Spoilers: Dr. Doom visits the Braddock Lighthouse and requests passage to Otherworld through the Krakoan gateway. Doom hopes to use a Latverian mutant child to cross the gate and retrieve an item that belonged to Morgan Le Fay. After a brief discussion, Excalibur volunteers to guide Doom to Avalon instead. In Avalon, Meggan catches up with Excalibur while Doom leads them to the Valley of Wailing Mists. On their way to Castle Le Fay, an assassin from Sevalith engages in an assassination attempt, but his plans are foiled by Captain Britain. After the assassin disappears into the mist, Gambit remarks that relations between Avalon and Sevalith are tense these days. Meggan thinks it’s best to shapeshift into a brunette just in case. Doom is furious to learn that Castle Le Fay no longer stands on where it was supposed to. Meggan and Rictor use their powers and find out that the castle was magically taken away. Doom is enraged and demands to know the whereabouts of Morgan, Merlyn, Arthur and Mordred, Arthur’s son, while Jubilee learns from the fairies that someone took the castle to sell it in the Crooked Market.
Excalibur guides Doom to the Crooked Market. While Betsy and Doom seek an audience with Mad Jim Jaspers, Gambit takes Meggan, Jubilee and Rictor to a gambling den to have a little fun. Doom asks Jaspers for Morgan’s palace. Jaspers warns him that a box is all that was left of Morgan’s belongings. Jaspers and Doom aren’t able to reach a deal regarding the price and engage in an altercation, while Betsy is suspicious of Doom’s intentions. Suddenly, and army of Furies from the Everforge kingdom attacks Jaspers’ office specifically targeting Captain Britain and all “friends of Mordred”. Jaspers hands the box with Morgan’s belongings to Doom and tell them to leave.
Elsewhere, while Meggan, Jubilee and Rictor watch, Gambit gambles with a few locals and takes the opportunity to cheat using one of Saturnyne’s cards. While the locals reprimand him for being a thief, the place is also attacked by Furies. Excalibur flees from the Furies and ends up reuniting with Betsy and Doom. The Furies warn that they have sworn their allegiance to King Arthur and that all “friends of Mordred” must die. Captain Britain argues that attacking her is an attack against the Starlight Citadel itself and that the Furies have also sworn to abide by the Citadel’s laws. After a brief battle, the Furies decide to leave to discuss the conflicting programming with the Fury leader, Forgemaster Federal.
Back on Earth, Doom sends a letter to Betsy warning that the box from Jaspers contained a shrunken Castle Le Fay. As a token of appreciation, Doom sends the Waters of Otherworld from Morgan’s scrying pool to Betsy in the hope she is able to obtain answers regarding Arthur and Mordred. Betsy asks for Meggan’s help and Gloriana deduces that Arthur cast out his son Mordred because he is a mutant, which means that a “friend of Mordred” means mutant.
“For so long, my life has been out of control. Chaos and serendipity, wrapped in insanity. I have suffered, I have lost. Not just my life, but my very soul, my self. But no more. Now I know who I am.” – Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Braddock, daughter of Otherworld, mutant, telepath, telekinetic, defender of the realm and, above all, X-Man.
21 comments:
Mordred? Cool; it's nice to see more characters from the Arthurian legends being shown! But wasn't he supposed to be evil (or at least severely misguided) in these same legends? Then again, it seems Arthur himself in his Marvel incarnation may not be the nice king the legends tell.
Also nice to know that more elements from Davis's iconic Captain Britain run are appearing, like Mad Jim and the Furies. It's also kinda ironic how both of them are now worried about the things going on in Otherworld, when in the past both Jaspers and the Furies were capable of DESTROYING Otherworld and the existence as a whole.
On the downside, it still doesn't look like this book is doing much (if anything at all) to advance the overall Krakoan story...
Boring issue. Felt like filler IMO.
@Fsaker I've always felt Excalibur was more of an expansion title rather than an advancement one.. With XoS spinning out of this it gave us the introduction of Arakko, with Planet X-men being direct fallout. It also expanded the island's reach by reworking Otherworld and Avalon to fit directly into Krakoan history giving Arakii and Krakoans royal positions, a mutant CB, and this new discovery that Mordred is a mutant. It's engraining the two worlds which is pretty great for Betsy. Her time as a CB won't ever have to dissolve her history and place with the X-Men since they're no so interconnected.
