Excalibur #3 Preview

Excalibur #3

Writer: Tini Howard

Artist: Marcus To

Color Artist: Erick Arciniega

Cover by: Mahmud A. Asrar

The Story:

The Green Earth Trembles! The Hard Truth of the Captains Britain! Captain Britain must face the truth about her brother and choose her path forward as MI-13 and the agents of the crown become aware of her ascension. As the lighthouse grows, Apocalypse and Rictor must master the earth beneath their feet.

In Stores: December 4, 2019

X-Solicits for February 2020

	Excalibur #7 Tini Howard (W) • Wilton Santos (A) Cover by: Mahmud Asrar Gwen Stacy Variant Cover by: Ben Oliver The Huntsmen and The Warwolves! Excalibur faces an old foe - this time as the hunters rather than the game.
	X-Men #7 Jonathan Hickman (W) • Leinil Francis Yu (A/C) Gwen Stacy Variant Cover by: Mike Del Mundo Mutants are Forever! The Resurrection Protocols have changed everything for Mutantkind. NO MORE can humans’ hate and fear take their lives from them. But… what ELSE has it changed?
	Marauders #7 & #8 Gerry Duggan (W) • Stefano Caselli (A) Covers by: Russell Dauterman The Treasure of Island M! As Verendi’s plans against Krakoa grow, the Marauders find themselves missing something vital… something that brings Storm and the White Queen to blows. Artist Stefano Caselli (AVENGERS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN) joins the crew of the craziest X-series of them all!
	New Mutants #7 & #8 Issue #7 – Jonathan Hickman (W) • Rod Reis (A) Issue #8 – Ed Brisson (W) • Marco Failla (A) Covers by: Rod Reis Deep in Shi’Ar space, the New Mutants have found themselves dead in the middle of an intergalactic power struggle. They’re probably equipped to handle that, right? And back on Earth, the young mutants of Krakoa look forward to the future...whatever it may hold.
	X-Force #7 & #8 Benjamin Percy (W) • Joshua Cassara (A) Covers by: Dustin Weaver Miss Fortune Strikes! Domino’s luck seems to be changing… Can she find the source of her misfortune before it costs lives all over the world? And has Colossus healed enough to help her… or even himself?

Captain Britain by Todd Nauck

Excalibur #2 Art

Excalibur #2 Spoilers

Spoilers: 4th Century B.C.E. – Apocalypse is drawn to mutant twins in the English Channel.

Present – Captain Kate Pryde takes Captain Britain, Gambit, Jubilee and an unconscious Rogue aboard her ship on their way to the Braddock Lighthouse. Betsy intends to set up a Krakoan gate there as it was the seat of power of Excalibur for so long. The ship is attacked by the mythical Selkies. Betsy orders Kate to leave while she lures the Selkies away from the boat. Captain Britain, Gambit and Jubilee reach the Lighthouse site, with Betsy using her telekinesis to bring Rogue as well. They realize the lighthouse was destroyed. As the night falls, the three X-Men come across cloaked druids, but only Betsy is able to see them. One of the druids calls Betsy a ‘seer’ and shows her through a vision that Marianna Stern and Coven Akkaba have burned the lighthouse to the ground. The druids grant permission for the earth to bear the fruit of Krakoa, and so Krakoa grows a new lighthouse in place of the old one, with Rogue at the top acting as its beacon. While Gambit grows increasingly concerned about Rogue, and Jubilee about Shogo, the three of them decide to call it a night and get some sleep. Jubilee has a strange nightmare about Apocalypse taunting Shogo for being human. Meanwhile, Betsy dreams about a fiery wolf who brings her to an altar to Apocalypse that warns “He will use us. We can use him.” Jubilee uses the gates to bring Shogo to the lighthouse, while all three X-Men regroup. The druids return claiming to recognize Betsy’s title as Captain Britain and warning about their enemies of Coven Akkaba, who threaten the health of their lands. The Coven attacks the lighthouse, and a battles ensues. Apocalypse contacts Betsy telepathically and reveals that Coven Akkaba are former followers of his whom he abandoned because they thought themselves too superior. It is suggested that Apocalypse planted the gate in Morgan Le Fay’s castle so that a mutant could become the new Captain Britain, in turn claiming Britain and Otherworld as part of Krakoa. Apocalypse warns Betsy to return to Otherworld before it is too late to save Brian, while he and Rogue stay behind to defend the lighthouse. Gambit doesn’t want to leave Rogue, but Betsy convinces him to. Apocalypse volunteers to watch over Shogo, but Jubilee decides to take him to Otherworld as well. Captain Britain teleports Jubilee and Gambit to Otherworld. The three of them don high-fantasy versions of their costumes and immediately notice Shogo is missing. In his place, a fire-breathing Dragon appears.

