Destiny of X is upon us, and while worldwide paper shortages are causing substantial delays for the launch of this new era of X-Men, the hype is still palpable. New #1s left and right! New jumping-on points for people who didn’t keep up with the Dawn of X but are interested in this new wave! It’s an exciting time, and if you’re anything like me, you want to try out everything for at least an issue.
But if you’re just like me, you’ll also want to be “caught up” for these new #1s. Sure, Kieron Gillen’s Immortal X-Men #1 basically serves as a recap of the major beats, and sure Wolverine, X-Force, and others aren’t renumbering, basically telling you exactly where the immediate continuity they’re drawing from lies, but what about a book like Knights of X?
Some of these characters are clearly just continuing what they were doing in Excalibur, but when did Shatterstar get here? Who’s the character with the cool mask? Is that an elf? That’s why I’m here! To answer all these burning questions so you can start Knights of X fully informed of the important details. I did the pre-reading for Knights of X so that you, dear readers, won’t have to.
Excalibur
Given that the writer is the same and the cast is similar, it should come as no surprise that the main book that Knights of X looks to be drawing from is Tini Howard and Marcus To’s Excalibur. It’s a book that jumped between a lot of different focuses, which resulted in a disorienting experience for me while I was trying to follow it month to month. But now that it’s all done (and all available on Marvel Unlimited!) it’s at its most accessible. Let’s look at the key cast of Excalibur and where they’ve ended up.
Apocalypse
Apocalypse, a longtime X-Men villain, was a shock reveal for the roster of the team when it was first announced 3 years ago. It’s not surprising that he and his schemes were the main focus of the entire first half of this series – he’s an important character! A lot of Howard’s data pages in this early stretch of Excalibur were presented as pages from his Grimoire, revealing plenty of research into the concept of “mutant magic.” However, with all of the information being thrown at the reader, it became difficult to follow what Apocalypse’s actual goals were. He was clearly scheming, but to what end?
The entire impetus for Excalibur as a team forming is a result of Apocalypse’s manipulations. The book opens with his attempt to create Krakoan roots in the Otherworldly realm of Avalon, seen as an invasion by the ruler of Avalon, Morgan Le Fay. This results in her abduction of Brian Braddock, Captain Britain, which leads to Betsy acquiring the Amulet of Right to become Captain Britain herself (not for the first time). His next scheme is to recruit Rogue, Gambit, and Jubilee in an attempt to retrieve Betsy from Avalon, forming Excalibur and causing Rogue to be infected with some flowers and fall into a coma. They take Rogue to the Braddocks’ ancestral land, where her presence and the druids on the land create a lighthouse (which then serves as Excalibur’s base).
All of his manipulations with Avalon serve one purpose – to bring the realm under mutant control. After defeating and deposing Morgan Le Fay, Apocalypse installs Jamie Braddock, Betsy and Brian’s less-than-trustworthy brother, on the throne. Jamie’s position as the ruler of Avalon allows mutants direct entry into Avalon, which can then be used to traverse the rest of Otherworld.
Apocalypse then recruits a depressed Rictor who has lost control of his powers, giving him confidence and guidance. Once again, this is just another part of his schemes, as Apocalypse uses Rictor’s powers (as well as the sacrifices of the Externals and some Warwolves he made Excalibur kill) to create the External Gate, a permanent gate linking Krakoa directly to the heart of Otherworld.
All of these complicated schemes have their purpose revealed at the midway point of the book – the X of Swords crossover. As explained in Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men, Krakoa has another half called Arakko, which has been cast into the hellish world of Amenth. And Apocalypse knows that the way into Amenth is through Otherworld. X of Swords is a massive crossover with every book at the time playing a role, but the main developments for Apocalypse are learning that the forces of Arakko surrendered to Amenth, and are charging to Krakoa not to reunite, but to conquer. Saturnyne, the Omniversal Majestrix of Otherworld, agrees to host a tournament between Krakoa and Arakko – should Krakoa lose, Arakko and the forces of Amenth would have a free path into Krakoa to conquer and pillage as they please. Apocalypse learns that Genesis, his wife from eons ago, is leading the Arakkii side, and seeks to free her from her servitude to Amenth. With the help of the rest of Krakoa, the X-Men, Excalibur, and a Captain Britain Corps (we’ll get to that), Apocalypse is successful. And with Krakoa’s victory in the tournament, Apocalypse successfully negotiates for the population (and island) of Arakko to be returned from Amenth before joining Genesis and their children in Amenth himself. This is the last we see of Apocalypse – all his schemes served to reunite himself with his family.
