (it was before) that he’s openly manipulating Rictor AND pushing his own machinations forward. Ones that care little for the team.
NP: Wait, you mean that kind, benevolent old soul •┤Ȧ├•? Surely not.
My Dear Boy
CD: I. Swear. To. God. I hate him Nola, I hate him so much. And this isn’t a “this is bad and I hate it” it’s a very “I’M BEING WORKED AND I HATE IT.” Tini is doing blockbuster work with •┤Ȧ├• and he’s more fascinating than he’s probably ever been? Except for maybe when we didn’t know him at all? Hard to say. Either way, at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if •┤Ȧ├• had constructed the scenario in which Ric found himself at the beginning of the book. Alone, isolated and extremely hopeless.
NP: I mean, knowing how •┤Ȧ├• usually operates, I would not be surprised if he hatched this plan sometime in 6000 BC, or whenever. Side note, I only just now realized that “Richter,” as in the Richter scale, is his real name, and “Rictor” is his code name, which…seems a bit backwards! We are a year into this book. I am very observant, is what I’m saying. [Ed. note: Nola…]
At any rate, Rictor hangs with some Priestesses of the Green, who are a sect of Saturnyne worshippers focused on following the intent of her words rather than the textual word as given, according to a data page. We can circle back around to that later, though, what’s our (natural) disaster boy up to here?
CD: Rictor is a bit of a quandary here. I’m unsure if Otherworld vibes with his powers in a different way than our world, but either way he’s completely unsettled. He wanders away from the team in the middle of the night (what are you even DOING?) and encounters some horned Priestesses who are seemingly standing guard over a small little monolith of earth. He’s drawn to this place like a moth to flame and if you have had any question about how integral Ric is to this book and this entire plan •┤Ȧ├• has, should be answered here. They speak of war and blood. How when they die they become part of the earth. Control over the earth is like control over life itself. For how pumped full of power he is, Ric sure is lost.
NP: He sure is! He touches a magic rock and this proceeds to act as some kind of amplifier, allowing •┤Ȧ├• to speak with him telepathically. Side note here: I will forever love telepathic speech bubbles. •┤Ȧ├•’s discussion here is a little bit grooming and a little bit lore dump; he reintroduces one of the two favorite poorly-implemented concepts of the 1990s, namely the Externals (with Shinobi kicking around over in Marauders, maybe we’ll see some Upstarts at some point too? Who knows). Here, he explains that they prefer to be known as the High Lords, and furthermore explains that they have a shared sort of mutant power that functions rather like the immortals in the Highlander movies; one dies and the power gets redistributed to the rest of them. This is…fascinating to me. It has so many implications!
CD: This builds on some threads from Ed Brisson’s Cable run for the Externals, but it’s packaged in a much better way here. It lends so much legitimacy to this wild concept that never really got over in the 90s. Of course these weirdos would have been in a magic coven, of course •┤Ȧ├• was part of that group. The High Lords and now just this mythical thing that exists. It’s really brilliant. We get this story, and for as informative as it is…it’s full of insidious things. •┤Ȧ├• actually calls them his coven and refers to Ric as part of it too. He’s given Ric some sort of family unit or group and before you say “oh that’s nice” it’s not. Desperate for something to anchor himself to, Ric buys it. It’s so sad to see him manipulated like this and it’s such a real play on where you find yourself when you’re depressed. I can’t wait for Ric to see what’s going on. I really hope Remy can help him out a bit with that one.
NP: “Got over,” for those playing along, is another one of Charlie’s wrestling terms. I know there’s a lot of overlap in the two fandoms, but it’s not quite 100%, so now you know. I’m also very intrigued by the politics of mutants sharing a power reserve, transferable upon death, and how those politics are fundamentally altered by Krakoan resurrection. For someone who grasps power the way •┤Ȧ├• does—and seriously, it’s been one fetch quest after another for access to power sources—it seems like he would not want any of these other High Lords alive, lest they lessen the amount of power available to him, personally?
CD: And that’s the problem with the story in the first place, right? It’s coming from •┤Ȧ├• who is AT BEST an unreliable narrator. The last time we saw the Externals…well…it’s complicated. They live forever, but they have also been shown to be able to be killed by other Externals and the Legacy Virus. Weird how that works. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tini is pulling in some of those ideas, but they certainly seem more straight forward here. We see a ritual where •┤Ȧ├• helps Candra consolidate her power into a large gem. I have a bad feeling that…Ric is going to be turned into a large gem.
NP: That seems like a pretty bad thing! However, gems are also part of the Earth, and presumably under the domain of his powers? I wonder how that feedback loop would work. Should we talk about other stuff? I’m sort of fascinated by these two different orders of Saturnyne’s disciples. Saturnynites? Saturnynians?
