Excalibur #62

[northstarfan]

Title: Excalibur #62 - "Of Birth, Death, and the Confused, Painful Bit In Between" (1993, Marvel, 22 pages)
Creators: Alan Davis (writing and art)
Availability: Out of Print (at least until Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis v.3 hits)

In the course of investigating strange happenings at St. Oswald's church, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, and Cerise are ambushed by a group of strange individuals calling themselves the Seraphim. Rather than actually get beaten down, Kurt plays 'possum and allows himself to be taken to the Seraphim's base.













Almost two decades later, and that last page is still twenty different kinds of "Hell yeah!" But I do tend to have a soft spot for righteous "my powers were only holding me back" thumpings.

Comments

[cmdr_zoom]

I miss this comic, this era, this artist/writer team, so much.

Also: I see a panel begging for a "tentacles" icon-ing.

[northstarfan]

So much motto. All props to Claremont, but I had the most fun with the Davis-on-Davis Excalibur run.

[koschei]

Ironic that it was the return of Claremont that killed off the title (and ultimately our beloved fuzzy elf)

[northstarfan]

I can't get too upset about the title getting the ax. Ben Raab was on writing duties for Excalibur at the time (as well as a baffling number of other projects, considering he was essentially proto-Austen in terms of talent), so it was essentially a mercy kill.

That business with making Kurt a priest however...

[roily_rogue]

I love when Kurt gets inspired.<3

[psychopathicus_rex]

Yeah, that was just unnecessary. It's fine that Kurt is religious, but good grief, religion doesn't have to be the ruling force in his life; there are lots of other things for him (and the writer) to focus on. It's the same reaction I had to the movie version of him being covered with religious symbols, one for every sin - for cryin' out loud, why must he be a fanatic? If you MUST emphasize his religion, having him crossing himself every now and then and briefly muttering a prayer would do the trick nicely.

[tacobob]

yeeech. There's waaay too much oogly monsters in that and waaay too little pants! Pants yourselves base villains!

[pallas_athena]

Loving this. Go Nightcrawler, go!

[joasakura]

This deserves a "FUCK YES!"

go Kurt!

[protogarrett]

Yay!

...what happened to Cerise anyways?

[crinos]

Is that.... a talking Peanut?

Oh my God, Mr. Peanut has super villain ties!

[nezchan]

That's how he made his fortune.

[icon_uk]

Never mind the fact that training for the Catholic Priesthood is a seven year process, you can't do it by correspondence over a few months.

[icon_uk]

Despite her apparent origin being an unknown alien completely lost in space and time and dimension, the poor soul was revealed by the next writer to be an agent of Lilandra and went back to the Shi'Ar Imperium. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth over such a pathetically pedestrian grounding to an enormously fun alien.

[icon_uk]

In a wonderfully British reveal, we discover that the assorted Warpies (Which is what all these beings are) were given codenames but quickly ran out of "cool" sounding ones and ended up givign them all names which described them in either animal vegetable or mineral terms, hence we had Peanut, Pumice, Cabbage and others.

Of course the story ended fairly happily with the Warpies reverting to human as the last of the energy which created them faded out. And then IIRC Ellis revealed they'd all been dissected by Black Air, his latest Black Ops Government agency.

[liliaeth]

well the whole Kurt becoming a priest thing was shown long before this in one of Rachel'st Days of future past flashbacks, where she remembers being sent after Kurt, whom she refers to as father Wagner.

[protogarrett]

And after Excalibur ended? What happened? Has she been seen since?

[northstarfan]

I think she had a one-panel cameo in Warren Ellis' Starjammers series. Not sure where else she's shown up, if at all.

[punishermax]

~Mr. Peanut twirls cane and adjusts monocle~

"Ho ho, you motherfuckers are truly going to be doomed! I suppose the question now is

~dramatically raises cane and tips tophat with a nightmarish grin~

Shall you be Chunky or Creamy?"

[psychopathicus_rex]

Yeah, there's that, too. (Of course, there's always the possibility that he HAD been training by correspondence for a number of years prior to the actual event, and we just never saw it - it's not like we've ever seen the contents of Kurt's mailbox.)

[roily_rogue]

She showed up as Lilandra's bodyguard during Claremont's second X-men run (around the hundreds) and hit on Kurt, but he turned her down because of celibacy.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, yes, but that's supposed to be set far in the future, which allows for the team breaking up in the interim - if the X-Men are no longer a going concern, then I can imagine Kurt choosing the priesthood as a possible career; it's just a rather ridiculous thing for him to be doing while he's still actively involved in saving the world every other week.

[northstarfan]

Don't mind me, I'll just be over here thumping my head against a wall.

[pallas_athena]

I'd read it.

[autumn_lily]

Nightcrawler has always been awesome yes?

[goblinthebamf]

She was last seen as a member of The Graces, Gamora's strike team, during the first Annihilation arc.

[victory_or_death]

That's why I called the International Correspondence School and got my degrees in Theological Studies of Cthulhuism and Gun Repair all from the comfort of my own home!

Now I'm a Dark Priest of Our Lord Cthulhu AND making more money!

Now if I could just past that damned art test...

[okkult3000]

"And then IIRC Ellis revealed they'd all been dissected by Black Air, his latest Black Ops Government agency."

Oh, Nineties, you scamp! What WILL we do with you?

[amaniwolf]

Word, Nightcrawler at his best, getting his due. People just never know how to write him or give him his props. This was a rare shining moment for him.

[hurricane-jam.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAAAAH YEAH! Now THAT'S a comic book!