As guardians of the gate, Excalibur has sworn to safely escort those who quest to the Otherworld within, but their duties are tested to their limits when DOOM returns to Avalon. The team escorts a dictator in Excalibur #23, written by Tini Howard, drawn by Marcus To, colored by Erick Arciniega and lettered by Ariana Maher.
Dan Grote: Behold, it is we, ComicsXFâs fourth or fifth best power couple, here to give your regular Excalibur team of Charlie Davis and Mikey Zee a much deserved week off. Truth be told, dear readers, Iâve been chomping at the bit to cover Excalibur, as it features my favorite mutant, my dear son, Peter Winston Wisdom. Whatâs that incorrigible scamp up to this month, friend of friends?
Matt Lazorwitz: Um, Dan, I hate to break it to you. I mean, I really do, as Pete Wisdom ranks in the highest echelons of characters I love as well. But ⌠this issue does not feature ANY Wisdom.
Dan: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Matt: It instead has Doctor Doom.
Dan: Oh, I love Doom. Letâs do this.
Doomy, Youâre out of Your Element
Dan: Our story starts with Doom showing up on Braddock Isle demanding Captain Britain let him access the gate to Otherworld so he can get his stuff back from his ex, Morgan Le Fay, who was recently freed by Coven Akkaba. When Betsy points out heâll need a mutant escort, Doom opens his cloak and says, âOh, no worries, Iâll use this mutant baby I found,â resulting in a resounding âNOT COOL, BRO!â from our heroes.
What follows is an issueâs worth of Doom being caught on the backfoot by Otherworld and the changes since mutant magic came to town. This is followed by Betsy more than holding her own against Victor, which was just delightful.
This isnât the first time mutant dealings have brought Doom low recently. It wasnât that long ago Storm was serving him dinner and heaping helpings of shade in S.W.O.R.D. #7. And, of course, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four defeated Doomâs Franklin Richards-centric scheme in their crossover miniseries last year.
Doomâs been a busy dictator lately. Matt, youâre more well-read than me; how does this issue fit with whatever heâs got going on in Guardians of the Galaxy and Fantastic Four?
Matt: So, Doom hasnât just been brought low by mutants lately. While I gave up on Dan Slottâs run of Fantastic Four after the whole âFranklinâs not a mutantâ thing, I kept abreast of what happened in âBride of Doom.â Thatâs where Doom was, to use the parlance of the time, âcuckedâ by Johnny Storm. Storm had slept with Doomâs bride, Victorious, shortly before the engagement. After the revelation and a fight at the wedding, Doom tells Victorious, his herald and sort of bride, that the wedding was nothing but pretense and he hasnât met his bride yet. And yet, that smells of sour grapes as much as anything else.
In Guardians of the Galaxy, after an attempt to steal Emperor Hulklingâs Space-Sword and take over Hulklingâs body, the Guardians âpwnedâ Doom. They swapped him into Rocketâs body, leaving him trapped until he agreed to surrender and conscript him into the team. Of the last three Doom appearances, he hasnât had an unequivocal victory. As a matter of fact, he has looked pretty bad in all of them.
Dan: I love when you use modern language but couch it in a catchphrase from a 20-plus-year-old movie. It really ties the review together, man.
Matt: Why, thank you!
This series of events makes Doomâs confrontational attitude make sense to me. Heâs always a haughty jerk, but here Doom seemed to be spoiling for a fight. It feels like Doom needs a win since heâs been on the losing side for a while. But heâs still DOOM, and thus canât just sit and eat his feelings. He has to go out there and have some scheme or another to prove his superiority.
I have a continuity issue here, though: Is this taking place after âThe Last Annihilationâ? I suppose it could be, which would settle that for me, as Doom is currently in space for that event, helping fight Dormammu the Living Planet. And I canât see Doom taking time away from that just to dig around in his exâs place. I kept expecting this Doom to be Doombit to deal with the events not quite lining up, which is easy to do since thatâs the oldest Doom trick in the book. But not everyone is reading as much as I am. Can we handwave this away? Possibly.
Dan: Itâs always a Doombot even when it isnât.
Just Popped in to See What Condition Otherworldâs Condition Is in
Dan: As we mentioned in the first bit, Otherworld has changed a lot since Doomâs last venture there. Itâs also changed a bit since X of Swords and will continue to change as long as writers need it to fit their plots. Thatâs the great thing about Otherworld. You can morph it however you want to suit your needs, and if anyone questions you, you can literally say, âA wizard did it.â Very Neil Gaiman and âthe power of storiesâ and all that.
So what does Tini Howard need Otherworld to be right now? A hotbed of Arthurian politics and border skirmishes. Sevalith, the vampire realm, is apparently in a cold war of sorts with neighboring Avalon, home of the other Braddocks. Quite frankly, if I lived next door to Jamie Braddock, Iâd be nervous, too. The Fury are patrolling The Crooked Market, who are playing the role of Otherworld Sentinels. Morgan Le Fay is missing, and now Doom has her whole castle. And we know from the last issue Merlyn has Arthur captive.
None of this feels as dire as, say, the hordes of Amenth running roughshod over the Fair and Foul courts. It does, however, lay the bricks for the next era of Otherworld conflict. Matt, where do you think this is all headed?
Matt: Iâm wondering if weâre nearing Howardâs endgame. Weâve seen her slowly move the pieces into place. As you indicated above, and I know Marcus To teased how big issue #25 will be. I donât know how long a cold war can stay cold with Jamie Braddock’s involvement. Or Merlin, for that matter.
