Issue(s): Excalibur Special Edition
Cover Date: 1987
Title: "The Sword is Drawn"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Alan Davis - Penciler
Paul Neary & Mark Farmer - Inker
Terry Kavanagh - Assistant Editor
Ann Nocenti - Editor

Review/plot:
This book was $3.25 48 page one shot on glossy cardstock, essentially the same format as Marvel's Graphic Novel line except that the book's dimensions are the same size are regular comics. The book is just called "Excalibur" on the front cover and spine, but "Special Edition" is added in the indicia, and the inside front page is also given a title card that says "The Sword is Drawn". My copy's indicia says the publication date was 1987, but the UHBMCC gives the date as Apr 88 and Wikipedia has contradictory info, saying at the top of the page that it came out in 1987 but lower down that it came out in 1988. This story is definitely written to take place after Fall of the Mutants, which ended with a Mar 88 cover date; it would be interesting but not impossible if this book wound up getting released prior to that. Maybe it was printed but held back?

Mark Farmer is given "special thanks" for "assistance" with the inking.

In Giant-Size X-Men #1, it was asked "What are we going to do with thirteen X-Men?". At this point we're well past 13 x-characters, but the answer is obviously to have as many X-books as the market can absorb. Excalibur, however, is clearly distinct from the other x-titles. It's described in Uncanny X-Men #229's lettercol as a "madcap comedy of cosmic proportions" and it will definitely have a distinct tone, in no small part thanks to the fantastic art of Alan Davis. The book doesn't even start with an X, and the name reflects the fact that this title also brings in characters from the Captain Britain series, which both Chris Claremont and Alan Davis have worked on at various times.

The groundwork for this book has happened with a laudable amount of subtlety. It's actually part of a kind of foreign exchange program: Psylocke was introduced to the X-Men, establishing a connection between the X-characters and the previously isolated Marvel UK subsection of the Marvel universe, and that also provided an opportunity to have Captain Britain appear in a couple of X-annuals. And Psylocke joined circa Mutant Massacre, at the same time that Nightcrawler and Shadowcat were injured and taken off of the active roster (along with Colossus, who did return to the team, which adds to the fact that this wasn't done in a ham-handed way). And Rachel Summers also left the X-Men by way of Spiral just prior to that (she was originally going to appear in what i believe eventually became the True Friends mini-series, but it got deferred. Walter Lawson notes in the comments that it was originally going to be a Phoenix solo story by Claremont/Leonardi, but it got cancelled, and i think it got morphed into True Friends, which continued to get delayed). And while that all could have resulted in a new team right away, like, say, Team America appearing in Captain America right before getting their new series, this Excalibur special and the series that follows it doesn't happen until the aftermath of Fall of the Mutants. So it feels like a natural development.

The book begins with a crazy dream sequence, with Kitty seeing the X-Men having taken on identities as movie stars in Mojo's world.

Click for Summer Blockbuster Size

The dream includes a message from Rachel Summers saying that she'll be seeing Kitty soon...

...and then the X-Men turn into "Warwolves".

When Kitty wakes up, we learn that while we've already seen her having recovered from her injuries during the Mutant Massacre, it turns out she's not fully cured and her phased state is actually her natural state and she has to concentrate to become solid. Kitty isn't sure what to think of the dream (she hasn't thought about Rachel in "ages" and feels guilty about that) and she's also too distraught over the recent deaths of the X-Men to give the dream her full attention. Nightcrawler is similarly in anguish and Kitty catches him putting himself in deadly danger in the makeshift (but still very high tech) Danger Room on Muir Island...

...but it is confirmed that he had basically the same dream as Kitty.

Another person distraught over the deaths is Captain Britain, since his sister Psylocke was among them. He is living in a lighthouse in the Celtic Sea and in his depression he's kind of taking it out on his mutant/faery shapeshifting girlfriend, Meggan.

Meggan decides to go to Muir Island to seek help from Shadowcat. Meggan arrives just after the arrival of Gatecrasher.

She is employed by Opal Luna Saturnyne, the Omiversal Majestrix (who Kitty maybe finds attractive?).