It’s A Nice Day For A White Witching
CD: I am a bit floored by how much world building happens in all the facets of this book. We have druids, we have Saturnyne’s followers, we have everything happening with Jamie, we have all the rich lore with Captain Britain. There is so much going on, but it doesn’t miss a beat. Allusions to the White Witch do make me think of Galadriel and when we were going through those first issues I hadn’t even thought about Saturnyne. It’s very obvious now. Clearly not everyone is down to follow her explicitly and it’s through the lens of the Priestesses of Green we kind of start to understand that maybe Otherworld is operating on a bit of a different level than the team even thinks. There is so much going on with each of the team members that I am starting to wonder if that’s not the point. Everyone is pulled in so many directions they can’t think straight. I think Saturnyne is going to straighten some things out, but she too has her own plans. Again, the team is stuck between too many factions that don’t have any of their best interests at heart.
NP: The data pages on this I found fascinating; they’re easily the most interesting part about Saturnyne this issue, since she’s largely off the board, simply a goal for Excalibur to get to. It presents competing ideologies that are more or less devoted to the same goals, but have arguments on how to get there. Saturnyne, as the head of this…cult? Coven? Religion? Whatever. She lets them both exist, because they “balance each other out” while ultimately serving her ends. I feel like this is…not a very subtle metaphor for a two-party system here, Charlie. Also not subtle is the fact that she keeps the more extreme party close at hand, in her direct confidence even, while the more moderate one is out in the wilds doing their best on their own. “Their best” does draw the line at things like “murdering dragons who may or may not be children,” which is good, but still ultimately exists in service to someone whose goals might not be entirely magnanimous? Like I said, this metaphor is…direct.
CD: Direct references to politics in MY comics? That’s impossible Nola, comics have never been political.
Insert laugh track
The more I think about it, the more that the cover to issue #12 makes more sense. Saturnyne playing chess with all the members of the team. It takes two people to play a game of chess you see…•┤Ȧ├• is metaphorically and and literally the other participant in that game. I’ve heard some people level criticism at this book asking why the characters are just going along with •┤Ȧ├•’s plan. I say, do they really have a choice? They are trapped between these two warring factions and each of them has too much going on personally to really see clearly through it all. With perhaps the expectation of Gambit. Betsy even questions why she’s being given this hostile reception which…that is a great question.
NP: Y’know, that’s the second major chess-themed cover we’ve had in DoX so far. I don’t think that’s really significant but it’s interesting to me. God, I love the reaction Betsy gets from Saturnyne. Not just hostile, but straight up “I prefer dealing with your brother.” OF COURSE YOU DO. Content written specifically for me, I swear. Given that the cover to #12 is a chessboard, the one to #13 is Betsy and Brian swordfighting, and then over in Marauders #15 we Saturnyne poisoning the drinks of the entire team…Excalibur, that is. I’m not one to take covers literally, necessarily, but it’s gonna be a time.
CD: And then there is a fly in the ointment. There does happen to be another Saturnyne from another universe and we’ve seen in previous issues that other universes do exist. I’m not saying that this Saturnyne is actually Sat-Yr-9, but I’m not not saying that. Now that I’ve got that awful thought out of my brain…lets talk about the rest of the team’s issues.
Starlight (Citadel), Star Bright (Citadel)
NP: I had also considered the Sat-Yr-9 possibility…anyway, yes. The rest of the team. You know, I felt a little like they were sidelined in favor of all the loredumping •┤Ȧ├• gave to Rictor in this issue, and that really bears out when you realize that their most significant scenes are at each end of the book. Jubilee is essentially restricted from field duty by the fact that her son is injured; they’re afraid that taking him back through the portal to Earth will kill him, what with the un-dragoning, and the size of his wound. I guess it’s probably a good idea to play it safe, with a literal baby. I’m glad that Excalibur has included Shogo rather than conveniently forgotten him, but it sure does feel like Jubilee doesn’t get to do much else, right?
CD: I do agree with you there, but I think it’s a bit of setup for later. Jubilee is the only one who’s not in the Citadel and not well…trapped in a void between Otherworld and Krakoa. Shogo and Jubes are being primed to swoop in and save someone or someones that need saving. I am okay with the sidelining if it feels like its setup for other story beats. I do think that because we have such a depth of other titles in DOX that it’s easy to see what’s building lore and what’s doing more heavy character lifting. Tini is balancing well, but sometimes when we have an issue that is very lore heavy the characters can feel a bit scattered.
NP: I definitely agree with that, and I think you’re right about Jubilee being a late-stage ace in the hole. Speaking of aces, Rogue and Gambit get a couple of great scenes in this issue; the more memorable one is in the very last two pages. What’s more romantic than your wife inviting you to burgle the floating citadel of the Omniversal Majestrix? Honestly, these couple of pages were a surprise to me! I felt like the issue could have ended with Betsy squaring off against Saturnyne and been just fine, but throwing these in at the end was just so…fun.
CD: Fun and it has given us something to think about until we get the next issue. That sure is a shiny gem, isn’t it? I wonder where we have seen that before? Foreshadowing!
X-Traneous Thoughts
- “Gonna make everyone else worry boutcha while you save the day in secret.” This, coming from Rogue, to Betsy, as they’re both standing in front of a portal? Look, I love Outback X-Men a lot. A lot a lot.
- Betsy and Saturnyne need to either fight or kiss. Or both.
- Both. Both is good.
- I’ve honestly never wanted to reach into a book more and just shake someone. Ric WAKE UP.
- Marcus To is wonderful as usual
- Krakoan reads EXTERNALS
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.
