Welcome to the third installment of I WANT MORE, a new fanfic review feature.
Today's offering is EXCALIBUR #1-3 at ALTERED VISIONS, written by Gary Jones (script) and Doug Bookey (plot). Find it at http://www.alteredvisions.org/titles/excalibur/index.html
Back in the day, when I first started getting REALLY into collecting comics (as opposed to just buying one here or there) I was a big-time Marvel-zombie X-worshipper. (I'm sure many of you may have started out the same way.) I got onboard just before things went totally crazy with the proliferation of X-titles, and as a starry-eyed youth I actually thought it was cool that Marvel jumped from only X-Men and New Mutants to X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Force, X-Factor and, of
course, Excalibur. I sampled them all, and I liked the idea of Excalibur, even though I never followed the title regularly.
Fortunately, this is not a problem for the reader jumping into Mssrs. Jones and Bookey's version of Excalibur at Altered Visions. There are a few familiar faces I remembered well: Captain Britain, Meggan and Roma, as well as Rachel Summers. Kitty and Kurt have, presumably, moved on to greener pastures, but in their stead are a couple of X-Men whom I've always dug but who seem tragically underutilized: Sunfire and Forge. The cast is rounded out by some additional mutants: Mikhail Rasputin, Joseph Lensherr and Martinique Jason. Those three come from an X-era which I was most definitely not a part of, but again, this is not a problem. Gary and Doug do a good job explaining who these mutants are and what they're all about.
Issue #1 sees Roma, in her home as ruler of Otherworld, becoming aware of a grave threat to all existence. I love starting out a series with the stakes high! Roma recruits Captain Britain to save
the day, and Captain Britain begins recruiting others. We get a nice perspective on what it all means to Brian, and we also get to see Joseph Lensherr (a young, powerful clone of Magneto for those of you unfamiliar) living his own life half a world away. Not much happens in the first issue, but the characterization is more than enough to carry things along.
Issue #2 finishes up the recruitment drive, and there are a few brushes with Marvel Misunderstanding but by and large it's more strong character development. The team dynamics begin to take shape and are fairly complex. Captain Britain christens the team "Excalibur" and they depart on their reality-in-the-balance mission. The big bad guy, who I did NOT see coming, reveals himself at issue's end.
Issue #3 resolves the first story-arc, with the threat to reality dealt with. Yeah, sorry, spoiler alert: the world does NOT end. But even if you assumed that for yourself, it's still a gripping yarn not
for whether-or-not the good guys save the day, but HOW they do it. (Hint: it's not just by pounding on the bad guy until the bad guy passes out from pain and blood loss.) By the end of the issue some hints have been dropped that the team will need to stay together even though the immediate crisis has been dealt with.
I really enjoyed watching this unique team work together, getting inside all of their heads, and I've always loved the over-the-top cosmic storylines involving Roma, the Captain Britain Corps, Opal
Luna-Saturnyne (she shows up in issue #2) and so on which seem to be one of the cornerstones of this take on Excalibur. So even though this is a complete story-arc, I still feel a sense of frustration that there isn't an issue four yet. I desperately want to see what happens to the team NEXT.
Currently, Excalibur is listed under the "Idle Titles" at Altered Visions, and I'm not sure exactly what that means. I hope it means that it's possible there will be more Excalibur some day. At the end of issue #3 Doug posted a note saying that Gary would be staying on as scripter and that the title would be continuing. Don't disappoint me by going back on your word, gents ... I WANT MORE!!!