Issue(s): Excalibur #27
Cover Date: Sep 90
Title: "Reel people"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Barry Windsor-Smith - Penciler
Bill Sienkiewicz - Inker
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
The cover date for this issue says Late Aug, but the indicia says Early September.

Considering the art team and the fact that this story features a minimum of two reality warpers (three if you count the Phoenix), you might think that we're in for some really psychedelic art. That's not really the case, but we are in for a really confusing story, which i guess is also something we can expect of a reality warper story.

Reality warper #1 is Mad Jim Jaspers Jamie Braddock.

We learn that the Emma Collins that we saw in Excalibur #19 was dead and has been "brought back" by Jamie.

Jamie learns from Nigel Frobisher that Excalibur have returned from their Cross-Time Caper. The fox that is watching TV with Jamie is actually Vixen, the crime lord. When Nigel is rude to Emma, Jamie changes Nigel's body into Vixen's.

Anyway, that's one of our reality warpers. The other is a little more complicated. In 1989, Marvel launched a new book called Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja. It was written by Larry Hama, drawn by Ron Wagner, and inked by Fred Fredericks throughout its 16 issue run. The series was actually meant to run for 24 issues (at least?) but got cancelled due to low sales and was actually ending at the same time this issue was published. I read the introductory story in Marvel Comics Presents #25 and also the first two issues, but didn't find it interesting, which may or may not be another way of saying that it wasn't part of the Marvel universe. The story took place during World War III, and the antagonist was Alfie O'Meagan (i.e., Alpha Omega) a highly powered psychic that used his powers to eliminate nuclear weapons, an action that actually triggered the war between the US and USSR. Despite this (bizarre) appearance, i don't consider Nth Man to be part of the Marvel universe, even as an alternate reality like Squadron Supreme. I think Claremont is just using the opportunity of the reality warping characters to do a little tribute to the book. A point was made in the Nth Man book to establish that Marvel was only a comic book as far as it was concerned, with Alfie dressing himself like Galactus due to the comics.

Anyway, the story is that some of the Nth Man characters wind up getting swapped into our world. Candy Goodstroke is the first to appear, and because of her arrival WHO calls in Excalibur.

Then Nightcrawler and Rachel get swapped into Alfie's world (while Jamie watches on TV) and Nth Man and Colonel Novikova get brought into ours.

It eventually gets sorted out when Nightcrawler pushes a Cancel button on a remote control.

But there's just no point to the story. It's basically just "Hey look, here's the Nth Man characters, who most of you probably know nothing about!", and then they run around for a little while and go home.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Note that last issue was an out of sequence fill-in. Kitty Pryde is not yet reunited with Excalibur at this point. On the extremely pressing question of whether or not to include Emma Collins here and in issues #19 as a character appearing, i'm going to err on the side of including her. The text says that Jamie "brought her back" which is ambiguous but sounds a little more like she was resurrected than a duplicate was created.

References:

• Kitty got separated from Excalibur in Excalibur #19.
  
• Rachel sees what i guess is a vision of Spiral, and there's a footnote to Uncanny X-Men #209.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I always assumed that this Emma was a construct based on Jamie's memories, hence the "brought her back just the WAY HE REMEMBERED HER BEST" line. I realize, though, it can be interpreted the other way as well.
There's a very bizarre scene at the end with an Nth Man comic and Jamie making some remark about "taking the comic with him".

Barry Windsor-Smith and Bill Sienkiewicz are both very talented artists. But, boy oh boy, their styles really do not work well together!

One of Claremont's worst comics, I think. I did enjoy Nth Man (haven't read it in a while but I remember it getting better as it goes along) and I'm sure CC intended this as an appreciation of another comic he enjoyed, but if you read Nth Man then the characters aren't used well here, and if you weren't reading Nth Man I don't think this would persuade you to.

It was confirmed in an issue of Amazing Heroes(misplaced the issue #) that Nth Man was definitely not MU.

One memorable scene from the Nth Man comics is where the orphanage bully rips up his silver age comics (I think there's a panel of FF #1 being ripped in half, maybe Amazing Fantasy #15 too), the letters page had some people aghast at the comics being destroyed. I can't remember if people were more horrified by the fact that these great works of art were being destroyed, or feeling sorry for the character due to how much these comics would have been worth to him. Seems relevant since we've just had Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man #1-5!

Every comic book published by marvel IS part of MU. EVERY. SINGLE. COMIC. IS. CANON. The last year's Secret Wars event more or less confirmed it once and for all. Not to mention crossovers between various marvel realities, like 2099/616, Ultimate/616, Squadron Supreme, etc. Even comics like Steeltown Rockers, Alf, Kid 'N Play, Godzilla, Beavis & Butthead are canonically part of Marvel Universe. No exceptions, maybe except Star Wars, although I'm not 100% sure about that either.

Also. You might want to know that Alfie had a profile featured in Phoenix Handbook.

The Transformers, while it started in the MU, was pretty quickly removed from it. Also, G.I. Joe was never a part of the MU either.

I'm pretty sure most licensed characters aren't part of the Marvel Universe. Godzilla has a history that they won't retcon out. But Beavis and Butt-head never met any Marvel characters. They only case to be made is that they read Marvels comics, but it's unlikely. Alf, like Godzilla, is a retired character at best. There's exceptions for everything.

I like to think they all exist somewhere in the Marvel multiverse, at least.

The Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Players maybe, but David Letterman and Paul Schaffer are a little too "out there" to be part of the Marvel Universe.

Not so fast, Bill! Duke appeared in an issue of Spider-Man, along with "Agent Anderson"(named) who showed up in GI Joe Special Missions. See this entry and my comment: http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/amazing_spider-man_268.shtml