From the bits here, I admit to enjoying Mad Jim Jaspers. Since he’s back, I wonder what purpose he served in a world with Jamie Braddock. They have overlapping powers and overlapping, well, mental issues. âThe Madness of King Jamieâ would not be over the line as a title, but seeing him as this information broker and a figure who is embracing the Fae way of life with deals, makes him an engaging figure. And a witchbreed to boot!
Dan: Which is interesting, given how people in Otherworld talk about witchbreed/mutants the way humans have spoken of mutants in X-Men comics since time immemorial. And since someone is making Furies to patrol for them now, itâs clear Otherworld even has their own Trask family or Trask equivalent somewhere.
If #25 is an endgame, as you posit, that leaves many loose ends to tie up:
- Coven Akkaba and whatever the newly resurrected S.T.R.I.K.E. is planning;
- This new Arthur war;
- The âGod-kiss-and-get-it-over-withâ tensions between Betsy and Saturnyne;
- And the âGod-kiss-and-get-it-over-withâ tensions between Betsy and Rachel.
Itâs too much stuff.
Unless Tini plans to do an X-Factor and then peace out for Hickmanâs Substack-verse, I donât see this series ending in two issues. But Iâve been wrong before.
Matt: Maybe itâs the beginning of the climactic final arc, a final six-month fantasy war with mutants mixed in. I would be all over that! I think weâre entering a brave(r?) new world after Inferno, so Iâm buckling up for whatever we get.
New S#!t Has Come to Light Re: Mordred
Dan: Mordred is introduced in Excalibur #23. This is Arthurâs illegitimate son, who is one day fated to defeat him. While not shown in panel, the team speaks of him throughout the issue. The Fury refers to Excalibur as âFriends of Mordredâ (not unlike how âFriend of Dorothyâ was code for gay in the mid-20th century). At the issueâs end, Meggan drops a theory that Mordred was in fact, a mutant. This appears to set up a power struggle between the yet-unseen Mordred and the Merlyn-controlled Arthur. Matt, activate Arthurian scholarship! How do we square whatâs being posited here with existing lore?
Matt: OK, so here weâre going into some deep dive stuff. For those who are less familiar with the history or role of Mordred, Mordred is not just the bastard son of Arthur, but the bastard son of Arthur with his half-sister, Morgause. And in some tellings of the tale, Morgan herself when the two half-sisters of Arthur are conflated into one. Now, Arthur didnât know she was his sister at the time, but that doesnât change the fact that he is the child of incest. By most medieval reckonings, the circumstances of his birth put a stain on Mordred and thus make him born of sin and therefore evil by nature.
Modern Arthurian retellings have done a lot to redeem Morgan le Fey, to push back against the wicked temptress narrative that has been a big part of her narrative. I canât recall if something similar has been done with Mordred, but it makes sense. Blaming Mordred for the circumstances of his birth seems very wrong. His redemption can be read as part of the expected Krakoan redemption arc, as he is free to come to the island and move beyond his past.
Dan: Hmmm, what does the formerly villainous scion of medieval legend get up to on Krakoa?
Matt: I have read a handful of stories with 616 Morgan, but I havenât read any with 616 Mordred, so I have a difficult time knowing who he was going in. If he embraces life? I see him spending time in the various arenas since he is a trained swordsman. Maybe heâll be a new magic user for the team, as I recall seeing him mentioned as a sorcerer somewhere. But now I have a question for you: Who do you think the âForgemasterâ is? The being in charge of the Furies? Because other than taking some wild shots in the dark, I am at a loss on that one.
Dan: Your guess is as good as mine, old chum. Jim Jaspers claims to have only created the one. Whoever it is likely is in Merlynâs employ. A cursory googling brings up Wayland the Smith, a Germanic smith credited with making a sword Merlyn hides away for Arthur. Iâve also seen some discussion online of the idea that the Lady of the Lake, who gave Arthur Excalibur, was herself a blacksmith. Honestly, that sounds to me like something Tini would go for.
But also, how deep down the well of Arthuriana do we go before Kieron Gillen says, âStop stealing my bit!â? Maybe itâs noted Cable supporting cast member Blaquesmith, who fell into an Otherworld hole between stories and somehow got conscripted into service by Merlin.
The point is, everything I know about Arthuriana I got from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Disneyâs The Sword and the Stone and A Knightâs Tale, so any answer I give is comic relief at best.
Matt: Ni.
X-traneous Thoughts
- Actually, Wisdom does show up once, in Betsy dream-flashback montage, so we can relive his getting blood sacrificed by Coven Akkaba. Sarcastic hooray.
- Betsyâs line to Rictor, âBesides, donât you like big bad men?â was a nasty little burn, but given how much of a moody prick Ricâs been since Apocalypse left, he probably deserved it. (I love you, Charlie, but also fight me.)
- Betsy doesnât seem all that keen on visiting her old, slaughtered teammates in S.T.R.I.K.E. I get it. Why see an ex if you can avoid it?
- Hey, itâs Josh, the horn-headed teen who ran away to Otherworld in New Mutants. Glad to see heâs still around!
- âI get de five-finger discountâ â Never change, Gambit. Ever.
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of 5. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the podcasts BatChat with Matt & Will and The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.
Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, heâs a newspaper editor, and by night, heâs ⌠also an editor. He co-hosts 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.
