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Post by spoon on Jul 20, 2022 2:14:52 GMT -5
It came along well after I had stopped following Marvel so I missed it at the time and have only heard about it vaguely since then. But anyway, I just looked it up, and I like the idea of the English setting and Captain Britain being the lead character - but then they seem to undermine all that by bringing in American X-Men characters. Also, I've never really liked Alan Davis's style that much, though I don't dislike it so much that it would keep me away from a comic if there were enough other elements that attracted me. So on the whole, I would say this isn't something I'm likely to read. I think this is some of Davis's better art. I generally like his work, but when it does bother me, it's usually because he's given characters oddly-shaped heads. Not aliens who are supposed to have odd heads, but normal humans. That's not really an issue here though. He's on his best behavior.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 20, 2022 2:55:46 GMT -5
I definitely like the Alan Davis written part a lot better than Claremont's. Claremont had some very obvious tics that could get annoying, but also he had no real grasp on the characters of Captain Britain (who was written as arrogant and incompetent, so that Nightcrawler could take center stage as a leader. Now NIghtcrawler might be my favourite Marvel character, so this was absolutely unnecessary) and Meggan (who was written as naieve and dumb, while in the Captain Britain comics she lacked education (due to her isolation as a child), but wasn't stupid.) It was clear that Claremont had read the Moore and Delano Captain Britain stories and really liked them, because he kept wanting to bring back Fury and Mad Jim Jaspers, but couldn't. So we got Nimrod and Jamie Braddock's sudden mutant powers instead.
Also turning Courtney Ross in a version of Saturnyne was weird and then immediately killing her off was even weirder. Neither Claremont's or Davis' Saturnyne (or for that matter anybody else who ever wrote the character since) ever got close to the character as written by Moore though.
I really liked the Warren Ellis run on the title as well, because it became a superhero team that was following the premise of the X-Men by having a combination of mutant and human characters (and some characters that were neither). For a series that was focused on getting humans and mutants to live in peace, the X-Men sure isolated themselves from non-mutants a lot.
So Alan Davis run and Warren Ellis run both scores high for me, Claremont's original run was OKish, the rest is completely forgettable to outright bad.
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Post by zaku on Jul 20, 2022 7:14:47 GMT -5
I remember that the original series stood out mainly because at the time X-Men were above all synonymous with angst and despair. So such a light series was a breath of fresh air. And let's remember that the premise was that Kitty Pryde was convinced that all the X-Men were dead!
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Post by badwolf on Jul 20, 2022 8:42:43 GMT -5
I definitely like the Alan Davis written part a lot better than Claremont's. Claremont had some very obvious tics that could get annoying, but also he had no real grasp on the characters of Captain Britain (who was written as arrogant and incompetent, so that Nightcrawler could take center stage as a leader. Now NIghtcrawler might be my favourite Marvel character, so this was absolutely unnecessary) and Meggan (who was written as naieve and dumb, while in the Captain Britain comics she lacked education (due to her isolation as a child), but wasn't stupid.) It was clear that Claremont had read the Moore and Delano Captain Britain stories and really liked them, because he kept wanting to bring back Fury and Mad Jim Jaspers, but couldn't. So we got Nimrod and Jamie Braddock's sudden mutant powers instead. Now that you mention it, I wasn't too crazy about Brian's characterization, but I think I just went along with it because the overall book was fun.
Claremont did eventually get to use the Fury when he returned to the X-Men years later.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 20, 2022 10:06:52 GMT -5
I picked up the first issue, after being done with the X-Men, for a while, based on Alan Davis, on the art. However, I just couldn't get into the story and didn't continue. My ex-brother-in-law read it and recommended it but it wasn't exactly something you could pick up in the middle of things.
I didn't read the Moore & Davis Captain Britain stuff, until later, which probably would have helped, plus I had stopped reading X-Men after Paul Smith left the art.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jul 20, 2022 10:08:02 GMT -5
I much prefer X-Caliber. But then in the 90's I much preferred AoA over 616 X-Men in general.
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Post by james on Jul 20, 2022 12:34:13 GMT -5
When Excalibur first came out, I was a huge fan. Primarily, because I loved Alan Davis's art and i was reading everything X-Men related. I tried to reread the series and found it pretty tough to get through. I think I read the first 12 issues and just stopped.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Jul 20, 2022 14:09:16 GMT -5
Could be, but as one of the impressionable little idiots fueling that particular money machine at the time, I can safely say that Excalibur and Alpha Flight were those two ancillary titles that my friends and I all understood were closely related to the X-Titles but weren't actually X-titles themselves. Not only was it "Excalibur" instead of "X-Calibur", but they were in a whole different country and never partiipated in any crossovers. Amazing Heroes Preview Special #5 is said to have listed the new title as "X-Calibre" and described it as normal format. Steve Englehart had previously used the name X-Caliber for a character in Coyote #6.
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Post by commond on Jul 21, 2022 5:02:39 GMT -5
FWIW, the two Excalibur Special Editions promised in Excalibur #22 in 1990 became the 1999 X-Men: True Friends mini-series instead. I guess that counts as part of Claremont's run. I was gone by 1999, so I can't speak to its quality. The art is by Rick Leonardi, my least favorite X-Men fill-in artist.
