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Mar 4

Excalibur #8 annotations

Posted on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 by Paul in Annotations

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

COVER / PAGE 1. Cullen Bloodstone in hunting gear, with the heads of Excalibur as trophies on the wall behind him. Don’t worry, this does not happen in the story.

PAGES 2-3. Cullen calms down and invites Excalibur to talk over a meal.

Cullen behaves as if he thinks he’s acting perfectly reasonably; even though he’s in monster mode, his threat is basically to call the police.

PAGES 4-5. Credits and recap. The story is “Verse VIII: The Unspeakable and the Uneatable II” by Tini Howard, Wilton Santos, Marcus To, and various others. (Four inkers – the deadlines must have been pressing…)

PAGES 6-7. Cullen tries to sell Excalibur on the great tradition of the hunt.

Cullen comes across as completely out of touch with reality here. At any rate, Betsy seems willing to play along if it keeps him on side.

Cullen considers his “power” – which is more of a parasitical monster that he has partial control over – to be analogous to mutant abilities. This is reasonable enough in a broad sense, and his point is clear enough – he wants everyone to refrain from using superhuman abilities in the hunt. As Jubilee and Betsy see it, Cullen’s powers are not part of him, and so suppressing them doesn’t have the same connotations that it does in their case. Cullen evidently thinks that his attempt to find common ground has been rebuffed, and you can see his point.

PAGE 8. A data page, or rather, the text of a letter from Coven Akkaba to Cullen trying to form an anti-mutant alliance with supernatural allies. The author, Reuben Brosseau, is the bearded guy that Captain Britain and Pete Wisdom met with in issue #4. His statement that “we are not burdened by many of the same concerns of diversity” is clearly intended to position Coven Akkaba as (at best) reactionary patriots.

PAGES 9-11. Rictor finds Cullen phoning Coven Akkaba.

Rictor apparently likes being in contact with the ground now. He seems to be sharing a room with Jubilee. (No idea why he bothers waking her just to tell her that he’s going out, though.)

Cullen apparently hasn’t responded to Coven Akkaba before now, so presumably we’re meant to take it that the mutants’ insistence that he is Not One Of Them has freaked him out a bit. From the part of this call that he overhears, Rictor seems to infer that Cullen is planning to set them up – but the whole dialogue suggests that Cullen truly is worried that something might happen to him. Cullen also says that he doesn’t “necessarily agree with all the stuff your coven says” – that could simply refer to their religious and philosophical views, but in context the implication is clearly that he thinks they’re racists.

Cullen has another attempt at bonding with a member of Excalibur over a minority characteristic that he thinks they have in common – this time, Rictor’s sexuality. This time he’s much, much more clumsy about it, and Rictor unsurprisingly makes his excuses.

“My last boyfriend was super ancient and Celtic.” This is a character from Avengers Arena called Anachronism – a teenage boy who had wound up with the body and spirit of a Conan-like warrior. As Cullen acknowledges, it would be more accurate to say that he had an unrequisited crush on his best friend.

PAGES 12-13. Rictor persuades Betsy to stop playing along and go after the Warwolves.

This is an odd scene. Rictor is basically right in what he says about Coven Akkaba, though it’s much less obvious that he has any reason to think that Cullen is planning to frame them (as opposed to being dangerously unpredictable, which he clearly is). Betsy remains inexplicably minded to play along with the madman who hunts sentient beings in his back garden. I think the idea is that she’s at home in the aristocracy and overly minded to give Cullen the benefit of the doubt, but it’s weird.

PAGE 14. Excalibur start hunting for the Warwolves.

Warwolves do indeed wear the skins of the people they kill, and impersonate them. But shouldn’t the powers that Rogue absorbed from the Warwolf earlier in the day have worn off by now?

The theory that time away from the Mojoverse had weakened the Warwolves minds was raised in the previous issue as well. Once again, though, we’re reminded that Excalibur are hunting and killing sentient creatures for no very good reason beyond “Apocalypse asked us to”.

PAGE 15. Cullen realises that Excalibur have betrayed him.

The song he’s singing seems to be “Do You Want To” by Franz Ferdinand. The implication is that he’s absurdly convinced that his exchange with Rictor went well.

PAGES 16-20. The fight builds to a climax, and Excalibur find a surviving Warwolf puppy.

Apparently it’s okay to murder the adult Warwolves but the puppy is cute so that’s different. This really had better be a mind control storyline.

