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It's been nearly six years since I wrote a column about the end of Excalibur, one of the most unique, enthralling, actually funny and fun titles of Marvel's history, and I'm here to say simply one thing.
They're bringing it back.
The only other blip on the radar, and it is one many people would like to forget, is the four-issue limited series by Ben Raab and Pablo Raimondi, which featured only a few of the actual Excalibur characters or plot points, and was pretty horribly written.
In mid- to late-January, Marvel announced that X-Treme X-Men would be packing up its terribly silly name, and going away. In a lot of ways, this made me sad, since I've very much enjoyed the book, and there were some storylines coming that were going to seemingly be lost, truncated, or just dumped entirely before starting, in order for the book to end when they wanted it to.
However, it seems that Claremont's star is still on the rise, and he's made some folks happy, because not only is he still taking over Uncanny X-Men (With Alan Davis on art, yay!), he's writing what was once a one-shot, then twelve issues, but has grown into an 18-issue maxiseries chronicling the end of the X-Men entitled - appropriately enough - X-Men: The End, but he's going to be writing the new monthly Excalibur series. Could Chris at last be back in major control of the X-Franchise? If so, I'm all for it.
Right now, we know next to nothing about Excalibur, except that Claremont is writing, and Wizard is reporting that Igor Kordey is on pencils. The latter is worrysome, since I do not particularly care for his art, even if he is better than Liefeld by a good, long ways. His design choices and facial expressions tend to leave me cold. With a decent inker, and if the work isn't rushed, I'm sure he'll do a fine job, and I hold out hope on that front.
I'm also holding out hope that Claremont manages to inject this title with at least a sense of the humour it originally had, while still managing to do fun, and sometimes complex, stories. In this day and age, a book that has a lighter tone will be most welcome to many fans wanting to escape the dreary angst seen everywhere else in the X-Universe. It will also serve to make the book not seem like it's just recycling the name of an old title without a compelling reason.
Another way to reinforce that idea would be to bring in some of the old characters. Bishop, Storm, and Sage are already known to be moving on to Uncanny, and with Claremont back running things, I'm sure Kitty will be involved in one of his books. May I suggest bringing Rachel Summers into the mix? We know Chris has been wanting to use her again in X-Treme for some time, but kept having his plans get stalled.
Also, here's hoping a few danglers can be dealt with (Preferably in ways so as not to offend new fans, or confuse them). I'd just like to see some things finally wrapped up, that's all. Either way, here's hoping for a nice, long run, with many fun stories.
It appears that, as prophesied long ago, the sword has been drawn anew, weilded by the King, when he was needed the most, and destined to lead the people out of darkness.
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