All in all I thought this issue was kinda cool. It was nice to see Betsy asserting her authority and getting to see more of the inner workings of Otherworld was nice. There's a lot of tension being built up between mutants and its inhabitants and can't wait to see it all come to a head.
There's still some dialogue ticks here and there where it seems like Tini can't decide if she wants the main characters to talk like they're from Arhutrian times or from the modern day. The running gag about Betsy not succumbing to her old ways and just cutting people's heads off was funny, too. First Saturnyne with Merlin and now Doom with Jaspers. Who will they want Captain Britain to knock down next?!
Again with the body swap blaming betsy... Wtf?
One thing I'm wondering now... some people were believing that Excalibur and most of the other current X-books would end their runs by December, but is that even feasible at that point? We're already in September, so this current run would only have three more issues, yet it seems there's a lot of things that are still far from being resolved in the book... Morgan is still plotting her revenge, Clan Akkaba is still persecuting mutants in the UK, Wisdom's STRIKE team didn't do anything yet...
I'm afraid Excalibur may continue in 2022. Which may not be a bad thing, as some people seem to consider the story improved a lot over in the past few months (some comments indicate that not only Betsy is much better, but Gambit also got his charm back), but it may be a bad thing for people who want Betsy (and/or the other characters in this book) to take a new direction.
Wait… The body swap comes up again in this issue?? I dropped most of the books save for Inferno and Trial of Mags from my pull list. I’m what context does that mess come up again? I thought everyone had finally moved past that in the books.
Tini said that despite her new deal with DC (was it DC??), she still plans to continue writing Excalibur and X-Corp.
Dr Doom makes a mention of her being an assassin and a "mind stealer" but I took that as a reference to her psychic powers.
Except that doom's says that her behavior is due to guilty and she agreed...
She never agreed and the comment was definitely in reference to her psychic powers.
The body swap never came up.
Well, there are things she did that could make her feel guilty and that don't involve the body swap at all. Her time killing people as part of the X-Force teams come to mind - in fact, if I remember correctly, Spurrier's run kinda hinted at her guilty feelings about killing people and acting behind the X-Men's backs were the reason for her erratic behavior during that run (including her situation with Cable's clones and all). Maybe that's what Doom was talking about?
Although I have no idea of how Doom would even know about any of the X-Force teams she's been part of (I don't think any of them crossed paths with him, and none of them was discovered by the superhero community).
@unknown guilt and penance for when she was a killer not for Kwannon.
"Friend of Mordred", like the old "a friend of Dorothy". For sure a bridge issue to start the next plot. Not the most boring issue but not the most dynamic.
I thought Tini was leaving for DC and Excalibur getting cancelled after 2 years of NOTHING. Meh. Worst Betsy ever.
I read the issue again today and the scene where Ric tries to speak to Doom he tells him essentially dont talk to me youre beneath me 😆 so it was cool he had respect to speak with Betsy directly
@Kuno, Apparently Tini will be working at DC and Marvel simultaneously, from what has been informed in some comic book news... which is quite impressive; I don't recall other writers being able to work in both places at the same time.
Anyway, it's possible that Excalibur will continue in 2022. Then again, that cover with Betsy fighting King Arthur looks like something one would expect for the end of a run, so I guess we'll only find out whether this book is continuing or not when the December solicitations come up.
But in the case it is being cancelled, Tini will have a lot of work to finish ALL plot threads that are still unresolved in this book.
Inferno concludes in December. The November solicits weren't the last issues of this era it will more than likely be next solicits with a relaunch in January
The only titles selling decently are the new XMen book that just launched and Wolverine.
Yes; what I meant is that the December solicits will likely indicate "final issue" for the books that are being cancelled or relaunched/renumbered, if they're really being cancelled or relaunched/renumbered.
I think Excalibur will end in December, like all the other Dawn of X/Reign of X books. Hellions was just canceled, and Gerry Duggan was on Twitter trying to do damage control...and making it even worse.
All the books are being relaunched in 2022, so I guess they will use Inferno as a goodbye to the Krakoan era as we know it. Hopefully Tini Howard and Gerry Duggan will be gone sometime next year from the X books.
I have actually enjoyed Leah Williams and Vita Ayala's stuff...hope they stick around.
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