The climax of the fight isn’t terribly easy to follow either, probably because this story has never very clearly defined how Cullen’s monster thing works. The idea seems to be that Rogue, still disguised as a Warwolf, tackles him and beats him – this seems to involve separating him from the monster, but what the significance of that is, I have no idea.

PAGE 21. Captain Britain refuses to kill the last Warwolf.

Apocalypse grudgingly decides to try and work around his failure to get Excalibur to wipe out a species.

PAGE 22. Data page, containing what are supposedly messages from the stars – literally. The Krakoan text reads XORN. Kuan-Yin Xorn, of course, is meant to have a star in his head. His twin Shen Xorn has a black hole instead. Both of them appear to be taking credit for writing this collection of homilies. All this is presumably setting up something for the next issue, given the Krakoan trailer text.

“A sword with two edges…” Presumably the point being made here is that while a single sword with two blades is a “double-edged sword”, and thus a mixed blessing, twins can have two blades without that downside.

RX J0806.4-4123 is a real neutron star. Here’s a picture.

“If you hunt a beast…” This seems to be referencing Excalibur’s hunt of the Warwolves and confirming that we’re supposed to take it as a dubious decision.

“The Methuselah star, HD 140283.” Again, this is a real star, and (as the name would suggest) one of the oldest known.

PAGES 23-24. Betsy gives the puppy to Rachel to take care of.

We’re apparently meant to take it that saving this puppy from Apocalypse is an act of heroic stubbornness, as if just saying no wasn’t a simple option. Rachel is also weirdly happy to take care of this thing, given that they were first introduced hunting her and they aren’t animals.

Tiki bar. This has been menton

PAGES 25-26. Reading order and trailer. The Krakoan reads NEXT: STARLIGHT.

Bring on the comments

  1. Mikey says:

    Some of the dialogue is incredibly cringey. I do not like how Hayward scripts this book at all.

  2. Michael says:

    Apocalypse as a wizard.
    Rictor as a druid.
    Cullen Bloodstone as an rich, entitled, semi-delusional asshole. (Hmmm.)

    I agree that Tini Howard’s take on the concept and characters really feels a little off. Given that I’ve felt this way about Excalibur, Strikeforce, and Death’s Head, I suppose it may be a fundamental disconnect between me as a reader, and her as a writer.

  3. MasterMahan says:

    This feels like a bit of a mess, doesn’t it? Last issue ended with Cullen sitting on demon horse declaring he’s going to hunt mutants. This issue starts, and Cullen’s gone from threatening to hunt them to inviting them to dinner. And the horse has vanished.

    The final conflict anti-climatically resolves in a single off-panel moment. The characters somehow don’t realize the flying Warwolf is Rogue, when you’d think the flight would be a tip-off.

    Rictor can control plants now. He’s confused by the sight of Betsy wearing a normal, somewhat conservative nightie, which seems like a miscommunication between the writer and the artist.

    So yeah, a mess.

  4. Joseph S. says:

    This is…not good. I can run with Betsy as Captain Britain, Rictor as a Druid, Shogo as a Dragon, Apocalypse as a mage or whatever… These aren’t terrible ideas, but execution here reminds me most closely of the bad Excalibur fill in issues. This isn’t quite as egregious as the Speed Racer issue of the Cross-Time Caper, but it’s close. The character voices are pretty off, it’s hard to parse particular character’s motivations, etc, but the art is really not doing the script any favors. This is bad visual storytelling. The fight scenes are the most unclear, but the art isn’t selling the talky scenes, either. The dinner scene is awful. What are they eating? Why don’t they have cutlery or place settings? Their plates are full but dessert is on the way? This is some aristocratic manner but they’re all just in a grey room? And I haven’t seen so much random hatching since the 90s. Rictor sharing a room with Jubilee doesn’t make any sense, but there’s also no sign of a bed, he’s just perched on the window. There’s nothing to suggest Rogue is transforming into a Warwolf so that’s entirely up to the dialogue to explain, and yes, separating Cullen from the parasite isn’t how we’ve seen his powers work before. And then the penciler just changes around page 18? Is that right? Sorry to say but this book isn’t working.

  5. Ben says:

    Yeah gave this and Strikeforce (what an awful name) a shot because I like a lot of the characters, but I’m done with both.

    I actually think Strikeforce is a little better, the characters are much more on brand. But the plot is still an absolute mess.

