Merlyn and King Arthur have taken the Starlight Citadel. Saturnyne still lives, but not for long. Betsy Braddock must decide once and for all where her loyalties lie. There is no haven for the witchbreed. Can they hold on to their champion, here at the twilight of an age? Find out in Excalibur #26, written by Tini Howard, drawn by Marcus To, colored by Erick Arciniega and lettered by Ariana Maher.
Dan Grote: Many of the X-series are winding down this month to make room for the end of Inferno, The X Lives/X Deaths of Wolverine and the “Destiny of X” relaunches to come beyond. And Marvel has chosen to end this volume of Excalibur by … resolving absolutely nothing. Andrea, I’m feeling very annoyed and very tired. How about you?
Andrea Ayres: I feel like, you know when you are talking to someone and you can kind of tell they have lost interest in your story and instead of finishing your story, you just mumble some final words and walk away? Am I the only one who does this? Anyway, that’s how reading Excalibur #26 felt.
Strike One
Dan: Otherworld has officially become the setting for an endless war. The issue ends with Merlyn and his magical mates destroying the Lighthouse gate, seemingly kicking the “Witchbreed” out of Otherworld for good. Except Betsy realizes she has the Power of Grayskull and uses her sword to teleport back there so she can fight more knights and faerie and vampires in the eventual next book, Knights of X, which is teased at the back with a “Days of Future Past” homage. Andrea, how does this work for you as an ending to a series?
Andrea: There was a lot of waiting, waiting for the action to happen, waiting for the story to come together, waiting for myself to care about any of it. This series should be something I like — it’s got everything I enjoy, such as snark, magic and bad bitches with swords — yet I couldn’t muster a lot of energy to care.
What puts a bee in my bonnet about Betsy in Excalibur are her character fluctuations. She is either so weak-willed as to need constant reassurance or so cocksure she dives into plans without consideration. Sometimes this happens on the same page. I am not quite as familiar with Excalibur as some people on the team, so I may be sticking my entire foot in my mouth. What I’m saying is that everything is too loosey-goosey. It feels like the team here was just trying to string this issue out enough to make it a marginally coherent conclusion.
Also, Merlyn is fucking boring. As a character, he never coalesces into this menacing magician everyone makes him out to be. Does that feel right?
Dan: It doesn’t feel right, but it’s certainly what they’ve given us. Meanwhile, they’ve spent all this time talking about Arthur’s son Mordred being a mutant, partially prompting this latest Otherworld war, and the guy never shows up. Then you read Sir Lirio Ironsights’ war journal (which I always preferred to Sir Lirio Ironsights’ War Zone), and he basically says there are so many different versions of the Mordred story that they’re probably all bullshit, just some Neil Gaiman THE POWER OF STORIES! nonsense.
Again I say, why delve this deeply into Arthurian lore when there’s a perfectly good Once & Future sitting right over there?
Heh, do you think when they started bringing Kieron Gillen into the X-writers’ Zooms he looked at Excalibur and was like, “Oi, wot’s all this then?”
Strike Two
Dan: One of the subplots I’ve been dying for more on since it was seeded in issue #22 was Pete Wisdom’s resurrection of STRIKE and his plan to weed out Coven Akkaba through his nonmutant power of spycraft. This story had so much potential, but instead, we get Pete and STRIKE standing around on Braddock Isle while Xavier and Emma — who haven’t been invested in this book’s business in MONTHS — call the shots and chastise Betsy for playing medieval dress-up. Pete even defers to Charles when he offers to make a move and Charles basically gives him the “Stand down, Wolverine” speech.
Andrea, I know when it comes to this book, I’m a one-issue voter. When Pete Wisdom made his presence known on that splash page at the end of issue #3, I screamed. Finally, some good fucking food. Tini did things with Wisdom that kept him a scoundrel but a scoundrel who loves his country very much. He had an arc. Almost a romantic one! And for this series to end with this … wet fart of a “Oh yeah, I was supposed to do something with this character” lip service, I just … it’s an insult. Sorry, I’m letting my bias overtake my critical duties, but a fellas gotta feel his feelings sometimes, y’know?
Andrea: Sorry, you said the word “standing,” and now I have to preface my actual response to you with a diatribe. Honestly, the entire run had too much standing around. Even in Excalibur #26, the first eight pages are just like standing around while Saturnyne reveals another secret. Why are people surprised when she does this? This is her thing! Why is this shocking to anyone?
Listen, you’ve got to get your feelings out, Dan. Here, I will respond the way a therapist told me to when someone tells me their feelings. I can see that you are upset about Pete Wisdom being schlepped off to the trash heap of plot lines that go nowhere. That would upset me as well.
