Issue(s): Excalibur #18, Excalibur #19
Cover Date: Jan-Feb 90
Title: "Wild wild wheels" / "Madripoor knights"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Dennis Jensen / Rick Leonardi - Penciler
Dan Adkins & Co. / Terry Austin & Al Milgrom - Inker
Kelly Corvese - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
It looks like scheduling issues may have been getting to Alan Davis. Each of these issues have a fill-in artist and multiple inkers and then issue #20 will be a complete fill in. Davis will return for the final two parts of the Cross-Time Caper (#23-24) and then be off the book again until he returns as writer-artist in late 1991. Davis' art has been a big part of this book, so his absence is a big deal. Someone seems to have the interesting idea of making the change in art part of the story by making Excalibur's next stop on the Cross-Time Caper be a world strongly influenced by anime/manga. This is seen very clearly on the cover of issue #18 (which is drawn by Chris Wozniak), but it's much less distinct in the comic itself. It would have been better if they fully committed to the idea; instead it's a weird mish-mosh of styles inside. That's deliberately the case, but even when the characters are supposed to be fully anime, they don't really look it.

The world itself seems to based on Speed Racer, with the entire planet being focused on a continuous Global Grand Prix.

And acting as police officers are two characters that are a direct homage to the Manga series A Dirty Pair.

They're billed as The "Dirty Angels" Strikeforce (A Lovely Pair) in this book.

They are obviously very manga influenced, but when that same look is applied to Captain Britain and Kitty, it looks terrible.

From a plot perspective, aside from the mental bond that formed between Rachel Summers and Meggan last issue that isn't yet fully explained or explored, the main point of interest here is the fact that this world is controlled by a reality warping Jamie Braddock (older brother of Captain Britain and Psylocke). When Excalibur's dimension-hopping train crashes and Meggan falls into Jamie's car, Captain Britain immediately gets upset, saying that she has no idea what kind of man he is.

You can see in the first scan on this page that Kitty is surprised by that, since Psylocke never mentioned any problems with Jamie.

Things get moderately more interesting when, during the fight with Jamie, Widget creates a portal that Kitty goes through, and she winds up back on real Earth, in Braddock manor with their housekeeper, Emma.

She finds our world's Jamie Braddock upstairs, playing with action figures.

The gimmick of issue #19 is that Rachel has Meggan turn into all of the X-Men to fight Jamie (allowing the X-Men to be put on the cover).

But the battle actually ends when Kitty sends the real-world Jamie to bed.

But Kitty then finds that she's stuck on the real Earth and can't open the portal back up to bring her teammates home. The very end of the issue shows Saturnyne lurking menacingly over Kitty after she's fallen asleep.

Just for tracking purposes, i'll note that Nightcrawler's teleporting abilities are still not 100%.

I have not been super-interested in the Cross-Time Caper to start with, and the lack of Davis makes it all the worse. At least there's an actual development in these issues, since Kitty gets home.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: See the Comments below regarding Emma Collins as a Character Appearing and the Considerations for issue #27.

References:

• Captain Britain learned that his brother Jamie was a gunrunner in Captain Britain #10. No footnote, but it comes up while they are fighting.
  
• Kitty is still upset over the death of the X-Men from Uncanny X-Men #227; being separated from Excalibur brings up those memories again. I guess Rachel Summers really never did learn from X-Factor that the X-Men were actually alive.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

It's odd how certain art styles work fine on their own, but not on certain characters, despite those characters going through a whole variety of art styles themselves.

For example, I liked Humberto Ramos' artwork on Crimson and Impulse, but I can't stand him on Spider-Man. Somehow it just feels to different from what I expect Spidey to look like, even though I have no problem with him being drawn by either Ditko or Brian Hitch, who are arguable much further removed form one another.

Same goes with Manga Kitty and Captain Britain, I guess. Although to be honest, the art doesn't look fantastic on the Dirty Pair homages either.

One thing about this issue always bothered me- if Meggan can turn into anyone she or Rachel has met, what are the limits to her powers? Isn't the rest of Excalibur redundant? Why can't she just turn into someone that can teleport between dimensions and get the team home that way?
In Excalibur 27, we learn the real Emma Collins is dead and this is a doppleganger created by Jamie's powers.
Re: Rachel knowing about the X-Men being alive- it's complicated since in X-Men Annual 14, Rachel shows no surprise at seeing Storm, Wolverine or Betsy alive. And she doesn't tell the rest of Excalibur until after the X-Tinction Agenda, so clearly Rachel kept the X-Men's secret for some reason.
Kitty says Betsy liked Jamie. I guess we're supposed to assume Brian never told Betsy what Jamie became.

Another problem- Brian says that Meggan has no idea what kind of man Jamie is, which is odd, since Brian and Doc Croc told her in Captain Britain 10.

The MCP lists Emma as a character appearing. I guess i'll see when i get to #27 if there's an alternate interpretation (i.e., Jamie brought her back?), but i've removed her from now.

The manga parody was ok, but it was basically abandoned halfway through the story.

I always read Emma's appearance in this issue and Excalibur 27 as a duplicate Emma but I checked at the Marvel Appendix site and apparently they think Emma was actually back. We'll wait until Excalibur 27 to see your interpretation. I guess that's the problem with temporary resurrections- sometimes it isn't clear if it's the "real" dead character or just some sort of duplicate.

Emma;'s death was never shown on panel in the Marvel UK stories, and the only word we really have for it is from the Mastermind AI created by Brian's father, which was hardly above lying to people.