Issue(s): Excalibur #35
Cover Date: Mar 91
Title: "Heartbreaker"
Credits:
Scott Lobdell - Writer
David Ross - Penciler
Al Milgrom - Inker
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
In the interest of time and sanity, can i just say that this is a D'Spayre story and move on?

The story is that a girl has been kidnapped by a psychopath who subsequently confessed but can't remember where he put the girl. While the rest of Excalibur search for the missing girl, Dai Thomas takes Rachel Summers to use her telepathy to try to get the info out of the kidnapper's head. There's another entity inside the kidnapper's head, blocking him, but she gets an image of a graveyard and goes there, where D'Spayre attacks, forcing Rachel to relive scenes about Ahab and Days of Future Past. She of course overcomes her despair, the girl is rescued etc..

A couple random things of note:

Captain Britain seems to be religious.

When they are about to go into the graveyard, we see Dai dressing up in full military gear. Odd for him. Maybe he misses being an action hero after his experience in Knights of Pendragon.

In the DOFP-verse, Nightcrawler is a priest.

And that's all i have to say about this issue.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Excalibur were planning to hold a party to celebrate Kitty's return to the team when they were interrupted by the missing person alert, but that doesn't necessarily mean it takes place immediately after issue #34. The kidnapped girl had been missing for three days by the start of this story. D'Spayre next appears in Cloak & Dagger #16-19, and references this story, which is one of the reasons that arc gets pushed forward so far in publication time. I've pushed this entry back in publication time a bit because next issue has to take place before Avengers #329.

References:

• Rachel's Days of Future Past timeline was first seen in Uncanny X-Men #141-142.
  
• D'Spayre notes that in his first appearance, in Marvel Team-Up #68, he was vulnerable to physical assaults. But in this story he says he's more powerful.
  
• Rachel complains that she's been used by everyone from Galactus to Nightmare and she's sick of it. I'm not sure she was "used" by Galactus so much as he tried to eat her, but that was in Excalibur #25. Nightmare was in Excalibur #29.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

At least Lobdell attempted to explain why D'Spayre was hurt by Spidey's fists in MTU 68 but not Scott's optic blasts in X-Men 144.

Interesting to see DOFP Nightcrawler in Germany. I had heard the Sentinel takeover was limited mainly to America but hadn't heard of anything that happened outside America. An issue of Excalibur featuring Rachael seems a logical place to examine, seeing how most her team mates never lived in the states.

And yet Kurt's tombstone was right next to Scott, Warren and Hank's in "X-Men" #141.