Excalibuddies: Excalibur #2

As the team begins to explore the mystical world around them in Excalibur #2, by Tini Howard, Marcus To, and Erick Arciniega, they are quickly faced with forces beyond their control. Mythical creatures, waring wizards, and fantastical structures abound as they journey to The Lighthouse.

Charlie Davis: You know, Nola. I think sometimes the universe, for all its good or bad, sometimes just makes an executive decision about what you do and do not need in your life at the moment. A cosmic, and perhaps mystical entity has cursed me with a book as good as Excalibur #2 and yet…RICTOR IS STILL NOT HERE. This is like being on a really nice vacation, but you still haven’t gotten to go to the pool and have a cocktail yet.

Nola Pfau That must’ve been an…earth-shaking realization for you. [Ed. note: wow]

I agree though, it’s interesting to me that he hasn’t shown up yet! We know he’s coming, so I can only assume the fact that he hasn’t appeared by this point means that the creative team is out to specifically mess with you. We did get a lot in this issue, though, so shall we dive right in?

Team Building Exercise

CD: We shall! I’ll put my imagined slights behind me. What an issue! Now I feel like some people got lost in the magic and backstory last issue, but Tini did say this book was about magic and boy is it about magic. This issue has a haunted feeling around the edges of it. Last time we saw plants engulf Rouge, and Betsy take on the mantle of Captain Britain. We pick up kind of where we left off and what do you know…it’s Captain Kate Pryde!

If there is one huge thing I can appreciate about this new status quo it’s that everything is blending together. We live in one world now and we don’t have to worry about that random X-Book that’s sitting out on the fringes. Betsy talks about the lighthouse and Kate really seems fixated on being in a hot tube with her. Gambit’s the only one not having a good time and I don’t blame him.

NP: Gambit was really interesting to me! One of the more nuanced sides of his character as it’s been portrayed throughout the years is that while he plays lighthearted, he’s generally very serious about the things that matter. When he’s joking around in what might be inappropriate situations, it’s usually an intentional mood, to keep the team from getting too dragged down in the misery of it. I loved seeing that come off, I loved seeing him truly off-balance for a change. It really anchors how important Rogue is to him and how much he’s come to care for her. These are the kind of deep feelings I need in a good X-Men book, and I love that we’re getting it here.

CD: The moodiness sinks right in and it’s so interesting to see everyone kind of move around him. Betsy is worried about Brian but, like always, she’s focused on the path ahead. Remy has nothing to think about other than what’s happened to Rogue and it’s such a visceral and realized emotional state for a character, as you said, that’s usually here to quip and cheer us all up.

If we knew nothing of the books going forward, I’d say it really seems like the gangs all here. Team hierarchy is getting a bit fleshed out and so are our main cast of characters. Betsy is frustrated but pushing ahead, Remy is worried and itching to take it out on people, and Jubilee who seems to have just been taken along for the ride, is worried about Shogo. I would be too if I’d just gotten back from a dystopia that made me forget about my kid ever existed. I still see you Nate Grey. [Ed. note: See Age Of X-Men: X-Tremists for details.]

NP: I was also fascinated by how Kate Pryde was handled here. Thus far we’ve really only seen her in Marauders and while I’ve been very interested in her spiral there, I liked how she seemed to compensate for Gambit’s moroseness by being extra flippant and cheerful. It read as a very unnatural thing, not just like it was forced for the mood, but like she was putting on extra effort to convince everyone she’s fine, really. She’s totally fine. Honest. [Ed. note: Seriously, she’s fine everyone!]

There’s one other character though, who deserves a little attention. •┤Ȧ├• gets a whole little personal monologue, and that’s above and beyond appearing in Jubilee’s and Captain Britain’s nightmares and his own personal Skurge-at-Gjallerbru moment [Ed. note: Don’t worry, it goes better for him, because, well…he’s •┤Ȧ├•]. Despite his lack of involved interaction with most of the crew, this issue did a lot to kind of seed why he’s here.

