I’m fairly certain that Tini Howard and Marcus To’s Excalibur is the most vibrant full-on fantasy Marvel Comics has ever released. Sure, there’s Weirdworld and Crystar, there’s Conan and a host of other Conan-like Conquerors, a small stint putting out Masters of the Universe and Sectaurs and Thundercats (but if we’re gonna get pedantic, I guess ElfQuest really ruins my thesis here). And, of course, there was Claremont and Davis’ original run on Excalibur, which leaned more into sci-fi than literal magic.
None of those books—including the original Excalibur—were ever fully embraced by the Marvel Universe at large, never connected directly to the machinery of the tentpole series. In a world where 98% of superpowers are derived from “whoops, my superscience blew up” situations, there are rarely moments of wizards charging knights with grand crusades. Hell, aside from a couple issues of Marvel Team-Up, Captain Britain’s magical origins and pre-Excalibur adventures were only made available to American audiences fairly recently (both through pricey reprints and, more excitingly, on Marvel Unlimited).
And a lot of the conventions in Excalibur are rooted back in those early books, where both Betsy and Brian Braddock were originally introduced. In this fourth (and final) volume of the current series, we see the rebirth of the S.T.R.I.K.E. Psy Division, who first appeared in the UK-only Daredvils #3; the team is confronted by a squadron of Furies, classic Captain Britain villains born out of likewise-UK-only Marvel Super-Heroes (UK) #387. Otherworld, Saturnyne, the Captain Britain Corps, all of these things established and maintained a little apart from the rest of the stories of Earth-616.
Marvel Comics
In this most recent volume, Howard and To not only fully embraced high fantasy elements, providing a sort of D&D-meets-Oz-meets-Wonderland atmosphere, but they also made that zany, tonally-separate magic integral to the X-Men narrative (and, by extension, the narrative of the Universe as a whole). The whole of X of Swords relies heavily on this new magic, this new, lush fairy-tale. In this volume, they manage what other creators have failed to do—they’ve unified various lost threads, made true minor inferences from far-flung comics. Doctor Doom, his relationship with Morgan le Fay, and the whole muddled Marvel version of the Arthurian Legend get swept up, recontextualized, and established in the hazy magical firmament.
Marvel Comics
The true wonder of the book is that, no matter how bonkers things get, our characters are never quite overshadowed. Earnest, emotional stakes are established and developed for most of them, and those neglected there are at least given telling, sweet moments of camaraderie or firm illustrations of their character. While Jubilee struggles with her dragon baby, Shogo’s newfound need for experience outside of her control, we get moments of mutant/fairy hybrid Meggan being delightfully whimsical or Gambit running long cons.
Marvel Comics
It’s a layered, elegant, and ambitious book—like any great fantasy steeped in lore, things set down here are meant to be played with, expanded, maintained. And like any great fantasy epic, it concludes with a Lord of the Rings (or, more formulaically, Redwall)-style war. Massive, faceless armies march against one another. A master tactician child devises troop maneuvers with dolls. Our heroes, swallowed up in all that chaos, suffer a great—if symbolic—loss.
That loss might very well stand as our loss, as readers, with no Excalibur hitting stands. Thankfully, Howard’s magical work continues in April with the release of Knights of X, presumably continuing this new, vital fantasy in a world of drab super-science and ho-hum spacemen.
I kid, obviously. The Marvel Universe has always been a magical place. Now there are just more star-crossed knights now.
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