Prolific comic book artist Alan Davis came up in several online conversations I had last week, and in one of those, Fwoosh reader NightshadeX inquired as to why we never ran a Demanded Characters article for the original Excalibur Team. As a huge fan of that book and a frequent Marvel Legends consumer, I felt like that slight needed to be rectified right away. Excalibur is the book that introduced me to the art of Alan Davis and opened up a world of comic goodness to me, so read on while I wax poetic about Excalibur!
If you are unfamiliar with Excalibur, I suggest you stop reading this right now and hop on Marvel Unlimited, Comixology, Amazon, or hit the back issue bins and pick up the original mini-series that launched the title: Excalibur: The Sword is Drawn. I’ll wait.
Well, if you aren’t going to do that, I’ll run down the plot briefly. The story is about how a couple of injured and recuperating X-Men (Nightcrawler and Shadowcat) team up with a couple of British heroes (Captain Britain and Meggan) to save a former X-Man (Rachel Summers) escape the clutches of alien wolves and intergalactic bounty hunters. It’s basically classic X-Men-style big adventure and melodrama mixed with a twist of British humor and sci-fi. I ate it up as a kid.
As to the melodrama, our recovering X-Men are still reeling from injuries sustained in the massive “Mutant Massacre” crossover. I love how they showed the real, personal costs of the constant superhero battles. Nightcrawler and Shadowcat’s powers recovered slowly, and that featured heavily into the plots of the stories. Many of their closest friends had just sacrificed themselves to save the world in a live televised event, and they were suffering grief and survivor’s guilt because of this.
That all sounds rather depressing as I type it out, but those particular X-Men handle their grief through humor and lots of superhero butt-kicking action, so it’s never a dour or dull read. The addition of Meggan and her boyfriend Captain Britain (whose sister Psylocke was one of the supposedly deceased X-Men) and his roster of colorful and unique villains (like the Technet pictured above or the Crazy Gang, below) from the Captain Britain book added a unique flavor to the title.
At some point, they go on a “Cross Time Caper” that had them dimension hopping across amusingly differentiated worlds, allowing the creative team to touch on all sorts of sci-fi and fantasy tropes including a nightmarish Nazi version of the team.
Many of the issues are lavishly illustrated by master artist Alan Davis. Davis is one of the greats, and I think this run is a great illustration of why. He tackles everything from knights in armor to a Mega-City One-like dystopian Metropolis, and it’s all convincing and just cool to look at. I especially like how he gives each character their own build.
It’s a small thing, but a lot of comic artists draw every man as a block of muscle and every woman as a curvaceous super-model, but Davis takes care to apply the appropriate build to each. Kurt is lean and wiry, Brian is large and bulky. Meggan is curvaceous and Shadowcat is not. I think that’s part of why I’d love to see a box set based on Davis’ art; he has a unique, but classic take for each character. I’d love a box set to include …
Nightcrawler
Nightcrawler is a figure that’s dying for a redo. We’ve had a few between legends and X-Men figures, and while the ToyBiz Legend had a lot of great qualities, it’s saddled with an oddly lantern-jawed portrait that I never felt suited the Nightcrawler of classic artists like Bryne, Cockrum, Davis, or even McGuinness’ modern take on the Nightcrawler book.
I could see him on the thinner Spidey body with a new torso piece that includes the tail and new head, hands, and feet. If Hasbro really wanted to be my best friend, they would include a second portrait with Kurt smiling. I feel like that a huge part of his character is the joy that he takes in performing super-heroics.
Captain Britain
Captain Britain has also had a couple Marvel Legends figures, though neither has quite hit the mark for me. The original ToyBiz Giant Man wave figure was on that odd Black Panther base body, which is too small for the massive Brian Braddock. I would also take a figure of him fighting in his PJ pants. That seemed to happen a bunch to ‘ol Bri.
The recent release in the abomination wave has a great build and I could see that working for the first appearance Excalibur set with just a little glove and book re-tooling and a repaint. I woudn’t mind his later cross-time caper costume, but that was mainly created so that the colorist would not mess up the coloring on the costume, so I’d really prefer the earlier Union Jack look.
Shadowcat
Shadowcat also has a couple of Marvel Legends under her belt, but both sport the old black/yellow OG X-Men costume, and I think it’s time we revisit her ’80s light blue on blue look. It would be a nice change for one thing.
It’s a look that would require a bit of tooling, probably only able to reuse legs for this less form-fitting and flowing costume.
Rachel Summers
During much of the Excalibur run, Rachel wore a variation on her Mutant Hunter Hound costume from the “Days of Future Past” timeline. It’s a bit of an odd choice now that I think about it, but it looked great in the books. The costume is a simple body suit, but the spikes would probably require some new torso and arm tooling. I think some sort of flame accessory would be required to show off a fully powered phoenix.
Meggan
Meggan is a shape-shifter and had a couple of costumes in the Excalibur run, so while it would be great to see both, I’d prefer the original tan jumpsuit. She’s probably the simplest figure to make outside of Brian, requiring only a new head and a bit of an overlay for the collar of her outfit and some bare feet.
Widget
Finally, a neat addition to the set would be Widget. Widget was a little robot that started Excalibur on their cross-time caper and appeared in the first issue. Widget was a long, ongoing mystery/Macguffin for the title, so it would be awesome for Excalibur fans to have a figure.
That would be a great set of figures and a wonderful tribute to a classic comic that doesn’t always get its due. Once we get our foot in the door with the main team, I’d love to add Warwolves or Gatecrasher to the line. Gatecrasher would make Titus look absolutely run of the mill.