CD: I am still astonished by •┤Ȧ├• here. Just in general. It seems like people have been attempting to make him relevant for at least a decade if not longer and suddenly someone has the secret formula. Tini treats him as mythical and dammit it WORKS. I’ve seen some people ask when •┤Ȧ├• suddenly became magical, but hasn’t he kind of been all along? He’s been an ancient space wizard from the start of this. Nothing new to see here. All magicians are from space. I think •┤Ȧ├• could warrant his own write up, so let’s sail on past him and his large hammer. To the lighthouse!

NP: Yeah, the Akkaba cult has existed since 1996, over a couple of decades! But..we’ll get to that. To the lighthouse!

The Lighthouse

The team’s arrival to the site of the ancestral Braddock castle proves…not as fruitful as expected. The castle’s gone, because someone burned it down. I do wish the art had better reflected that here; I live in a generally pretty similar climate to the UK and while new growth can spring back pretty fast, the evidence of a fire lasts a long time. I see things that might be rubble here, but nothing really indicative of the type of fire that takes out a whole structure. Also, are there no fire services there? Did no one give the Braddocks a call? Sure, Brian’s incapacitated and phones on Krakoa are probably spotty, but surely Meggan could’ve passed a message! [Ed. note: 90% of the X-Men’s problems would be fixed if they picked up a phone.]

I’m digressing. It’s a minor thing; the castle is cleared for the convenience of, as we spoiled, a new lighthouse. This one is less “interdimensional nexus” and more “linked to an alternate dimension that mutants live in…” okay, maybe it’s not that different. Hope no one blows it up.

CD: I really hope no one blows it up considering Rogue has found a home at the tippy top. Remy even brings this concern up and if my wife became part of the architecture of a magical building I’d be just as cross as he is. Now I haven’t read much OG Excalibur, but we get an interesting diagram here. The original lighthouse existed as a nexus, but I’ll admit I couldn’t make heads or tails of this chart. I think the data pages in Excalibur are some of the best ones across the whole of DOX and even if I didn’t get this one I don’t think I was supposed to. It’s like reading the torn out pages of a spell book and I’m so fascinated by it. How did you fare with this page?

NP: I have some thoughts here. The diagram is interesting because it’s labeled at the header as “from the grimoire of •┤Ȧ├•”, which does make me curious about when the document was created. The diagram includes the Krakoan gate and Krakoan text, so was this put together after the lighthouse was created, and we just happen to be seeing it in the middle of the story? Or did •┤Ȧ├• already have plans to create a new lighthouse? Can he control the shape and structure of Krakoan gates? Also, did the location matter? Folkloric magic often uses concepts like leylines which require rituals to be done at specific sites where the magic is strongest. The Braddock castle was burned by an agent of Morgan Le Fay, but that doesn’t necessarily preclude •┤Ȧ├• being involved, given the schemer he is—was this site cleared for the sake of whatever ritual is planned with the lighthouse?

Regardless, the structure appears to act as a focusing lens for something powerful, we don’t know what yet, but the footnote at the bottom specifically references the two mutants •┤Ȧ├• watched die in his monologue, twins with the power to never be lost. The remains of those twins apparently formed crystalline structures imbued with their power, and presumably, a pair of mutant-powered direction-finding crystals would probably be pretty useful in a spell big enough to use an entire lighthouse as a focusing lens.

Now, the Krakoan text here seems pretty straight-forward; the text in the oval transliterates to “GATE”, which presumably refers to the Krakoan gate. Since that gate is less the garden variety and more the “interdimensional portal” type, that makes me wonder if •┤Ȧ├• is planning some sort of ritual to expand the lighthouse’s portal’s ability to transport, using the direction-finding crystals in the footnote. The other two lines, under Focus I and II transliterate to “NADIR” and “PINNACLE” respectively, in other words, low and high points of power. The short version is there’s a lot of mystical stuff going on here.

Mystical Stuff Going On Here

CD: •┤Ȧ├• really seems like the puppet master pulling quite a few strings around these parts. After recontextualizing the data page, we are less stumbling across these pages and more being lead down a path. I have to commend Tini on this. It’s all the mystery of finding something you’re not supposed to have found and yet…its all calling to you. Just like it’s calling out to Betsy and just like encroachment of those blue flowers that have engulfed Rogue.

