Selected awesomeness from Excalibur: The Sword Is Drawn

[seriousfic.insanejournal.com]

So as part of Excalibur Redux, I'm giving Excalibur a read. Here's some Nightcrawler awesomeness and other random love from the graphic novel that introduced the team, "The Sword Is Drawn". It's got absolutely beautiful Alan Davis art and that classic Claremont crack.

How cracky, you ask? Orgasm is a superpower.

Finfriends? D'awww. How could anyone ever be mean to Meggan, Captain Britain?





D'oh, Kitty, you're such a baby dyke.

So, like I mentioned, Captain Britain called Meggan a cow, which he really shouldn't do even if she has literally transformed into a cow, because he's having an emo-ergency about his sister being dead (the X-Men faked their deaths and I guess decided "sorry, loved ones, you can't know we're still alive". Wonder who came up with that dickish idea, Cyclops?).

It doesn't go over too well.



I'm surprised Kurt heard Captain Britain's "sainted devils!" spiel OVER THE SOUND OF HOW AWESOME HE WAS.





Boom, roasted!

Captain Britain gets over his douchiness and helps the team out against Mojo's warwolves and a bunch of extradimensional badasses who want to stop Rachel "Baby Phoenix" Summers (again, one of whom has THE POWER OF ORGASM). CANZ IT BE HUGS TIEM NAO?



IT CAN! CANZ IT BE THREESOME TIEM NAO?

So they reminisce over the X-Men...



And after an uber-cheesy Rachel-retrospective about King Arthur, they decide to be a team. Group shot for the end of the credits aaaand... scene!



Oh, and don't worry about the length, the graphic novel is fifty pages long.

Comments

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Actually, the dick idea of the X-Men remaining dead was Storm's, and pretty dumb if ya think about it.

It left their loved ones alone (Cap, the New Mutants), provided only one minor tactical advantage over the Maruaders that they didn't get around to using until Inferno and left the team isolated and cut off from aid, which bit them in the ass against Genosha, and in their rematch with the Reavers.

Dunno why they let Storm lead a team after that screw-up...

[moneyless_jew.insanejournal.com]

Claremont often had his characters fall prey to orgasm powers/spells. Then there's his massive BDSM/mind control fetish.

It made for an interesting look at sexuality for me as a kid.

[seriousfic.insanejournal.com]

What would happen if all the metahumans with orgasm powers fought? Would it be like a battle royale or an orgy? And would they all state what they were doing before/as they did it?

[moneyless_jew.insanejournal.com]

If Claremont was writing it, they'd state it every time. "You'll love it so much, you'll never want to leave!" and variations therein, etc etc

[angelophile.insanejournal.com]

Indeed. Cyclops wasn't even on the X-men at the time, he was with X-Factor and, let's face it, suffered pretty badly because of the ruse because he believed his wife Madelyne was one of the dead. Given how badly THAT worked out, I find it hard to believe he ever would have backed Storm's call.

[seriousfic.insanejournal.com]

I imagine once the funk starts building up, they'll definitely want to hit the showers and then get some waffles. But then right back to the sex fighting.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

See also "Revelling in the power that flows through him/her" "Longing to surrender to the offered freedom" and many, many more...

[crinosg.insanejournal.com]

Don't forget transformation fetishes as well; During the penultimate fight of this issue with Technet, Meggan gets turned into a living stretch arm strong doll by Waxworks, and Kitty is fattened to immobility by Joy Boy (Who was a new character added to the Technet roster along with China Doll just co claremont could have more badguys with fetishtastic superpowers).

[cmdr_zoom.insanejournal.com]

I miss this Kurt. So much.

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

KURT IN WOOLENS. :D

On the one hand, I want to read this. But on the other, Kitty really, really annoys me.

I guess I'll just try to ignore her. Rachel's awesome spike-suit will help maybe, I love it when characters wear things I might wear.

