So, Excalibur #1, where to begin? My first thought was: captions. Ugly captions too booth. And there are quite a lot of them. I can understand the frequent use of them in more abstract comics such as Kabuki, but this isn’t one of those. Sure, it’s more introspective than the X-titles usually get, but there’s just to damn many captions in the beginning. It doesn’t help new readers because they’ll be bored shitless and it won’t help old readers since a whole lot of it is basically a “previously on” disguised as a internal narrative. I can’t help but thinking that Chris Claremont should know better.

But if you for a moment ignore the caption-overdose in the beginning, it is pretty clear that it has potential to be pretty good. The plot device with the ghosts works far better than the captions, especially since the ghosts seem to be a pretty normal thing in new Genosha. The scavengers—with their amusing usage of lines such as “our lord Magneto”—also fits nicely into the new order of the island. Brutes with far too little brains, but that’s pretty obvious due to who they consider to be their holy leader.

Claremont seems to still have a knack for new characters—I assume they’re new—with Wicked and Freakshow. I liked Freakshow as he can eat people. Another good thing is how Xavier is presented here. Just because he’s in a wheelchair doesn’t mean that he’s defenceless or incapable. Even though he’s alone and has to struggle through the landscape as the electronics have broken down all other forms of transportation, he still does it with out whining.

Then came the ending. It stinks. It’s wrong. It’s… fuck. The last page and two panels on the one before were so erroneous on so many levels that I just want to scream. Unless Chris Claremont has a very good explanation lined up, he’ll need a good spanking and a visit from nice lads who say thing such as “I like the place, would be a shame if it burnt down, wonnit?” But that said, the majority of the comic was good. I enjoyed the characters and liked the distance and difference between all other X-titles. If they can keep them separate without crossovers, it just might work.

I still can’t figure out why they choose to call it “Excalibur”. Sure, it might be some lame metaphor about how the island will rise above the surface just like the lady of the lake presented Excalibur to King Arthur. But that would just be silly and stupid.

Comments

1. I hope they don’t say something like that’s Joseph from back in the Scott Lobdell days or something.
   — Shane Bailey    (@ 25. May 2004, 20:33)
2. Shane: I don’t think you have to worry about that, since Joseph died.
   
   Oh, wait…
   — Boo    (@ 25. May 2004, 20:42)
3. Shane: the sick sick part of my brain wishes that he’s a zombie. But yeah, bring back Joseph would be one of the most stupid things they could do—and there’s a whole lot of stupid possibilities here.
   — Nicklas    (@ 25. May 2004, 21:19)

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