  6. Krzysiek Ceran says:

    I think I like this title a lot more than the average commenter, but… yeah, this issue is a mess.

    And I really thought this book was coming together in the final issues of the first arc. But this goes right back to that early ‘what are they doing, why are they doing it and what exactly is happening?’ vibe.

    Come to think of it now, I excused the randomness of the first arc as applying dream logic that made sense for a story about magic (and which even included a few literal dream quests and visions).

    But that excuse no longer holds water as this story should be a straightforward monster hunt with a swerve due to Cullen’s demonic side. And the first issue sort of was that, but in this one it just… devolves into a mess. Cullen is a mess of entitled asshole, demonic possession victim and possible racist, except I have no idea which trait is supposed to be the dominant one – nor which trait is driving him in any given scene. And when you add them all together and jumble it up the result is just… randomness. Evil for evil’s sake, doing whatever because ‘eh, he’s crazy’.

    I did like the bit with him wrongly assuming common ground and understanding first with Betsy on account of their heritage and then with Rictor on account of their sexuality. There was something like a half-decent, half-baked idea for the character here. It’s a shame it got so muddled up with all the rest of the half-baked ideas.

    I’m not even going to try and untangle the ‘it’s okay to hunt the warwolves since they’re no longer talking except we save the puppy because it’s cute and killing a cute thing is more unthinkable than killing formerly sapient creatures’ …mess.

  7. Krzysiek Ceran says:

    Also, didn’t Gambit talk with the warwolf pretending to be a human girl in the previous issue? As in, didn’t we see a warwolf talk in the very story that tells us the warwolves lost that ability?

  8. YLu says:

    A Warwolf also talks to Betsy as it tries to eat her. Though Apocalypse’s grimoire only says the warwolves’ speech ability diminished, not that it completely disappeared.

    In any case, I think the characters being willing to kill them is less about any degeneration and more about the story operating on fantasy genre rules, with the Warwolves in a vampire/demon-type role.

  9. Krzysiek Ceran says:

    I get that, but then drawing attention to their intelligence kind of undermines that. For me, at least.

    (I’m also not a fan of superheroes killing vampires, demons and destroying robots without remorse because they’re not human – and it’s especially grating in x-books – but that ship has long sailed).

  10. Jerry Ray says:

    I was always a fan of Betsy back in the “purple hooded cloak” days, and was sad to see that look go away in favor of Ninja Psylocke for the last 20 years or whatever. I’m not loving the depiction of Betsy in this book, though – something just looks consistently off about her face to me.

  11. neutrino says:

    Shouldn’t Excalibur be considered the villains at this point, with Betsy the equivalent of Oswald Mosely in helping the invader of Otherworld?

  12. CJ says:

    I was and am still completely confused about Rogue’s role in the finale. I reread it a couple of times and gave up.

    The puppy situation was ridiculous, but then again, the whole “kill all the Warwolves for…reasons, mwahaha” also is ridiculous. Could we at least see what -|A|- was working on that was thwarted?

    I couldn’t tell if Rictor finding Betsy in a nightgown was supposed to be humorous or an indication that something was wrong, or a reaction against the sexy ninja persona she’s detached from, etc.

    The storytelling suffered for me when Betsy was standing in front of Rictor, arms propped against an enjambment, as if to say, “Where are you going, sexy?” Was that just me?

    I enjoyed the first arc; hopefully the next will be better.

  13. Evilgus says:

    At some point you have to wonder what the writer is asking for, and what the artists are delivering, and where the disconnect is. I’d really like to see the scripting here.

    I thought the scene with Betsy in the nightdress was interesting, purely as we’re used to seeing her in thongs or provacative underwear as soon as the occasion demands. Back to classic floaty dress Betsy? But again, the art didn’t quite sell it.

    And then just like that, Betsy changes her mind on no powers? Not very decisive.

    Given the Warwolves previous portrayal as sentient, semi-comedic/pathetic creatures, I really can’t get over our heroes hunting them. Then saving a baby having murdered the parents?! It’s gross.

    But I did enjoy the Betsy/Rachel exchange at the end.

  14. Joseph S. says:

    If ever there was a time to kill the Warwolves it was in the original story, in which they were literally murdering people left and right and trying to do the same to Kitty, Rachel and co. But Kurt and the rest of Excalibur locked them in a zoo instead. SO to take these admittedly blood thirsty villains out of prison to hunt and kill them is, no doubt, very strange. The baby, at least, is not only cute but innocent. The adults are well-documented killers, so there’s that line at least. Will the Baby Warwolf become something of a Kid Apocalypse, nature vs nurture story, or maybe become something of a Thori the Hellhound for comedic relief in Leah Williams and David Baldeon’s X-Factor? I can sort of run with that.