[seriousfic.insanejournal.com]

Yes, but when did Rachel join the Mord'Sith (http://4.media.tumblr.com/a5T0WWxYqk31ba99uyxhnQ0Bo1_500.jpg)?

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

Oh wow. I don't know what a Mord'Sith is, but I bet they get sweaty.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

Man, I miss the days before the Internet when I could look at a page like that and think, "Boy, Alan Davis can draw silly-looking things," and not "Somebody in the world is whackin' it to this."

[xamda.insanejournal.com]

Unfortunatly, somebody, somewhere is whackin' to everything.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Other way round, Wizards First Rule came out in 1997, Rachel wore her outfit in 1981. :)

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

I think even as a teenager, I was not only admiring the pretty art in stories like this, but noticing that this was the fourteenth mind control and kinky outfit plot from Claremont.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

See, when I was a kid, I noticed he did a lot with telepathy and mind control, and that there always seemed to be a telepath on the team even if he had to dig one out of the remainder bin (i.e. Betsy). I figured that telepathy was just something he liked playing with the implications of, and that it was why the dude was writing X-Men to begin with.

Now, of course, from an adult perspective, every other issue looks like a letter to Penthouse Forum in its embryonic stage.

[roily_rogue.insanejournal.com]

Ditto! He actually DOES something! And looks mighty nice while doing it.

[kitty_tc_69.insanejournal.com]

It gets kinda old to hear people slam him for that. There was a purpose to it, you know. And in case you don't know, I'll explain it.

In those days, there were no recap pages, and very few direct market comics shops. Comics were sold in newsstands, grocery stores, convenience stores and gas stations, and all manner of places right in the path of the general public. Any and every issue had the potential to be picked up by people who didn't know what an "X-Men" even was, with no back issues to help them get up to speed. Thus, every single issue had to explain who these people were, what they could do, and what was going on so that these new readers could get their bearings. Yes, the exposition got kinda awkward, but experienced readers understood why it was there and learned to gloss over it.

Making fun of it because it's anachronistic now in this day and age of internet resources and dedicated comics shops with an already comics-savvy audience and boxes of back issues at ready grasp may make you feel clever, but it's really just petty.

[moneyless_jew.insanejournal.com]

I worshipped Claremont growing up. I practically learned vocab off the man. I still have intense love and respect for his older work. For all its mess and excesses, I thought it was regularly brilliant.

That said, some of his tics are his own, and do not date well. Yes, I know the conventional reasoning of the period. But even though that was the expository style of the time, Claremont took it to a new height of verbal diarrhea which he continues to do today, years later. So it's not simply a product of the era, it's about him. He is still using the same lines about "you'll love being a slave" twenty to thirty years later.

[moneyless_jew.insanejournal.com]

Whereas I was just made to feel funny by a constant barrage of scenes of Doug, Sam, Kitty and Illyana at the barely-clad mercy of Selene/Emma Frost/interchangeable otherworldly despot.

[jyuu.insanejournal.com]

Oh Excal, the first Marvel X-team series that I actually made a point to collect the entirety of. I miss it so much. <33

[seriousfic.insanejournal.com]

I think Kitty was right there with you. God only knows what her fantasy life is like...

[(Anonymous)]

"I wonder what it would feel like if Peter kept switching between forms while buried deep inside me... and just how prehensile is Kurt's tail anyway?"

[seriousfic.insanejournal.com]

"And why do I want Emma to hold my leash while this is going on?"

[unknownscribler.insanejournal.com]

Yeah baby!

Excalibur are my first and greatest superteam love. The characterisations and ploting and general joy of life was fantastic, as was the massive amounts of subtext.

[umpbumpfizz.insanejournal.com]

Absolutely. When I say Nightcrawler is my favorite, I mean THIS Nightcrawler.

[kingrockwell]

Motto motto motto!

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

Love me some old school Excalibur.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

love Meggan calling Gatecrasher a hippopotamus

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

yeah, that's why when he failed to make contact with her when he tried.