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Dec 6

Excalibur #3 annotations

Posted on Friday, December 6, 2019 by Paul in Annotations

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

COVER / PAGE 1. Apocalypse takes Rictor under his wing.

PAGES 2-3. Recap page and credits. This is “Verse III: Three Covenants”, written by Tini Howard, with art by Marcus To, colours by Erick Arciniega, and letters by Cory Petit.

PAGES 4-6. Rictor is stuck indoors, unable to leave the house without starting earthquakes.

Rictor. Rictor was first introduced as one of X-Factor’s students in X-Factor #17 (1987), and went on to have stints in the New Mutants, X-Force, and X-Factor Investigations. He and Shatterstar were a couple for a long time. When we last saw him, in the recent Shatterstar mini, he was running a bar in New York, and he and Shatterstar were still on decent enough terms. The idea that his powers are out of control is new, and since he evidently has access to the internet, it’s unclear why he doesn’t simply contact the X-Men for help. But it’s evidently a plot point, since somebody keeps making psychic contact with him, asking him to “come home.” There’s a suggestion later that he’s worried about damaging Krakoa itself, which is understandable, but there’s clearly more to his power loss than that.

Given all the bottles on the floor, Rictor’s presumably been drinking heavily. He also seems to be sleeping in a box full of earth for some reason – presumably he thinks it limits the damage he could do in his sleep.

The news. It’s covering complaints about the Krakoan gates, supposedly because “some mutants” are “shedding their clothes before stepping into the gates.” We haven’t seen anything like that, so presumably this is meant to be your typical groundless bigotry – though I suppose it’s conceivable that Krakoa has taken particular exception to somebody’s jacket at some point.

PAGE 7. A data page with an excerpt from mutantsunmuted.com, which looks to be a Reddit-style thing. As well as Rictor asking for thoughts on whether going to Krakoa might help, it’s all people asking about the practicalities of visiting Krakoa – suggesting that a lot of mutants plan to drop in but not to stay. Of course, from what we’ve seen, there’s no conventional technology on Krakoa, so presumably the permanent residents don’t have internet access.

Rictor is being evasive about his problem (perhaps just to avoid attracting attention), and says there’s nobody he could go with. The obvious candidate would have been Shatterstar and, as already mentioned, the two of them were on good terms when we last saw them. We’ve seen Shatterstar on Krakoa already, albeit only as part of a crowd scene in X-Force #2.

PAGES 8-9. Morgan Le Fey yells orders at Marianna Stern, who has to try and explain the plot to her.

Morgan understands that the Krakoan gate is a mutant-linked intrusion into Otherworld, but other than that, her grasp of the plot is shaky. It’s maybe understandable that she thinks Coven Akkaba are allies of Apocalypse rather than a heretic sect who turned on him – and that confusion might explain why Morgan approached Stern in the first place, demanding that she sort out the problem.

Morgan also assumes that the identity of the new Captain Britain will be a matter of tremendous interest to the British public. Stern has to gently break it to her that the British haven’t noticed and, by implication, might not be that bothered even if they did. (Thus far this series has been concerned with matters almost wholly removed from modern Britain.) But she’s going to tip off Black Air and see if anything comes of it. Stern has her own agenda here, of course – she’s trying to encourage Morgan to restore her access to Otherworld’s magic by pitching it as the last push that will get the job done.

Black Air. A dodgy and corrupt paranormal British intelligence department introduced during Warren Ellis’s run on Excalibur. They were pretty much shut down after being defeated by the original Excalibur, but occasional splinter cells have cropped up claiming to be Black Air. As far as I can see, they were last seen in Fear Itself: Wolverine #3 (2011), when a random woman claiming to work for Black Air showed up in a coda, setting up a story that never happened. However, from dialogue later in the issue, it seems the name has just been reused for a division of MI-13.

The dragon outside the window is, of course, Shogo, as transformed at the end of last issue.

PAGES 10-12. Captain Britain, Gambit and Jubilee discuss the plot.

Shogo. Rather bizarrely, the claim seems to be that Shogo can become a dragon in Otherworld because he’s a child and young enough still to see the world in magical terms. So apparently any child who came to Otherworld could do this if they were young and innocent enough, though that doesn’t really expect why he remains in a stable dragon form rather than wandering all over the place. It’s all a bit Hallmark Card for my tastes, I’ll be honest with you.