Excalibur #1 2nd Printing Variant Cover by Giuseppe Camuncoli

Captain Britain by R.B. Silva

Excalibur #2 Preview

Excalibur #2

Writer: Tini Howard

Artist: Marcus To

Color Artist: Erick Arciniega

Cover by: Mahmud A. Asrar

The Story:

Betsy Braddock is Captain Britain, but a citizen of Krakoa. With Rogue’s condition a mystery, the team heads to the one place that has always been the seat of Excalibur’s power - the Lighthouse.

In Stores: November 20, 2019

   

Fallen Angels #1 Spoilers & Art

Spoilers: While talking to Kwannon, Magneto reminds her that Betsy hates him and ran a psychic dagger through his body. Later, Betsy tries to approach Kwannon during the Krakoan festivities, but she doesn't want to talk.

Marcus To Previews 'Excalibur'

Captain Britain by Mahmud Asrar

Women of Marvel Goes Inside the Making of 'Excalibur': Part 1

Marvel.com: After the monumental shift in the X-World after House of X and Powers of X, there had to be an equally epic way to keep the story of the X-Men going. Last week's release of Excalibur #1, written by Tini Howard with art by Marcus To and colors by Erick Arciniega, proved that there was much more story to tell for Marvel's merry mutants. In the latest episode of Women of Marvel, Sana Amanat and Judy Stephens go inside the making of the new X-book with the first part of a tremendous two-parter that reveals how Marvel comics are made, from concept to final product.

In Part 1, they introduce Excalibur with Marvel Comics Editor-In-Chief CB Cebulski, then talk to Senior Editor Jordan D. White, writer Tini Howard, and artist Marcus To. In the gallery below, you can find pages from the issue featuring To's art (with Arciniega's colors). You can also get your copy of Excalibur #1 right now, online or at your local comic shop!

Why Tini and Marcus were the best fit for this series?

CB Cebulski: Tini and Marcus fit this book so well because if you look at other books that Tini has written before, they have a heavy magic bent to them and Excalibur was a book that always played in Otherworld, a separate world with Morgan Le Fay and more magical characters. That's what Tini wanted to explore. She was the perfect character to bring magic into this world of X-Men, and Jonathan felt very strong about that. She's also a huge tabletop game player and loves fantasy. She looked at the X-Men as a campaign that she was doing in a game and each of the mutants that she chose has an archetype from the fantasy world.

Marcus also loves that world. He has this lighter, open style and takes some cues from Japanese manga and classic fantasy art. He's able to visualize what Tini has in her head and put on paper and bring these characters to life in a way that's going to appeal to so many different people who might not like the X-Men, but like magic books, fantasy or young adult titles. This comic really came together as a mix of that in both story and art.

Where did the idea to bring back Excalibur come from?

Tini Howard: What became Excalibur started as a thought exercise. Jonathan Hickman sent a lot of documents and when I read it, it opened up all these questions in my mind. He said there was space for a book for me and asked what in this world spoke to me. I wrote an essay about mutant magic and the idea of mutants pursuing the next evolution. The pitch had a lot to do with magic, beliefs, home and culture and I brought it in to Jonathan and Jordan. They looked at each other and said "This sounds like an Excalibur book". I guess they were right! It's this amazing fantasy world that tied specifically to mutantkind.