  15. Evilgus says:

    I guess it gives Rachel her own Lockheed type figure?

    What are people’s thoughts on the upcoming X-Factor? Be nice for Rachel to get some spotlight again. But given they are now trying to give her some kind of psychic fox power insignia/literal wolf pet, it feels like they are flailing again. I quite liked the Phoenix eye tattoo insignia she had for a while – but even that was a step away from the Hound face scarring. Hmm. I’m just not sure what Rachel’s voice is, anymore.

  16. Joseph S. says:

    I re-read Uncanny and Excalibur with Rachel last year and she never really worked better as a character than in Excalibur. She had some moments with time traveling Jean but really no one has known what to do with her.

    I like Leah Williams well enough and want to be optimistic about X-Factor. The premise is sound. But Rachel doesn’t really have any connection to those characters. She was a Starjammer with Polaris but no one is really pining for that era and I can’t recall any real interpersonal relationship between those characters. Guggenheim reconnecting her with Kurt didn’t go anywhere and wasn’t very interesting. Maybe Williams will be able to make this work. But I suspect she would work best in a book with Kate Pryde. Her familiar ties to the Grey-Summers clan has never been interesting so either put her back together with Pryde or just write her out and let her be Mother Askani in the future, off panel.

  17. Moo says:

    Rachel doesn’t seem to fare too well during these periods when Jean wants to stick around and be alive, does she?

    I think they ought to just retire the character for good, or at the very least, stick her in a case that reads:

    “In case of “Jean dies again” break glass”

  18. JCG says:

    Rachel lost her purpose as a character a long time ago, but she sticks around because she’s relatively popular. Always good to have a cache of such characters when there’s a minimum quota of books to publish.

  19. Karl_H says:

    I really like Howard’s use of obscure characters from past continuity. I just wish it were accompanied by a better sense of who those characters *are*. (And clearer plotting.)

  20. Luis Dantas says:

    Most X-Characters these days are fairly abstract and directionless.

    That sort of comes with the territory when they have around forty years of history and not much in the way of lasting achievement or closure.

    If anything, that is more true of the most popular characters, who for all practical purposes enjoy (or suffer from) editorial protection from meaningful change.

    It is really a no-win situation.

    On the other hand, second-tier characters such as Betsy Braddock or Warpath often seem to have little consistency, as their motivations and characterization tend to be compartimentalized inside specific writers’ runs and are so often deliberately ignored going forward. There is a long, long list of characters who are technically still on the spotlight but seem to no longer remember what was once very important to them. Take for instance Jamie Maddrox, who does not even mention his wife anymore. Or Hope Summers, who has become a background character with no obvious goals, personality or purpose. Did we ever get some sort of resolution, follow-up or closure for her fairly recent issues with the previous Cable or with Scott?

    Come to think of it, there is definitely a downside to having such a large cast of characters.

  21. Dimitri says:

    @Luis

    Hmm. I find Betsy has been written very consistently for at least a decade, if not more: she’s the one who’s uncomfortable with her own penchant for violence deep inside.

    At the very least, it’s been practically every writer’s take on her since Rick Remender, and it’s even consistent with Claremont’s take in the eighties after she turned ninja, with over half her thought balloons suddenly in the vein of, “Why do I like to kick ass so much? How weird…”

    Really, it’s mostly during the Lobdell years that her character ended up in a rut. That romance with Warren and the Crimson Dawn stuff did nothing for me, at any rate.

    Come to think of it, even Joe Kelly’s take on her was related to the darkness inside, what with her literally holding evil incarnate (the Shadow King) inside her psyche. I imagine he would have played with that more, had the X-Office given him a chance.

    To your point, though, it is significant that, even if it has been consistent, that angle on her character doesn’t seem to necessarily stick in readers’ minds…

    For what it’s worth, I love it, though. I wouldn’t mind if writers went back to that post her getting her body back, but I suspect it’s a trait they’re going to transfer to Kwannon.

  22. ASV says:

    Are they still using the Marvel method these days? Much of this — the opening spread, the Rictor/Jubilee page — reads like the early Liefeld New Mutants issues where Simonson was clearly scripting to explain the unintelligible sequences in the art.