Oh, and if we’re doing lower case lettering, there ought to be accents on bébé.

Gambit is written weirdly here. It seems as though we’re meant to take it that he’s overly concerned with Rogue and not worried enough about Brian, but it comes across very much the other way round – everyone else seems dismissive about his perfectly reasonable concerns for Rogue, who was left comatose under the “protection” of a genocidal maniac. Betsy bizarrely asserts that merely being a mutant “makes her safe in a way Brian and Shogo are not”, but Shogo’s a dragon, Brian’s still got his powers – what on earth is she talking about? Either there’s a twist coming here or this is just all over the place.

“If you see a ballista, steer far away.” A ballista was an ancient Roman bolt thrower. Very early artillery.

“I thought you can’t read your brother’s mind?” The idea that mutant siblings are immune to each other’s powers comes up from time to time, but this particular claim doesn’t ring a bell.

PAGES 13-19. The heroes attack the castle, find Brian completely corrupted, and retreat.

Not much to add to that, really. A coda at the end has Morgan encouraging Betsy to accept the mantle of Captain Britain permanently, “from one reluctant warrior queen to another” – Morgan did say in issue #1 that she had stepped in to rule Camelot in the king’s absence, but more generally this is a disingenuous comment by the veteran schemer. Why Morgan wants Betsy to remain Captain Britain isn’t immediately clear, but the obvious reasons would be in order to hang on to Brian, and in the hope (canvassed earlier in the issue) that she’ll be rejected by the British.

PAGE 20. Data page – a memo from “the Department” to MI-13, Black Air and the like, basically telling them to keep an eye on characters with known connections to Otherworld. “For immediate and official release” sounds more like a press release to me, but there it is.

MI-13. “The Department” has been mentioned before as the current UK government department in this field, and is apparently one step up from MI-13. MI-13 is a paranormal-focussed division of British intelligence, introduced in Excalibur #101, and again connected with Pete Wisdom. It’s named, of course, by analogy with MI5 and MI6.

(Originally the real-world numbers actually went up to MI19, but most of the others were wartime enterprises or got folded into other departments – MI4 were mapmakers, for example. Happily for Marvel continuity, the number MI13 wasn’t used. Or so they claim…)

The list is mostly obvious candidates: the Braddock family, Morgan le Fey, and the other founding members of the original Excalibur. Courtney Ross was a Captain Britain supporting character from the original 1970s run who was killed in Excalibur vol 1 #4 and had her identity stolen by a Sat-Yr 9, her counterpart from another world. That’s presumably who the Department are referring to here. This “Courtney Ross” was last seen in New Excalibur #17 (2005) when she was still swanning around being generally accepted as Courtney Ross, and running Courtney’s old bank. Her connection with Otherworld isn’t obvious, except in the sense that she’s part of the Captain Britain / Excalibur supporting cast.

PAGES 21-25. Apocalypse drags Rictor to Krakoa’s Cornwall outpost, hoping to use his powers to master stone as a focus for mutant magic. Pete Wisdom shows up looking for Betsy.

“Humans learning to pay for their magic.” Apocalypse seems to believe that mutants can – somehow – break the normal rule of magic that everything a price in the end. Whether he’s found a wonderful new evolved method of magic, or he’s just trying to develop the mystical equivalent of a perpetual motion machine… well, I guess we’ll find out. At any rate, he thinks stone is an important focus for what he’s trying to do, and that’s why he wants Rictor.

The gate. Unlike the Central Park gate in this week’s Marauders, Apocalypse shows up in a gate near Rictor’s house (so presumably in Queens?) which is being largely ignored by the human picnickers. Until Apocalypse shows up, of course.

Pete Wisdom. British secret intelligence agent, mutant and member of the original Excalibur during the Ellis run, though he and MI-13 had their own series too. His power is to make hot knives appear from his fingers, which he’s helpfully demonstrating here (let’s be generous and assume he’s staying ready in case Apocalypse does something). Pete always wears identical black suits as seen here. Aside from a possible cameo in issue #1, he hasn’t been seen in a while – I think the last we saw him was in X-Force #9 (2014) alongside his MI-13 cohorts.

