RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Dumpster Diving V:Excalibur

All right. Work is really boring tonight, so time for another patented dumpster dive.

This week is two different but similar books I picked up at Wizard World Chicago last month. They were a buck each, instead of a quarter, but still a bargain compared to their original price. Both books are Excalibur prestige format books, but neither are the original one by Chris Claremont and Alan Davis.



The first one is Excalibur: Mojo Mayhem by Chris Claremont and Art Adams from 1989 and the other one is Excalibur: Air Apparent by Scott Lobdell and whoever was available that month to draw a dozen pages or so. This second one was from 1991. Quite a difference in quality between the two.

I never really got into Excalibur when it was first published. I bought the original GN or prestige format book and probably the first year or so when Claremont and Davis worked on it, but I just never really got it. I had been a big X-Men junkie at one time and Marvel was trying to sell Excalibur as being a light-hearted alternative to the other angst-ridden X books. It just didn’t work for me, even though it had my favorite character, Nightcrawler in it. The regular X-Men book was sagging with crossovers every few months screwing it up (Fall of the Mutants, Inferno etc.) When Claremont “killed off” the X-Men so that they could work in secret out of Australia, I completely lost interest in the book. It pretty much floundered till Jim Lee came on a few years later. New Mutants was never my thing. I thought Claremont recycled too many old X-Men plots and Louis Simonson’s stuff was just boring. Around this time was when Rob Liefeld first popped up too. X-Factor was okay, as long as Walt Simonson drew it, but once he faded out, so did the book. The stuff in Wolverine’s solo book was uneven at best, and I never did understand that whole Patch shit.

Digression time. When Chris Claremont originally left X-Men, I figured it was about time. Even though his work with Jim Lee seemed to reinvigorate him, I was more than happy to see him move on. Stories had dragged on for years with no end in sight, and it seemed that Claremont just milked storylines in an attempt to keep people coming back. It wasn’t until about two years after Claremont left that I realized just how much I missed his work. When he came back a few years ago around the same time as the X-Men movie, I ate it alive. Even though the stories were even more confusing than they had been before, the dialogue and pacing were still light years ahead of what they had been when he was gone. I actually really enjoyed his run on X-treme X-Men, and it became one of my favorite reads every month. His new work on Uncanny X-Men is still pretty good. Blows Chuck Austin out of the water. End digression.

Anyways, getting back into the gist of the thread. The differences in quality between the two books this week. The Mojo Mayhem book is a continuation of Claremont and Adams’ work with the X-Babies and characters from Longshot’s world. Art Adams first broke in to the business drawing the Longshot mini-series written by Ann Nocenti, and he immediately made a splash. From there on out, he’s been pretty much able to pick and choose what he wants to work on, usually just short stints on books, mini-series or one-shots and annuals. During the late eighties, Claremont and Adams did quite a few books together, including a couple of one-shots and annuals that all tied in together. Something to do with Asgardians and the X-Men and New Mutants crossing over. They were pretty good. Claremont and Adams followed those up with an annual featuring versions of the X-Men regressed to toddler age by Mojo (the main baddie from the Longshot mini.) The original story was kinda cute, but once was more than enough. Claremont never could leave things alone. The X-Babies appeared quite a few more times, this time as doppelgangers that were created to replace the original regressed versions in the Mojoverse. This isn’t really an Excalibur book, more of Kitty Pryde and The X-Babies. The other Excalibur characters don’t even appear until the last few pages. The story revolves around the X-Babies trying to escape from the Mojoverse and Kitty Pryde trying to protect them all the while teaching them life lessons and listening to them saying cute kiddie stuff. There’s something about a royal wedding too, but it’s all pretty irrelevant. I guess the book wasn’t too bad, at least it was pretty to look at. And the other book really proved my theory of “you don’t really appreciate Chris Claremont until he’s gone…”



Excalibur: Air Apparent. Just bad. Really really bad. Even though I only paid $1 for this book, I feel like writing Marvel and demanding the full $4.95 back for this piece of shit. The book is written by Scott Lobdell, with different chapters drawn by: Brian Stelfreeze & Karl Story, Dwayne Turner and Klaus Janson, Jackson Guice and Tom Palmer, Rick Leonardi and Joe Rubinstein, Erik Larson, and James Fry and Don Hudson, all wrapped up in a framing sequence by Ron Lim and Al Gordon. As you can tell by the lengthy list of creators, it seems to be a book that was thrown together at the last minute to fill a hole in a schedule. As a matter of fact, if this book had been published a few years earlier, I doubt it would even have been published as an annual or fill-in. Yeah, it’s that bad.