  23. ASV says:

    Also, if Rogue touches a deer, does she turn into a deer? Like, WTH is with the sequence where she’s just standing there in one panel, and in the next a full warwolf (not wearing Rogue’s clothes) is there in her place?

  24. Mikey says:

    I think the cloak she’s wearing is Warwolf skin.

    Which… is tremendously morbid. This book is a mess.

  25. YLu says:

    Right, Warwolves have the power to disguise themselves as people by wearing their skins. Rogue absorbed a Warwolf’s power, so now she can disguise herself as it by wearing its skin.

    Which reminds me, has anyone seen Alan Davis’ original design for the Warwolves? Apparently, Claremont meant for their default look to be wearing the skins of dead baby mutants they killed, instead of the silver, streamlined look we know. But Davis thought that was too much so he purposely sketched as grotesque a design for it as possible. As he hoped, it got Claremont to reject the concept.

    Man, imagine how much different this story would play if they’d kept it, though…

  26. Evilgus says:

    @YLu
    I didn’t know that fact about the creation of the Warwolves! Very gross.

    It makes me wish we could get a “behind the scenes” edition of classic Excalibur, with Claremont’s scripts and notes, and Davis’ sketches, alongside the final product. And interviews with editors and inkers and so on.

    Actually for any classic comic! But I guess most of sketches etc from long ago are now lost to the wind. I just muse in this as Davis’ website is a bit of a treasure trove of old concepts and sketches.

  27. Moo says:

    “…wearing the skins of dead baby mutants…”

    Okay, that’s undoubtedly the most disturbing idea I’ve ever read.

    Had that gone through, I can imagine either Alan Moore or Frank Miller reading it and thinking, “Jesus, Chris. Take it down a couple of notches.”

  28. wwk5d says:

    “At the very least, it’s been practically every writer’s take on her since Rick Remender, and it’s even consistent with Claremont’s take in the eighties after she turned ninja, with over half her thought balloons suddenly in the vein of, “Why do I like to kick ass so much? How weird…””

    Yeah, CC even had her making comments like that in his final issues of X-men vol. 2 in the early 90s.

    “I thought the scene with Betsy in the nightdress was interesting, purely as we’re used to seeing her in thongs or provacative underwear as soon as the occasion demands. Back to classic floaty dress Betsy? But again, the art didn’t quite sell it.”

    Even before she became a ninja, Marc Silvestri used to draw her in racy bedwear and had her posing nude once for Colossus. Granted, that was probably more of an artistic choice by Silvestri, as opposed to something CC suggested…

  29. Taibak says:

    FWIW, Betsy turning into a violent fighter was a logical progression for her character. Even before the Siege Perilous she was dreaming about becoming a warrior and wishing she wasn’t a liability in combat.

    Of course, why she had to wait until she was brainwashed instead of getting training from Wolverine is another story entirely.

  30. Voord 99 says:

    Alan Davis had a bit about how both of the Braddock twins’ combativeness was because they were descended from Otherworld warriors.

    Nice little retcon, linking Brian’s tendency to be characterized as “punch first, ask questions later” with Betsy’s new ninjaness. Particularly good in that it severed the idea that the turn in Betsy’s characterization was because of the bodyswap and so helped get away from rather racist stereotyping.

    Or would have helped – I don’t think anyone took much notice of it, unfortunately.

  31. Taibak says:

    Voord: With Brian, I just assumed that it was because for the longest time he was really bad at being a superhero.

  32. Voord 99 says:

    I think you can detect a subtle recalibration of Brian in Davis’s Excalibur. Claremont had gone *so* far in the direction of portraying the character as a hotheaded buffoon who served as a foil to show how much more mature and adult the other characters were.

    (And this is, of course, the general period when someone, I think Michael Higgins, doubled down on that by presenting Brian as an irresponsible alcoholic who seriously injured/killed (forget which) someone back when he was rooming with Spider-Man and had to learn from Peter the error of his ways.)

    Claremont’s take built on certain things in the Marvel UK period of Captain Britain, including things that Davis himself had had a hand in. But the context is different when Claremont does it, because (a) it’s a team book and (b) it’s an American product for an American audience portraying someone who is literally dressed up in the flag of another country. There is arguably a problem when you do that to “Captain Britain” when you would never for a moment tolerate an equivalent portrayal of “Captain America.”