PAGES 26-27. The trailer reads NEXT: WORD TO THE WISE.

Bring on the comments

  1. SanityOrMadness says:

    Paul> Betsy bizarrely asserts that merely being a mutant “makes her safe in a way Brian and Shogo are not”, but Shogo’s a dragon, Brian’s still got his powers – what on earth is she talking about? Either there’s a twist coming here or this is just all over the place.

    I think this is referring to the whole “mutant resurrection” thing on Krakoa – Betsy’s asserting that if Rogue dies, thry just restore her from backup. Whereas if Shogo or Brian die or are corrupted beyond saving, they’re Just Dead.

  2. Paul says:

    But that assumes that the only bad thing that can happen to a mutant is death. We’ve seen Apocalypse inflict horrible experiments on people in the past.

  3. SanityOrMadness says:

    True, but Betsy’s probably not thinking about that, since she’s worried about Brian. And, technically, Apocalypse did promise to play nice with the Krakoans.

    That, or she’s assuming they can just kill her to restore an earlier backup, or get Elixir to fix her, if anything really unfortunate happens.

  4. YLu says:

    I took that line as a reference to mutant resurrection, as well. Rogue might not be completely safe, but it certainly makes her safER than the other two.

    Maybe it’s just adjusted expectations but I though both this and Marauders, after a bit of awkwardness the first two issues, hit their stride this week

  5. Dazzler says:

    Also, regarding the safety thing, it’s important that we keep in mind that none of any of this makes any sense, and the books assert a lot of things that are clearly false and/or nonsense. This keeps happening yet people keep acting puzzled.

  6. Col_Fury says:

    Yeah, Betsy stressing that the others aren’t mutants made me think she was implying the resurrection business.

    Yay, a Courtney Ross mention! 🙂 Hopefully, if she does appear, they remember she’s dead and it’s Sat-Yr-9 instead.

    Apocalypse mentioned that Rictor was depressed, suggesting that’s why he couldn’t control his powers. And if I remember right, while still on good terms, Rictor and Shatterstar had broken up. If so, then there’s a good reason for Rictor to be depressed.

    Also, like YLu said, this is the strongest issue of this run so far.

  7. Krzysiek Ceran says:

    It helps that the main plot picks up right where the last issue ended. The weird jump to “we’re on a boat in Cornwall now” last issue made everything too hazy. This flows much better. Though I do have a slight criticism of the art – it doesn’t quite convey the supposedly desperate situation the team finds itself in right after storming the castle. (The “We’re getting overwhelmed” bit.)

    But the fight scene with Brian is very good. It gives him a nice Darth Vader-like build up for future appearances, he’s believably unstoppable here.

    The other plotline with Rictor seems more… I don’t know how to express it. Coincidental? We know he’s going to be in the book so ”'[A]”’ picks him up on the logic of ‘I need a mutant to master these crystals’ and sure, Rictor’s powers are geologically-related, but seismic waves and crystals are not quite obviously connected enough for that justification to… well, make any sense, really?
    But I guess maybe they didn’t resurrect Petra yet so Rictor’s the best they have.

  8. Evilgus says:

    This did feel more coherent than the previous issues, so I’m willing to believe it’ll coalesce as the story proceeds.

    I am liking the mood of this comic. Perhaps purely as it has Gambit, Betsy and Jubilee interacting on the same page! It feels like an older team book in the way other Dawn of X don’t, barring New Mutants.

    Rictor: this feels like when he was depowered and plunged into depression… So there’s consistency in characterisation there. He’s a favourite of mine since PAD’s X-Factor.

    Sibling mutant powers not impacting on each other: I think this was covered in Excalibur original run #54-55, the one with cover of Psylocke and Captain Britain fighting? But Betsy can still access Brian’s mind due to their twin bond. That said, Jamie was still able to reality warp them both, so it is kind of arbitrary…

    King of Camelot: wasn’t Brian king of Otherworld? When did that change.. ?

    Courtney Ross: I do hope we remember she’s an alternate reality despot… And the characters remember too!

  9. Ahri says:

    Re: why doesn’t Rictor

    He’s depressed, which we’ve seen from him before. You’re not always logical when depressed.

    Re: Rogue being a mutant

    She can be resurrected. Betsy never said she was TOTALLY safe, but it’s still an insurance Brian and Shogo don’t have.