The story is a convoluted mess. Something to do with somebody trying to discern the secret of eternal life out of one of Galactus’ old heralds (Air-Walker.) Each chapter features a different art team following a different character, who all coincidently, have to go follow different paths to find the bad guys. The Guice pages which feature Meggan don’t look too bad, but it’s probably just because I love the way Guice draws women. Unfortunately, it’s also the worst written section, featuring a cyborg named Coldblood who is essentially a white version of Deathlok. Might as well just use the original, but I’m sure Lobdell thought this was a perfect opportunity to spin him off into his own lame series.

I’m kinda surprised that this book was this bad. I know that Marvel had quality control issues during the early nineties (see my DD on Force Works #1), but it’s amazing that something this bad actually got the prestige format treatment. I know Scott Lobdell can do better. His run on X-Men, while not the greatest stuff in the world, shows that he can at least write well-rounded characters. This has nothing redeeming about it at all. Even the Walt Simonson cover is kind of weak, compared to his usual standards. Considering the fact that this book shipped only two years after the Claremont/Adams one, I’m surprised how quickly Marvel’s standards slipped so low.

I still think Excalibur was essentially a lame concept and books like this just back up my point of view. Even though there might have been a couple of highlights in the series run (any time Alan Davis works on a book, you have to consider it a highlight), this book never really added anything meaningful to the mix. Of course, you could probably say that about just about every X-Man spin-off book. Ah, for the days of just Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants…

Next time!

Very interesting!

I paid full price for these 2.........

I liked the initial concept but it I think my main enjoyment from the original series was the Davis art.

I loved Phoenix mullet!

I remember being frustrated with the existence of Excalibur as a kid. I always thought poor Colossus, Nightcrawler, and, to a lesser extent, Kitty Pryde were cut off from the X-Men and stuff and should go back.

I loved the Claremont/Davis run of Excalibur, as well as Davis' solo run on the title. I enjoyed the humor, characterization, and overall tone of the book. The Claremont/Adams story was just fun, back when comics were allowed to be fun and people actually were clamoring to see more X-Babies (these sequels didn't just appear in a vacuum). The second story, I think, came in after I'd dropped the title due to financial constraints, so I didn't see it. But I have no desire to read ANYTHING Lobdell writes (he's the reason I dropped pretty-much ALL the X-books back then), and I hate Lim's and Larson's art, so I won't be trying to track this book down.

I just sold my only few Excalibur comics to someone (not that I ever had many), but I still have a copy of Mojo Mayhem signed by Art Adams. I used to love that comic.

Series had a few high spots...Some of Warren Ellis's stuff wasn't too bad. Readable at least...And, of course, the Alan Davis stuff. Otherwise, didn't really impress me...

The first 50 issues of the Excalibur series was one big storyline. The entire reason for the team's formation is addressed in that fiftieth issue. What I found incredibly impressive about that, was the fact that even the seemingly irrelevant issues of the series actually ended up all coming together to link with the main theme/plot of that initial 50-issue run. Good stuff. Plus, the early Alan Davis stuff was brilliant. I loved the true Brit-ness of their environment, especially the 'Weird Happenings Organization (WHO). Complete with their own Doctor Who-ish 'Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart'. LOVE that.

Post issue 50, I lost all interest. Not even Warren Ellis could save that book...

Mojo Mayhem, together with the New Mutants and X-men annuals which Rufie refers to, are collected in the Marvel Art Adams Masterworks book.

I paid full price for this one too (never heard of "Air-apparent", which was no doubt responsible for at least one kid failing a spelling test).

I recently re-read it. I have to say its not held its own over the years.