Did it work? Did I get it right? Do you feel validated?
Dan: I feel listened to and appreciated, and that’s all I can ask for.
Andrea: In all seriousness, that Pete and STRIKE were teased for so long and for absolutely nothing of consequence to happen, it’s not on. Plus, it’s a little rich to hear Charles talk to anyone about invading countries over and over or what does or doesn’t look like terrorism. But I guess he wouldn’t be Charles without a sanctimonious soliloquy. The dialogue feels half-hearted at best, like the exchange between Emma and Betsy where Frost says, “We need your assistance here in the real world”? I don’t know. It’s like arguments are started and then dropped. Is it just a mish-mash of trying to insert enough intrigue to get people to the next panel? I’m not sure what’s happening here, but I’d like to know your feelings.
Dan: So the weird thing is that to a certain extent, I do agree with Charles and Emma. This Otherworld business has gone on long enough, and it’s been a drain on Krakoan resources. Inferno has shown us there are bigger fish to fry — Moira, the return of Destiny, Nimrod, those giant freaking techno-space-gods from Powers of X that nobody did anything with for two years. From that perspective, there is something wrong with having some of your core X-Men (Betsy, Gambit, Jubilee, Bei the Blood Moon) faffing about in a dimension that’s no longer relevant to the central plot.
But, to speak to your concern, all of this comes out of nowhere. This all could have been built to since the Hellfire Gala. A panel or two of Quiet Council members airing their concerns about not knowing where “the captain” is. STRIKE war meetings. Something, anything to show this book is connected to the larger X-world. But nope. More important to see what the Sevalithi are up to.
Strike Three
Dan: But here’s the unkindest cut.
Please, by all means, go listen to smarter people with a bigger stake in queer rep in superhero comics. I’m not an expert. I just want my friends to eat well. When Betsy and Rachel danced at the Hellfire Gala, I saw what (I thought) Tini was doing, and I was here for it, setting aside my earlier shipping of Betsy and Wisdom for a truly better pairing. When Rachel strokes Betsy’s face, kisses her cheek, tells her, “I don’t care if you think you’re needed. You’re wanted,” I thought, “Cool, we’re gonna end this series with some kind of sweet World War II victory kiss in the street between these two.”
Nah, lol, just more edging from a publisher that’s made an art form out of it.
Am I out of line here?
Andrea: I am probably not the person to ask that question to, Dan, because I always tend to feel more strongly about weak-willed bullshit. I swear on my queer-ass life, I’m so mother forkin’ tired of this shit. If it’s only ever going to be teased, if it’s only ever going to be subtext, what good is it? I mean, honestly, Marvel, shit or get off the pot. If Rachel not only needs Betsy but wants her as well, why would she leave her with just a peck on the cheek? It doesn’t add up. I know Tini’s a more thoughtful writer than this. It’s not that I can’t see the care between them. I can. I may be letting my feelings of so many queer characters being treated so poorly by Marvel and so many promises unkept cloud my judgment. I do not, and I want to be clear, blame Tini or the creators. I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. It’s just a general frustration.
Still, the issue feels like it lacks of flow. Each page feels staccato. When the action finally does happen, around midway through the issue, I’m like, oh, OK. I guess we’re doing this now? But it doesn’t even FEEL like anything? What was your take on the battle?
Dan: Meh. Again, we’ve seen what a good Otherworld battle looks like. It was called X of Swords, it was drawn by Pepe Larraz, and it slapped so hard both my cheeks fell off (and Tini co-wrote it, for Glob’s sake!). Honestly, the only way I could have enjoyed this battle scene is if it had been interrupted by a cavalry of paddy wagons that randomly show up to arrest Arthur, Sir Bedivere and the rest of the Knights of the Round Table.
If this is how the X-books are going to wrap up this month — no payoff, no resolution, just a back page tease for the next #1 with no information and Jordan White stammering “Just trust us, we know what we’re doing and you’re gonna love it” in some interview somewhere — it’s not a great look.
At least Gambit’s cats are OK.
X-traneous Thoughts
- Marcus To’s art has been a highlight of this book and the X-line and we wish him well as he moves over to Shang-Chi.
- One last time, the swan and raptor Captains Britain deserve their own series.
- Hey, is Josh OK? The mutant who went to Otherworld in New Mutants and decided to stay there?
- I have read the Marvel Wikia page for New Avengers Vol. 3 #30. … Spoiler: It wasn’t helpful.
- Hey, where the hell did Saturnyne go, anyway?
Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts WMQ&A: The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.
