Excalibur #98-99Issue(s): Excalibur #98, Excalibur #99 Review/plot: This issue starts with Excalibur reviewing footage of Douglock getting kidnapped by Black Air. Watching this, Nightcrawler makes an important acknowledgement. So it goes with every attempt i've ever seen in Marvel comics when groups attempt to go "proactive". This is, i think, an oblique reference to the revised mission statement for the team/book in Excalibur #71 when it was said that Excalibur would act as a surgical scalpel, dealing with the problems that the other X-teams ignored. That of course never happened. I don't know why writers can't stick to that idea. It seems like it would be really cool - instead of starting with a villain attacking or robbing a bank or whatever - to start with the heroes reviewing a dossier on a villain and then taking them by surprise in their own headquarters, and then discovering something that leads to a bigger plot or whatever. Anyway, it's not at all proactive to go after an organization that kidnapped one of your team members, but Nightcrawler makes a big show of being tough about it, and that's almost the same thing (no it's not). And when Excalibur raid Black Air, they find that Douglock isn't even there anymore, because he's been taken by "Scratch". Meggan does very dramatically blow up the base, however, which may not be true proactivity, but it would be good enough for X-Force. Meanwhile, Captain Britain is visited by Scribe, who spills some secrets about the Hellfire Club. But it seems a little too late. Also, wherever Douglock is, it turns out he may have the secret to curing the Legacy Virus (Narrator: He doesn't). Pete Wisdom tells Excalibur that Scratch is one bad dude, and then the team tries to figure out how they can attack Black Air's main headquarters in London without looking like terrorists. "We are not X-Force, or the Mutant Liberation Front". Then, going through the records they took at the base they raided, they find proof that Black Air, through the Hellfire Club, has been bribing Parliament. Pete Wisdom takes that to initiate a non-violent way of taking the organization down. He passes the info to his friend Jardine. Of course, literally at the same time Excalibur is worried about not making too showy an attack on the London HQ, London is on fire. But it's only a preliminary column of fire. Scribe says the Red Queen has a demon under London that she's going to use to start the real one. Well, the demon is going to be used in conjunction with Douglock's head and, apparently, shavings from Hellstorm's trident. It turns out that the Red Queen is in fact Margali Szardos. And now London burns for real. In the middle of all this, Onslaught shows up to talk to Emma Steed (to me, a cutesy name which should mean she's just a joke character, but i guess this is a series that has an Alistaire Stuart of WHO running around too). There's no more to the Onslaught conversation. A reader would be forgiven for thinking that Onslaught was somehow involved in all this Hellfire Club demon stuff, but he's not. Quality Rating: C Chronological Placement Considerations: Continues directly next issue but as with Cable i'm letting other parts of the Onslaught build-up go in-between. References: N/A Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A Inbound References (1): showCharacters Appearing: Black King (Quentin Templeton), Black Queen (Emma Steed), Captain Britain, Colossus, Jardine, Margali Szardos, Meggan, Michele Scicluna, Moira MacTaggert, Mountjoy, Nightcrawler, Onslaught, Pete Wisdom, Professor X, Red King (Alan Wilson), Red Rook (Jane Hampshire), Scratch, Scribe, Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde), Threadgold, Warlock, Wolfsbane Comments are now closed. |
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