Warren Ellis sends Excalibur on that grand old British tradition

[icon_uk]

a night out at the pub!



This is an unsual issue in that it has four different pencillers; David Williams, Mike Wieringo, Jeff Moy and Mike Miller, the art shifts are a little jarring at times, and Brian Braddock's hair approaches the hilarious at times, but try not to let that distract you..



It all starts, as such things often do, with one person saying "I could use a drink". in this case it's Pete Wisdom.

Kitty and Pete have recently returned to Excaliburs then current base of Muir Island on the West Coast of Scotland, following events of their mini-series (imaginatively titled; "Pryde and Wisdom"). Kitty hasn't actually told her team-mates that they are now a couple yet. Pete's not a member of the team as such, he was a Black Air agent assigned to them, but Black Air is now in disarray and partly thanks to him, so he's sort of neither here nor there.

They invite the various members of the team to go with them; Moira's keen (and in fact there's a nearby pub on the mainland that's on land she owns, and she is happy to recommend as an ideal "local"), Brian and Meggan are both happy to go, Kurt and Amanda (Sorceress, and Kurt's then current girlfriend (and adoptive sister which always makes it a little odd as a relationship to me) and when Kitty mentions it to Douglock and Rahne, well, it's a little weird.



In fairness to Douglock, In his one previous exposure to a pub, that is indeed what he and Kitty ended up doing. (It was a pub in Aberdeen and I can assure you it's probably NOT that uncommon a conception of a pub to have gained there)

Rahne still seems woefully unaware of the concept of pubs, but bear in mind she was raised by the Reverend Craig, a man who viewed anything stronger than tepid water as being a gateway to unbearable licentious behaviour.

So they head out, though Kurt is a little nervous that he doesn't have his image inducer and is worried how the locals will react to him (Not sure why that's suddenly a big deal for him, he IS Kurt Wagner after all, but there you go)



She's not actually her Auntie, but it's a term of endearment, and then the Landlord shows up...



I do wish they'd stop spelling it as whiskey, if it's a Scottish product it's WHISKY.... the Irish (amongst others) have Whiskey. And no self respecting Scottish pub would serve Irish whiskey by default.

And after demonstrating to Rahne that's it's entirely possible to get NON-alcoholic drink in a pub, things settle down...



(Oh please, like Rahne wouldn't understand Moira...)

And then Kitty and Pete decide it's time to break their news..



And when Pete takes a break to go to the bathroom, he finds himself cornered by Brian and Kurt, and not in the amusing slashfic sort of a way. They tell him that they suspect that underneath his fairly foul exterior he's a decent man....





(Love Douglock's casual commentary... though I suspect he's wishing he'd been asked to join in, like he is on the front cover)





The little boxes read

"What do you mean;'The bar is closed'?"

"I would like a whisky* and I would like it now. I will be forced to beat you severely around the head and shoulders. Dear me"

"If you'd just come within reach of my hands"

And after that the evening sort of draws to a pleasant, if slightly tipsy close. Brian kisses Meggan, Kurt kisses Amanda and Kitty kisses Pete (and all three other parties happily reciprocate) whilst Moira shields Rahne's eyes from such wanton behaviour, and Douglock looks a little disappointed that no one kisses him.... poor lad.

* spelling corrected

** Until a deranged Colossus then decides to show up in the middle of the night and beat the crap out of Wisdom for taking "his" Kitty, but that mercifully doesn't happen until the next issue, and so is outside the remit of this post.

Cheers!

Comments

Confession…

[bewareofgeek]

I use that "trebles and stark incomprehension" line all of the time.

[northstarfan]

Ah, Ellis-era Excalibur. Every time it seemed in danger of taking itself too seriously, we'd get something like this, Lockheed stealing all of Pete's smokes and clothes, or Douglock trying out Shakespearean insults. Worthy companion to the Claremont/Davis and Davis/Davis runs sez I.

[northstarfan]

PS: Yes. Kurt and Amanda/Jimaine was always weird, but I still miss them together. I miss the X-Men having a human supporting cast period, really.

[terrykun]

+1 (:

[curlyjo1]

I rather loved the (I believe) early 80's Uncanny X-Men issue when the Hellfire Club captured the X-Men. They restrained them in various ways to negate their powers., but seeing as Amanda was "merely" human, they didn't bother to even tie her up. As you can imagine, that backfired rather awesomely.

[northstarfan]

I don't recall if she was tied up or not, just that she had to draw her mystic signs and whatnot while her hands were behind her back. It was kind of an awesome page...everyone else is going WOLVERINE'S DEAD! D: and she's just smirking a little.

I wish someone would pick her up again. Even her stint as Magik was fun -- she and Kurt had some epic-scale adventures together during that time.

[randyripoff]

Drunk Moira is quite amusing.

[sevarem]

Moira looks like Velma from Scooby Doo, only with her hair grown out.

I've always meant to read this title. From the bits and pieces I have read, it seems like it was a lot of fun. Though I hate the "if you hurt her, we'll kill you," trope, but it's a one time deal, and the Kitty/Pete Wisdom pairing always intrigued me.

[jlbarnett]

always liked this issue.

[korvar]

"And I will spend days mocking it and drawing pictures on it before teleporting it into the North Sea!"

Hee :)

And I think Rahne's "Whit?" isn't "I don't understand what you said" but "what do you mean by 'happening'?"

[icon_uk]

It might be worth mentioning that the North Sea is on the other side of the country to where Muir Island is... (Muir Island = West Coast, North Sea, East Coast)

[angelophile]

One of my absolute favourite single issues of any comic ever, if not the favourite.

[paradoxrealm]

This comes a very close second, for me, to the Uncanny X-Men issue just prior to the LegionQuest, which featured a Rogue and Iceman road trip home to meet his very bigoted father, Archangel and Psylocke's first kiss and a very nice introspective dream sequence from Xavier and Lenscherr.
I do love Ellis writing however. He does a very good "downtime" issue.

[mercia]

You know, I had no problem understanding Moira through the whole thing.

I'm not sure what that means, but I take it as a positive sign.

Thanks for posting this, it's awesome.

[nightauditguy]

And then I think it's the next issue when Piotr arrives and beats the crap out of Pete.

[terrykun]

And shortly after that is Pete's Picard/Professor X impersonation. :D

[technarch]

Is that. Douglock. With a mullet.

[icon_uk]

I'm repeatedly told that it's only a mullet if it's short on top, and that's a allover lush head of... technorganic wire he has there, so maybe not.

Besides, he was a shapeshifter,so was probably just trying out a new (short term) look, and since he's working with Doug Ramsey baseline DNA, he was almost cute enough to get away with it...

[onceaskrull]

Is that guy with the white beard...is he supposed to be glowing when he's introduced? Is he God?!

Maybe I shouldn't have been drunk when I decided to read this.

[icon_uk]

He's a pub landlord, in the eyes of many that automatically makes him worth of reverence.

[magusfool]

Ooh, this is fun! I now must hunt down the Ellis Excalibur.... This issue actually reminds me of his issue of Stormwatch where the whole gang went out drinking together. I guess he just really likes the idea of super-people just hanging out at the pub and nothing earth-shattering happening. I like it, too. Maybe I'll post that...

[icon_uk]

Please do! :)