I haven’t gotten a chance to call it out yet, but I love what Marcus To brings to the book. It’s a clean style and he can nail the starkness that some of these scenes need to work. It really is like I’m reading a high fantasy novel with illustrations included. I remembered at this point that the last time we saw Morgan she was talking about her battle with “The White Witch.” I can’t help but think back to our summoner friend we met in X-Men #2. [Ed. note: Which you can read about here.]

Anyway, I’m sure that’s not relevant at all or connected to Otherworld or portals to less habitable twin islands or anything. Oh well. Hey Nola? Wanna talk about a dragon?

NP: SHOGO IS A DRAGON. This is so weird to me, in the best way! There has, up till now, been no indication that Shogo was anything other than a baseline human; no x-gene, he gets to live on Krakoa because Jubliee is his mom. The way it happens is; the team enters Otherworld, with Shogo in Jubilee’s arms, and as they come out the other side of the portal, he’s suddenly…not there. The last page stinger is a giant black dragon saying “shoooooogoooo?” (I counted the o’s) as tendrils of green flame trail from its maw.

There’s not a lot else to say about it, because it’s our last page stinger, but the choice of dragon here is interesting to me; it very specifically resembles the dragon that Malificent turns into at the end of Sleeping Beauty. I don’t know if that little bit of trivia has any story significance, but it is a fun little easter egg, and it certainly falls within what modern audiences identify as traditional European folklore. For me, it also is one of the most traditionally Excalibur moments of the book, because boy were surprise transformations a thing back in the day!

CD: Oh man I’m sure glad you caught that one too. That’s exactly what it reminded me of too which means it was directly called to. At the end of this issue we are left with a Shogo Dragon, a terrified Jubilee and everyone else except •┤Ȧ├• and Rogue in Otherworld. I know it’s my thing, but I am really interested with how Ric fits into all of this. The line up is already filled out. Where and how does he come into play? Does his ass just wander in? Or is it going to be something far more grand. I’m truly hoping for the latter. [Ed. note: There is no way he doesn’t stumble into being a wizard.]

NP: We’re left with all of that, but we’re also left with two more things: one, Jubilee and Gambit get some sweet Otherworld specific costumes, and two, the final data page is a translated druid lullaby, apparently from the fourth century B.C.E. There are two things that really grab me about this; one, the lack of a rhyme structure speaks to its translated nature, because rhymes in other languages often don’t have direct translations. I like this sort of detail; it’s a fictional document and it’s not the sort of thing that had to happen, but it did. Second, it appears to specifically be about Shogo? Given its stated age, that implies there is a hint of prophecy about all this and that is so my jam. TINI. MARCUS. ALL OF YOU. GIVE ME MORE.

CD: I feel as though we are on the cusp of a change. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost—PLEASE SOMEONE JUST TELL ME RIC’S EXISTENCE IN THIS BOOK ISN’T JUST AN ELABORATE FEVER DREAM I COOKED UP. Nola. I think I need a nap.

NP: Speaking of naps, Jubilee’s gonna have a rough time getting her kid to settle down now. Oof.

X-Traneous Thoughts

The implication that •┤Ȧ├• started this war with Otherworld has me going full Pepe Silvia.
I LOVE FIRE DOG.
INVISIBLE DRUIDS!
How flipping handsome is Betsy as Captain Britain? Don’t answer that, it’s rhetorical
Kate is really invested in both smooching women and hot tubs in this issue. Mood.
Can’t wait for Rictor to walk into this book with both fingers raised. Everyone is more or less so pleasant. I’m happy my jerk is finally gonna show up.
I love doting husband Gambit. Maybe he can FINALLY shake off the creep moniker everyone gives him.
The Krakoan teaser: Slay The Dragon
Wanna know what the X-Men’s pirates are doing this week? Check out the latest installment of MaREADers!

Charlie Davis is the world’s premier Shatterstarologist, writer and co-host of The Young Ones.

Nola Pfau is Editor-in-Chief of WWAC and generally a bad influence.