    I think Paul Cornell’s response to that (https://www.cbr.com/super-spy-weekend-captain-britain/) went a bit far with all the we-shall-fight-them-on-the-beaches stuff. But I understand where his response was coming from, and I think you can detect a similar but much subtler response in Davis’s Excalibur.

  33. Joseph S. says:

    https://images.app.goo.gl/DSB8mfJos24kx2Gw5

    https://images.app.goo.gl/KZ8Debq2HYpztE598

    There are hints of the original Warwolves here and there no? When they aren’t wearing the skins they appear like a floppy skin suit. Surreal and terrifying.

    Re: Betsy’s cavalier attitude towards nudity, it seems more plausible to me having been introduced to British TV series Naked Attraction.

  34. neutrino says:

    Cullen Bloodstone may be a gay man, but he’s a white gay man, who are the white straight men of the gay community. That probably accounts for his portrayal here.

    Given Apocalypse’s intent of taking over magic and his actions in conquering Avalon, putting a mad king on the throne, with Excalibur doing his bidding, could anyone blame Coven Akkaba for trying to find non-mutant allies against him?

  35. Alan L says:

    This book is the most interesting one of the new launch for me in terms of what’s actually happening in the story, but it would still be great to have more clarity from the title, so that even if a little convolution remains, it’s easier to make it through without having to pay so much attention to the inconsistencies. Earlier someone here suggested this book could use some of the Claremont-style over-narration from the old days, I think suggesting bringing back narration boxes and thought balloons, and that could really make this series work for me. We definitely need more explanation of character’s motivations and even just clearer delineation of what’s happening on-panel. But I think also the idea of Apocalypse the magician has to start to mean something pretty soon, or else the jig is up. Like others here, I liked the magical thinking that seemed to drive the initial story arc. At some point we need some clarity, though––the feeling of our feet on the ground. And though it was nice in the first arc to feel like some actual X-men were doing X-men-like things and acting a bit like the characters we know, the characterization appears especially iffy in this second story arc. I still don’t have much idea what it means to Betsy to be Captain Britain. It would be better if this was made an organic part of this second story, instead of it just being a jaunt placing a guest star front and center.

  36. wwk5d says:

    “Cullen Bloodstone may be a gay man, but he’s a white gay man, who are the white straight men of the gay community.”

    Um…what?

  37. neutrino says:

    They’re accused of having privilege, like Pete Buttigieg was. That’s why he can be the antagonist. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-queer-opposition-to-pete-buttigieg-explained

  38. Krzysiek Ceran says:

    Going back to Apocalypse as a mage – I thought it was a completely new direction for the character, but recently I’ve seen someone pointing out that the ritual thingie he was attempting in The Twelve story arc was basically magic – or at least ‘more magic than science’. I’m not sure if I ever read the whole thing, and what I read of The Twelve was years ago, so I can’t really comment either way. Is there something here, if one wanted to point to established continuity and argue that the magic was there all along?

  39. Karl_H says:

    “Are they still using the Marvel method these days? Much of this — the opening spread, the Rictor/Jubilee page — reads like the early Liefeld New Mutants issues where Simonson was clearly scripting to explain the unintelligible sequences in the art.”

    If so, then it was done badly. I still don’t know if KYEWWW is the sound of Cullen being struck by what I have to guess is Gambit’s projectiles(?) or Betsy flying…?

  40. Si says:

    “I think you can detect a subtle recalibration of Brian in Davis’s Excalibur.”

    Subtle. Possibly the first issue of Davis writing had a scene of Roma explaining that Merlin had put a spell on Captain Britain to make him a buffoon, but it was gone now.

  41. wwk5d says:

    @neutrino

    Note sure what being white had to do with any of that, it seemed more along the lines of where one falls on the gay spectrum…

  42. Voord 99 says:

    @Si: Well, subtle as compared to Paul Cornell, anyway. Davis’s Brian didn’t smell like honey and make grown men weep at the sight of him.

  43. Taibak says:

    Voord: But I did like Cornell’s line that Brian has whatever accent people think he should have.

  44. Dave says:

    “…the ritual thingie he was attempting in The Twelve story arc was basically magic”

    I think it was more a case that it was so vague and unexplained that it might as well have been magic (as is often the case with superpowers generally).

    My main impression on reading this story was that I’d read the same issue twice – the ‘moral dilemma’ was repeated, the falling out with Cullen was repeated, the actual hunt was repeated, pretty much everything.

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