What is Excalibur about?

Jordan D. White: At some point, we thought what makes a book Excalibur rather than just another X-Men book. One of the elements was the magical element and the fantasy element, the other being probably England and then a little bit more Captain Britain. Our Captain Britain in this book is a different Captain Britain.

Tini Howard: There are a lot of mutants in Excalibur that are not from the UK. But they're all Krakoan now. Betsy Braddock, formerly known as Psylocke, is called to defend one of her nations. When we first met her, she was this English telepath that the X-Men didn't really trust, and then she becomes part of the family. For a long time, she was in the body of a ninja called Kwannon and recently they were sort of amicably divorced. Kwannon is having her own adventures in Fallen Angels, and Betsy Braddock is taking up the mantle of Captain Britain. That was really exciting to me, making a new Captain Britain and giving her a hero's journey.

Jordan D. White: Tini, I think all but Betsy were your choices that you pitched originally, right?

Tini Howard: The original pitch was more like a statement and then we did a draft where we sat down with cards where we wrote the names of all the mutants we could use. I picked a lot of my cast because they were my favorites, also because they had a place on the team that makes sense to me. A lot of the book is about connection. For me, it was about looking for these characters that I thought had a connection in their lives that seemed right for the kind of exploration I wanted the characters to deal. We have the Braddocks, Rogue and Gambit, a married couple, Jubilee, who's a mother and has her son with her in a place that not a lot of humans go. These connections are a big part of the story.

What was your process to make the world of Excalibur come to life?

Marcus To: I like to read the script first and get the idea of what we want to do with it. I tried to look at what was done before by Alan Davis, some of the power signatures that each character has, what other artists had done with it, see what I could elaborate on what was already there. I looked up references for English mythology to give an idea of style, especially when we’re in other worlds and dream worlds, a lot of things that end up being very different from what we look at in other X-Books.

Jordan D. White: Your design for Captain Britain is great. It's a great combination of a suit of armor with a superhero costume. It doesn't go too far into suit of armor. It still looks like she can fly around and kick butt.

Tini Howard: I love a tough girl in armor. At the beginning, I was like 'Make her Joan of Arc! Make her big and tough!' But that's not really Betsy. Marcus did a really good job at looking at my references.

Jordan D. White: Two other details that I want to mention about the designs is that I love Gambit's little hood and I love Rictor's new costume because it's a callback to his earlier costumes, but it looks cool and modern.

How do u decide when it's time to redesign a character or to keep a classic look?

Jordan D. White: For the X-Line now, it's a mix between new looks and classic looks. For Excalibur in particular, because of that fantasy element, we pushed to redesign the characters a little bit to add that fantastic element. Gambit is a good example. There are some things about his costumes that you don’t want to change. The headsock, the jacket... the fact that he added this hood makes him look like a DnD character.

How is it writing something that is part of an event series?

Jordan D. White: The book itself spins out of House of X/Powers of X, which set up the status quo for mutants. We are doing as much as we can to keep the X-line cohesive. It stands on its own, but it also feels like it's connected to Marauders, X-men... in fact, there’s a Marauders cameo in issue #2.

Tini Howard: We've been taking time to build this world. When I want to use other characters from other books, it feels like less of a mandate and more like storytelling. When you need something shipped in this world, who would you call? The Marauders. If you need dirty jobs? You call the X-Force. This world feels real and lived in. I feel like I spent the past year of my life nation-building Krakoa.

The next big arc is really going to get big. We're going to touch on a lot of the new X-men universe. We're going to have a couple of really massive issues. If you're big into the mythos of what Jonathan is doing, you'll love it. Jonathan and I are working really close on that.

Fallen Angels #1 Preview

Captain Britain by R.B. Silva

Marcus To Previews 'Excalibur'

X-Babies by Todd Nauck

Marcus To Reveals Alternate Captain Britain Design

Marcus To revealed an additional design for Captain Britain. This is likely Betsy's Otherworld look as seen in previous preview pages for Excalibur #2, sans helmet.
What do you all think?