Apocalypse will likely not have a presence in Knights of X.
Captain Britain
Betsy Braddock is the other focal character of Excalibur and graduates to the primary focus following X of Swords. But let’s back up since there’s a lot of development in that first half as well.
Apocalypse’s first foray into Avalon causes Morgan Le Fay to call upon Captain Britain to wage war on mutants. When Brian refuses, she corrupts him and forces him into her service. A desperate Brian leaves the Amulet of Right to Betsy, making her the new Captain Britain. This suddenly becomes a political issue, as the nation of Britain takes issue with their Captain being a mutant and having a dual nationality with Krakoa. This is exacerbated by Coven Akkaba having the Queen’s ear, making her distrust mutantkind. There are some clear racial parallels being drawn here, but they land flat when the victim of this fictional racism is just a white woman. But I digress.
Betsy wins a duel against Brian to win the war against Avalon, allowing Apocalypse to install her other brother Jamie as the new King of Avalon. This has unforeseen consequences, as the maniacal Jamie decides to use his reality-manipulating abilities to create 4 alternate universes, and gives them their own Captains Britain: Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee, and Rictor. These rogue Captains Britain serve as the impetus for Omniversal Majestrix Opal Luna Saturnyne to re-create the Captain Britain Corps, which she schemes to do at the cost of Betsy’s life. Meanwhile, Brian wields the Sword of Might as Captain Avalon.
In X of Swords, Betsy serves as a champion of Krakoa in their tournament against Arakko, where she competes in the first bout against Arakko’s Isca The Unbeaten. However, the Starlight Sword shatters in the middle of the fight and Betsy shatters along with it, shocking everyone except Saturnyne, who sweeps away the remains before Betsy’s friends have a chance to understand what happened. Saturnyne’s plan is to use these shattered pieces of Captain Britain to create the new Captain Britain Corps, in the image of the Captain she truly wants – Brian. But the omniverse has other plans – the Corps is reformed, but all its members are Betsy Braddock.
With the Corps reformed, the Betsy of Earth-616 remains missing. Her spirit possesses the bodies of Betsy Braddocks in other universes, as her previous body was shattered to pieces. After some complications involving Kwannon and the psychic entity Malice, Betsy returns, but not before Coven Akkaba successfully manipulates Britain into breaking their alliance with Krakoa and banning mutants from the country.
Coven Akkaba’s ultimate aim is to reclaim Avalon for Britain and expel mutants from Otherworld, hoarding its magic for humans. In this effort, they begin to recruit allies in Otherworld, forcing each realm to choose sides in this new war. After the Starlight Citadel is captured, the series ends with Betsy leading the Captain Britain Corps into war, praying that Krakoa will send reinforcements.
If this feels like an abrupt ending, that’s because it is. The final arc of Excalibur is entirely setup for what seems to be the main thrust of Knights of X – the war for Avalon, and all of Otherworld.
Betsy will be a major part of Knights of X, obviously. Brian does not seem to have a role at first.
With Betsy and Apocalypse’s segments out of the way, the rest of these summaries should be much shorter.
Rictor
Rictor begins the series depressed and unable to stand on the ground without causing an earthquake. Apocalypse takes him under his wing, teaching him the ways of Mutant Magic and giving him his confidence back. So when Apocalypse leaves to join his family, Rictor is distraught – convinced that the one person who cared for him was gone, and that no one else cared. He sulks for a while, up to when his longtime love, Shatterstar, returns suddenly. After an initially icy reunion, Rictor calms down and properly reunites with his ex-boyfriend. Towards the end of the series, we learn that Apocalypse left Rictor all of his grimoires and research, and that Rictor is continuing what Apocalypse began.
There’s also a somewhat connected arc of Rictor becoming a Druid, which honestly feels weird – he’s a Mexican man being thrown into a group of British magicians with no real thought for the actual culture involved. More on that later.
Rictor is a core member of the Knights of X team.
Rogue
After being used by Apocalypse to create the Lighthouse, Rogue does very little in this series. She has a scene with Gambit where she talks about not wanting to have children, and tags along for the adventures Excalibur gets into, but ultimately is just stalling until the Hellfire Gala, where she joins the newly formed team of X-Men and leaves the book.
Rogue will likely not be a part of Knights of X.
Gambit
Gambit joins the team with Rogue and spends the early portion sulking that Apocalypse put her in danger. His role never really expands past “thief with energy powers”, but he remains a fixture on the team.
