The war in Otherworld reaches its boiling point in Excalibur #25 by Tini Howard, Marcus To, Eric Arciniega and Joe Caramagna.
I read Excalibur #25 twice. After the first time, I felt let down. The team had a ton of pieces in place that I enjoyed, but hadn’t put them together in a way that worked for me. But the second time? After rereading the series since the Hellfire Gala? It clicked for me. I am now firmly in camp “Excalibur is underrated” and would love to walk you down the winding way to why that is.
Under the metaphorical pen of Tini Howard, and the literal pen of Marcus To, Excalibur has become a book about ideas, not characters. The title, intentionally, revolves around Betsy Braddock, a daughter of Otherworld and a daughter of Britan. She is our protagonist, everyone else is window dressing to sell the book as an X-Men title in a way that a book about Brain, Jamie, Meggan and friggin’ Saturnyne never could. They tricked you on the promise of Gambit and Rogue, sorry but it was never about them and you gotta accept that.
What it is about is magic and worldbuilding. This is a title about codifying Otherworld, about building a playground for the world of X to do cool stuff like have a mystical sword tournament. It’s about making toys for everyone to play with. This version of Otherworld has only existed for a year and we have but scratched the surface. When you have Pepe Larraz do the level of character design and world building he did in X Of Swords, don’t just toss it aside at the end of the event.
This here is what Howard is interested in, mutant magic and the source of it. This is what she pitched from day one. You can argue that it’s not the story you want, and that’s fine, there’s other books to choose from, but the focus on the world isn’t a flaw, it’s a feature. Not for nothing, this is also what House Of X was and no one had a problem with Hickman doing that.
The other thing that Howard does differently than many writers in comics? She has faith in the intelligence of her readership. Nothing in this book is out of nowhere. Things that I saw as non sequiturs in my initial read of this issue (and other issues of this arc) were seeds Howard planted earlier. She is writing for the trade and not hammering plot points home every issue. She expects readers to pay attention when she says something the first time.
Now there are folks who don’t much care for writers who write for the collected edition. I can respect that, but I think it is short sighted. There is an argument that each individual issue should standalone. I understand the merit, but would say that’s a relic of the past. After the first week, few people will read any of these stories serially. Whether in a collected edition or through a digital app, the bulk of folks who will experience these stories will do so in a chunk, likely in one sitting. To say a writer should have to write for an individual issue is akin to saying that a movie must be seen on a big screen to be truly enjoyed. It conflates the initial experience with how the art will live long term.
Even as a critic, it’s hard when we are covering these books in a serialized manner. I’m sure I read over 100 comics between Excalibur #24 and #25, not to mention other stories I consumed in movies, books, television and games. When your attention is split so much, it becomes easy to be blinded to the details. The politicking that leads to the war? The hatred of mutants? It’s been there slowly building since the Gala ended and some of it long before.
Howard shows you what she is doing through the world she and To are crafting, she doesn’t explicitly tell you. She trusts you’re smart enough to see it. She pulls a slight of hand with her structure, making us look somewhere else while she sets up her next trick.
A criticism lobbed at this book, and one that I’ve seen as a bit of a bad faith reading, is that it’s about how the most special and important person in the multiverse is Captain Britain. How because Britain has done abhorrent and evil things as a state, there shouldn’t be a hero named that. Setting aside the fact that this has been the same criticism lobbied against Captain America since an age undreamed of, it’s a criticism that refuses to engage with the text of the book.
Think to the opening scene of this issue, Betsy is at dinner with Tom Lennox, her former lover in the British intelligence agency S.T.R.I.K.E. acclimating to the new normal of Krakoa. The UK has removed itself from the Krakoan agreement, leaving its citizens without access to the medicines of the island and banning British mutants from stepping foot on their shores. S.T.R.I.K.E. knows Britain has done wrong. They also know a state is not its people.
In the same way, Betsy’s battle in Otherworld isn’t some imperialist march to spread the good news of tea and crumpets. Her foes are Merlin and King Arthur, the bleeding hearts of English myth. Her only crime against them? Being mutant, different, other. This is not a Captain Britain created from one thousand Union Jack’s flying together to resurrect a true Briton to defend the country from religious fanatics dead set on destroying their heritage.This is a Captain Britain who has to battle the corrupt core of her home nation. This is not some set piece fantasy battle for the sake of action, this is a war for the very soul of the mutant world. If a British anarchist can find value in stories centered around a bloke draped in a flag, I can too.
What Excalibur #25, and the book as a whole, truly is, is a novel. Tightly scripted, complex, and deeply trusting of the audience. I’m not saying it is perfect, not every plot is seeded as well as Howard would like and there may be too many characters for the book’s own good. But this title is ambitious. It reaches for something more when too many comics go for the easiest path forward. I’ll never fault a title for that.
Zachary Jenkins runs ComicsXF and is a co-host on the podcast “Battle of the Atom.” Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside of all this.
