The X-Men started humbly, a teen team that never really found an audience, but would go on to become the bestselling comic ever. The mid ’70s saw them return to prominence, with writer Chris Claremont revolutionizing the mutants after being handed them by Giant-Size X-Men #1 writer (and Marvel editor) Len Wein. By the time the ’80s dawned, they were the top of the charts and Marvel wanted to take advantage of that. Throughout the decade of excess, the House of Ideas would introduce several new mutant teams to the Marvel Universe, starting with the New Mutants and X-Factor. In 1987, Claremont and artist Alan Davis gave readers a new mutant team, one that played into their shared British heritage: Excalibur
There are a lot of different X-teams, with each of them having a special place in the Marvel Universe. X-Factor has been a mutant rescue team, government-sponsored, and a detective agency, X-Force is the kill team, New Mutants is the training team, et cetera. The best way to describe Excalibur, especially the Claremont/Davis roster is weird. The team combined Nightcrawler, Phoenix II, and Kitty Pryde (who would start going by the name Shadowcat and had her best costume with the team) with Captain Britain and his girlfriend Meggan. Claremont and Davis both had a history with the character, one that would start to play a role in the book later. Claremont and Davis both left the book, with Scott Lobdell taking over. However, the X-Men line got rebooted in 1991, and Excalibur was no different. The book hit a new level in 1991, one that they haven’t been able to achieve since, when one of their co-creators returned.
Claremont and Davis established Excalibur as the weird team. Captain Britain was part of the multiversal Captain Britain Corps (more on that later), so the team went to other dimensions. Meggan was magic and the team dealt with the history of British magic. They ended up working with the weirder parts of the British government like F.I.6, taking on weird and quirky threats, all while dealing with British mutants. It was a fun book, especially when Claremont and Davis were in charge, a funny comic with cool art and strange ideas. Davis would return to the book with #42, beginning a run that he would write and draw. He’d do #42-52, #54-58, and #61-67.
Claremont had created Captain Britain for Marvel UK in the ’70s, writing the character’s appearance in British and American comics. Eventually, a writer named Alan Moore would get a chance to write Captain Britain’s book, working with Davis. The two of them would establish that the Captain Britain Corps was multiversal and introduced his love interest, Meggan, making the character more British – and powerful – than ever.
Davis’s return to Excalibur would see these ideas brought to the fore again. He brought back the Technet, the alien mercenaries that had first brought Excalibur together, with the first few issues dealing with them joining the team as the main plot, as the various members of the group break up to deal with different threats. We’re introduced to Kylun, a warrior helping protect a sorceress named Sa’Tneen on a world called Ee’rath who was originally from Earth, F.I.6 agent Micromax, and start to see trouble on Otherworld, as Roma and Saturnyne call Captain Britain back to Otherworld. Down the road, Psylocke, Jamie Braddock, and the X-Men would all show up.
The book was biweekly for the first six issues of the run. Back then, you’d get these plastic containers that had a bunch of comics in them, and I got one with all of those in it. I had just started reading X-Men, Wolverine, and Uncanny X-Men and Excalibur was a completely different vibe from them right from the start. It was one of my first experience with British humor and it was fantastic, but it also had the kind of sci superhero soap opera I enjoyed. Davis was able to create the wildest situations imaginable, lulling you into thinking that this was just a fun comic, and then peel back the curtain a bit, showing you something serious as a heart attack.
Merlyn’s return plays a big role in the series and we get to see various members of the Captain Britain Corps across the run. For many American readers, who weren’t able to get their hands on the Moore/Davis Captain Britain, it was the first time seeing the Captain Britain Corps. Davis started small with the book, giving readers a story of two groups who don’t like each other forced together, but kept pulling out the focus, giving the books massive multiversal stakes. There was a sense of wonder to the book; this was a view of the Marvel Universe that we didn’t often get and it was sensational.
The writing on the book was impeccable – Davis is a brilliant writer and I recommend JLA: The Nail, Wolverine: Blood Lust, Fantastic Four: The End, and Killraven (that’s right, Killraven) – but the art is the book’s biggest selling point for someone who doesn’t really know the team. Back in 1991, we were overdosing on Marc Silvestri/Jim Lee/Rob Liefeld pin-up style, especially in the X-books. However, Davis’s style was completely different from what you saw from the other X-books. His style has a cartoon feel to it, but it’s always beautifully detailed with brilliant character acting and action scenes. It can look retro, but in a modern way. “Alan Davis face” is a thing and while it can sometimes be frustrating, it’s all a part of the charm of his art. No one draws Nightcrawler like him.
Excalibur was not one of the most popular Marvel books of the time. It couldn’t match the sales of books like X-Men, Wolverine, Uncanny X-Men, or X-Force, but it was honestly one of the best X-books of the time. Davis didn’t have editorial breathing down his neck, so he was able to just do the kind of stories that he wanted and they were awesome (I feel like this also happened with X-Factor during Peter David’s run; it sold well enough but not so well that editorial would be calling the shots too much). It’s a run that can make anyone a fan of the group and their quirky style, something that no other creator (not even Claremont, who wrote the mediocre reboot of the team in the mid ’00s) could replicate over the years.
Excalibur can be a hard sell. It’s an X-book that never really feels like an X-book, but it also doesn’t really feel like a standard team book either. With the right creative team, you can get some of the most fun superhero stories out there, but it’s been very hard to find that right team. Davis’s success on his second run on the book wasn’t as noticed by readers back then, but going back and reading his time on the book reveals a run that is nothing short of brilliant.
However, it feels like in this case, there was such a thing as too good. Excalibur sold well enough to stay around through most of the ’90s, but it never got the attention that other X-books did. Since it wasn’t bestselling, Marvel didn’t always put the best teams on it and that led to the team’s cancellation. Davis’s second run set the bar impossibly high for anyone that came after him. I don’t want to say it ruined the book, but it was impossible to follow, leading the team down the road of obscurity. However, it’s run that you should definitely check out, showing you just how big a tent the mutant books are.