Gambit is a core member of the Knights of X team.
Jubilee and Shogo
Jubilee joins Excalibur because she was the last person to talk to Betsy before she went to Avalon the first time. After some mild peril, she feels scared about leaving her son Shogo behind and brings him to the lighthouse. When Excalibur is urgently summoned to Otherworld, Jubilee is not able to bring Shogo back to Krakoa, and the whole team is shocked when he turns into a dragon while in Otherworld. Due to fae magic and the nature of Otherworld, children have more power, and Shogo decided to use that power to be a dragon. When Shogo is injured by the White Priestesses of Saturnyne, he is nursed to health by the Green Priestesses, a sect that befriends Excalibur. Both Jubilee and Shogo remain members of the team throughout the book.
Shogo is a core member of the Knights of X team, but Jubilee does not appear to have a role at first.
Pete Wisdom
Pete Wisdom begins as an agent of the British government, trying to help Betsy in her role as Captain Britain while maintaining his British roots over his being a mutant. This ultimately fails – Coven Akkaba kills him in a sacrifice to close all Krakoan gates to Britain, and he finds himself banned from the country. Distraught but driven, Wisdom resurrects the members of his old task force STRIKE, revealing that they all were mutants. Wisdom and STRIKE begin counterintelligence operations against Coven Akkaba before the series ends.
Pete Wisdom and STRIKE have not appeared on Knights of X marketing and seemingly do not have a role at first.
Meggan Puceanu
Brian Braddock’s wife, Meggan, is a mutant with empathic shapeshifting powers – she transforms into what other people think of or want to see, essentially. She does some light spy work for Wisdom early on, and joins in the war for Otherworld by the end, but has a limited presence in the series.
Meggan is a core member of the Knights of X team.
Bei the Blood Moon
Bei the Blood Moon is an Arakkii who was a part of the tournament in X of Swords. Her first contest is to marry Doug Ramsey, AKA Cypher, and she ultimately switches sides in the war to stay beside her husband. Her power is the “Doom Note”, a massively destructive blast whenever she speaks. She also has the ability of psionic speech, so that she can be understood. Bei does not have a significant presence beyond fighting alongside Excalibur.
Bei the Blood Moon is a core member of the Knights of X team.
X-Factor
Most of the Knights of X team comes from Excalibur, but two of them had most of their development occur in Leah Williams and David Baldeon’s X-Factor. There are only two members of the team who come from this series, but it’s really good and you should read it.
Rachel Summers
Rachel is slightly present in Excalibur, mostly having a close relationship with Betsy Braddock that approaches romantic. Betsy gives her a pet baby Warwolf that she names Amazing Baby. Rachel’s psychic powers and “Chronoskimming” ability make her an extremely useful member of the X-Factor Investigations team, as she uses both to find out what happened to missing mutants. After that series ends, Rachel shows up occasionally in Excalibur, ending the last issue telling Krakoa to have faith in Betsy.
Rachel is a core member of the Knights of X team.
Shatterstar
Shatterstar first appears in the Krakoa era back in the Mojoverse, forced into livestreaming gladiatorial combat. X-Factor comes to the Mojoverse thanks to a message he sent, but are unable to rescue him just then. Later on, when X-Factor learns that Shatterstar is the only one that can rid Siryn of the malevolent deity called the Morrigan, they manage to get Mojo to free all of his slaves, including Shatterstar – who is finally free to come to Krakoa. Shatterstar joins Rictor after the Hellfire Gala and fights alongside Excalibur.
Shatterstar is a core member of the Knights of X team.
Knights of X
What I’m led to expect from Knights of X based on the promotional material is a refocusing of Excalibur into the Otherworld side of things. Which is a good thing – the book was at its weakest when it was trying to do things in the “real-world” Britain. Howard consistently writes the Queen as the authority of Britain, something that is just factually incorrect, and generally doesn’t have a great grasp on the country’s culture. There are some ideas that could be interesting, such as Arthur’s presence in the war for Otherworld, but there’s very little exploration at least so far, and anything that Howard actually does will ultimately feel like a weaker, shallower version of Kieron Gillen’s work with Arthurian Myth in Once and Future.
Howard has also teased that there is a tenth member of the team (only 9 have been revealed), and my hope is that it’s not someone I’ve already mentioned in this summary. I’d love for a genuinely new presence in the book, someone who maybe doesn’t have a major history with Otherworld or the Captain Britain side of things.
Vishal Gullapalli is highly opinionated and reads way too much.
