X-Lapsed, Episode 027 – Excalibur #3 (2020)
X-Lapsed, Episode Twenty-Seven
Excalibur (vol.4) #3 (February, 2020)
“Verse III: Three Covenants”
Writer – Tini Howard
Art – Marcus To
Colors – Erick Arciniega
Letters – VC’s Cory Petit
Design – Tom Muller
Head of X – Hickman
Edits – Bissa, White, Cebulski
Cover Price: $3.99
On-Sale: December 4, 2019
Today we’re discussing Excalibur #3, where Betsy Britain and her Beautiful Brother Brian X their Swords in Otherworld… perhaps for the final time. Well, no, probably not. We also get our latest addition to the cast in Mr. Julio Richter… and a cameo from MI-13’s finest, ol’ Pete Wisdom.
Also: Listener Mail where we try to think of an X-Book worse than Fallen Angels #2? Could it be Mutant X? The Brotherhood? The Chuck Austen run? Perhaps, X-Men Unlimited #4? Reach out if you got one!
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@acecomics / @cosmictmill / weirdcomicshistory@gmail.com
chrisandreggie.podbean.com
At the risk of becoming too self-referential I need to respond to your response to my feedback.
First I really don't think writers are using Beast as an author mouthpiece. I think his change of character is down to a general cultural shift which sees nature as good and science as bad. Like Reed Richards and Hank Pym, Beast is being portrayed as flirting with villainy. This is not just a comics trope. Stranger Things would be a good example of this trend. It genuinely seems that writers are incapable of writing heroic scientists nowadays. I know in the UK we have seen some very bad real life outcomes from the identification of science as paternalistic and controlling. Hopefully we are seeing a revaluation which will be reflected in our stories.
As for the worst X-book ever. I've never read Mutant X. I have read a couple of issues of the Chuck Austen run. I particularly remember the Havok/Polaris wedding 2 parter as a huge waste of money. In fact I would probably have to declare that a worse story than Fallen Angels. The truth is that Fallen Angels is a perfectly competent attempt at a poetic sexy bad-girl book from 1995. It is a good version of a bad idea. The Chuck Austen run was a bad version of a terrible idea and to this day I wonder how it got published. I cannot see how the same editorial structure could allow Chuck Austen and Grant Morrison to be on the books simultaneously.
Onto the issue at hand, it remains underwhelming. Why is Shogo a dragon? Because. Huh? Why is Rictor unable to control his powers? Reasons. It just feels a bit pointless. Fascinated for tomorrow. I can't wait to hear your reaction to New Mutants 3. I know I genuinely thought I'd bought the wrong book.