    Re: why doesn’t Shogo keep changing form

    I assume magic of imagination only kicks in when you enter Otherworld via the Portal.

  10. wwk5d says:

    Yeah, much like Marauders, this series definitely has improved, and I’m actually excited to see where things are going. New Mutants is still the best book, but this and Marauders are showing lots of potential.

  11. YLu says:

    “It’s covering complaints about the Krakoan gates, supposedly because “some mutants” are “shedding their clothes before stepping into the gates.” We haven’t seen anything like that, so presumably this is meant to be your typical groundless bigotry…”

    Well, we can see a mutant doing just that in the screen on Rictor’s TV, displaying news footage.

  12. Voord 99 says:

    @Col_Fury: Yay, a Courtney Ross mention! Hopefully, if she does appear, they remember she’s dead and it’s Sat-Yr-9 instead.

    Or for that real old-school Claremont feel, completely forget about it!

  13. CJ says:

    I’m enjoying this one more and more. If you would’ve told me that Betsy, Jubilee, Gambit and Rogue were all in a comic book, I would’ve thought it were Jim Lee-era X-Men, not Excalibur.

    I found the Rictor scenes, showing humans and mutants having issues at the Krakoan gates, the most interesting.

  14. Taibak says:

    Let’s be honest, the idea that mutant siblings are immune to each other’s powers never made much sense. I mean, it’s not like, say, Magik couldn’t teleport Colossus – and Betsy has definitely read Brian’s mind before.

    Really, the only siblings we’ve seen with that kind of immunity are Cyclops and Havok. In that case, it makes sense – they both metabolize the same type of energy, so by comic book logic they can absorb each other’s energy blasts. They’re definitely the exception though.

  15. YLu says:

    Apparently, according to Wikipedia, Claremont established the Braddock twins’ immunity to each other’s powers in a House of M tie-in.

    Though the sentence right before it states that the two also have a strong psychic bond because of their relation, so who knows how any of this is supposed to work?

    What does being immune to someone with super-strength even mean or entail? If they try to lift you, does their strength suddenly vanish or what?

  16. wwk5d says:

    Though not siblings, Banshee and Black Tom were also immune to each others powers too.

  17. JCG says:

    I can buy sibling/cousing/relative immunity, really not much difference from a mutant (say Cyclops) being immune to his own power.

    None of the mutant powers make any sense when you start to think of them in real world terms anyway.

  18. Voord 99 says:

    I’m missing something. I haven’t read this comic, and won’t until it’s on Unlimited.

    But I’d have thought that the mutant brother whose mind Betsy can’t read would be Jamie, not Brian. Has Brian been retconned as a mutant, and not someone who has powers thanks to Arthurian cliché?

  19. Dave says:

    Isn’t there an issue here of how/why Brian even has power any more? If he’s not Captain Britain, he’s just a guy. Morgan could power up any of her soldiers instead.

    Does the Summer House have moon internet, or is it also low-non-Krakoan tech?

    I think a story about the British public being against Captain Britain being a current citizen of another (all-new, mutant) nation would be interesting.

    I thought Betsy was being very unfair with her failure to prioritise Shogo’s safety here – yes, he’s a dragon, but he’s still a baby in a combat zone. Brian’s an adult superhero who’s in danger all the time – there’s NO way saving him takes priority over keeping a baby safe.

    “If you see a ballista, steer far away.”
    Jubilee’s seen GoT, then. Maybe if she didn’t watch it with Shogo around then he wouldn’t be imagining himself as a dragon.

    What was happening at the very end of page 17? Brian and Betsy are sword-to-sword, he says “Slay…pretender.” and one of his allies goes “Aaagh!”. Did Brian’s sword slide off and hit the other guy?

  20. Karl_H says:

    Wouldn’t Otherworld be in a LOT of trouble if every Earth child entering it could be a dragon or other powerful creature? Given how many past stories there have been about Otherworld, that’s an incredibly clumsy continuity implant for no reason other than doing something cute with Shogo.

    I believe the ballista comment is a reference to Game of Thrones.

    The Central Park gate appearance doesn’t make a lick of sense. The checkpoint in Marauders is more realistic.

    I’m not feeling much love for this one.

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