Claremont and Leonardi were supposed to do a Phoenix mini-series in 1986 that focused on what happened to Rachael after the Mutant Massacre, but it was never published. Apparently, it was supposed to tie into Longshot getting his own ongoing series. Man, did any X-character crash and burn quicker than Longshot?
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Post by badwolf on Jul 21, 2022 8:26:31 GMT -5
I enjoyed some of the Mojo stories, but I don't think Longshot was a good fit for the team.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 21, 2022 9:11:41 GMT -5
Longshot is one of my favourite Marvel characters, Longshot is one my least favourite X-Men.
The character is great, but so not fitting with the X-Men and every time they put him on the team, they then never had him actually do something. The concept of Mojoverse as a world ruled by its media has a lot of potential, but then in a lot of the subsequent comics it's just a vehicle for in-jokes.
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Post by spoon on Jul 21, 2022 23:50:41 GMT -5
FWIW, the two Excalibur Special Editions promised in Excalibur #22 in 1990 became the 1999 X-Men: True Friends mini-series instead. I guess that counts as part of Claremont's run. I was gone by 1999, so I can't speak to its quality. The art is by Rick Leonardi, my least favorite X-Men fill-in artist. Claremont and Leonardi were supposed to do a Phoenix mini-series in 1986 that focused on what happened to Rachael after the Mutant Massacre, but it was never published. Apparently, it was supposed to tie into Longshot getting his own ongoing series. Man, did any X-character crash and burn quicker than Longshot? I think maybe I bought X-Men: True Friends #1, but just browsed it and never bought #2 and #3. I think the quality of Leonardi's art depends on inker and phase of his career. I agree that his X-Men fill-in issues were not so great, but I love his art inked by Al Williamson on Spider-Man 2099. I heard somewhere recently that True Friends came from what was going to be a Kitty/Illyana mini before Illyana got de-aged that got repurposed (and of course shelved for years). It would've made a lot more sense to have followed up with Phoenix right away rather than let her fate be unknown for a couple years until Excalibur. One of Claremont's biggest failures as a plotter was having Wolverine stab Rachel, then have Rachel go missing (with plenty of reason to think she just bled to death in a gutter), and have a muted response from the X-Men. Claremont supposedly liked heroes who killed, and often explore this in silly, implausible ways. For example, I'm reminded of when the X-Men debate whether to kill Havok when it discovers the plot to fake their deaths - as if that's not a total evil thing to consider. Yet at the end of Nimrod arc, we actually had a plausible scenario where X-Men would try to kill another, and Claremont just passes on the opportunity. It would have made sense to have one of the X-Men beat Wolverine within an inch of his life when they heard what he did to Rachel, and would have been a springboard for great plot threads. The hypocrisy of Wolverine who had killed & maimed many over the years would, as a matter of realism, drive someone over the edge. Yeah, Logan said he changed & Selene was a different scenario. Blah, blah, blah. Giant pile of BS.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 22, 2022 8:12:46 GMT -5
I've read some of the early ones, but I don't have alot of memories of them, mostly I was sad Nightcrawler was stuck in a crappy book . I did get it for a while later when Warren Ellis was the writer, but then you have to deal with Pete Wisdom (that was when I realized not everything Warren Ellis writes is good.. or even readable).
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Post by impulse on Jul 22, 2022 11:13:33 GMT -5
I definitely like the Alan Davis written part a lot better than Claremont's. Claremont had some very obvious tics that could get annoying, but also he had no real grasp on the characters of Captain Britain (who was written as arrogant and incompetent, so that Nightcrawler could take center stage as a leader. In addition to his dialogue tics, this is also unfortunately a common habit of his; bringing his pet character(s) to a new book and ignoring previous characterization of the ones who were already there. I can't say whether he is intentionally doing so to boost his pets at their expense or whether he just can't be arsed to try to be consistent with other writers' work, but I went from being a fan of his primary X-MEN run to dreading hearing he was taking over a book I liked. I haven't read anything of his in a while, but the last thing of his I remember reading where this happened, the results were cringeworthy and disappointing to say the least. In fact, that was New Excalibur, ha. How fitting. Side note, I am nearly sure at some point in the past on one of the comics forums I was involved in an argument with someone about whether Excalibur was considered an X-book or not. FWIW I am on team "yes it is" though obviously not a primary one. Side side note, I haven't read much of the main Excalibur book, but I have the impression it's one of those things where it's not objectively the best or most popular, but it has its dedicated fans who find a certain charm in it.
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Post by Graphic Autist on Jul 22, 2022 12:45:07 GMT -5
I never saw a problem with Claremont's writing. About 2 years ago, I re-read issues 94-143 of UXM for the first time since I initially read them in the 80's. While I didn't enjoy them as much the second time around, I didn't think his dialog was as bad as many make it out to be. To me, it seems to be a bandwagon people have jumped on.
Just my opinion.
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