They are after Rachel Summers because she is a "threat to reality" who is currently believed to be en route back to Earth. Gatecrasher and Saturnyne aren't exactly diplomatic, so a fight breaks out, with Gatecrasher summoning her Technet group.

All these characters are from the Captain Britain series (except for a few new members of Technet, characters i can only barely keep track of).

Kitty and Meggan are captured.

Nightcrawler teleports away.

Meanwhile, Rachel Summers does arrive back on Earth, after escaping from the Mojoverse. She's pursued by Mojo's Warwolves.

New costume for Rachel/Phoenix.

Nightcrawler arrives at Captain Britain's lighthouse for help, but he's got to sober him up first.

Technet manages to capture Phoenix but the Warwolves arrive immediately afterwards. Nightcrawler and Captain Britain show up next and soon it's a big fight with some cool moments thanks to the weird Technet characters.

Technet teleport away and the Warwolves retreat as well. After that, a fireside discussion about the X-Men results in Rachel Summers convincing the others to stick together to carry on Professor Xavier's dream.

It's a great start. As i said above, i tend to get overwhelmed by the Technet characters, and between them and the Warwolves things can feel a bit overloaded. But at the same time, all those characters provide great fodder for Alan Davis in terms of character design and the use of powers. Ultimately Excalibur will seem less like a group that is carrying on Xavier's dream and more about the madcap adventures that the lettercol response in X-Men #229 promised, and in realtime i basically checked out on this series pretty early and never got back in thanks to the Cross-Time Caper. In retrospect, it is great to have an x-book with a very different sort of tone. But more on all of that when we get there. For now, a nice beginning.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 6 - first Excalibur. First Warwolves.

Chronological Placement Considerations: This takes place after Fall of the Mutants and before the regular Excalibur series begins. The MCP has Roma appearing here behind-the-scenes after her appearance in Uncanny X-Men #229, but i don't think it makes a difference. Moira MacTaggert is said to be "away right now". To avoid having to say that the news is rebroadcasting their Fall of the Mutants coverage, i've placed this soon after the event. As Michael notes, Shadowcat's appearance in New Mutants #65 likely takes place before this issue, but in those New Mutants issues they are still replaying scenes from Fall of the Mutants on television, so that's not a problem.

References:

• In the dream sequence at the beginning of this issue, Kitty Pryde is mobbed by Hollywood types and forced to sign copies of Uncanny X-Men annual #10, which is also the last time we saw Mojo.
  
• Rachel Summers was last seen in Uncanny X-Men #209.
  
• The X-Men are thought dead as of Uncanny X-Men #227.
  
• It's noted that Captain Britain has also died once himself, a reference to his death by Fury in Marvel Super Heroes #388 before he was resurrected, ironically (or maybe not) by Merlin and his daughter Roma, who also resurrected the X-Men in Fall of the Mutants.
  
• At the end of this issue, sharing stories about the X-Men, Kitty mentions her first test of having to walk across the Danger Room while phased, which was in Uncanny X-Men #141 (and that story was also the introduction to Days of Future Past, which is the reality Rachel comes from). Nightcrawler talks about the period where he was using an image inducer to hide his true appearance and then when Wolverine dares him to walk down the main street of Salem Center without it. That was a scene from Classic X-Men #4. Rachel Summers doesn't have any positive memories to share because her memories are still a jumble.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Well, the book kind of starts with an X...

Kurt seems to be in very good physical condition for someone that just woke from a coma. Remember, Kurt awoke from his coma at about the same time Kitty found out the X-Men died, Meggan was swimming since Brian saw the broadcast where the X-Men died, Meggan flew to Muir Island and then the Technet attacked. Unless Meggan swam for a VERY long time or has a VERY poor sense of direction,that has to be less than a day after the X-Men died.
Rachel's jumbled memories are clearly intended to be do to Mojo, like Longshot's memory problems (and some of Spiral's dialogue in X-Men 209 supports this). Unfortunately, Alan Davis completely misinterpreted this, so we get stuck with another explanation for Rachel's memory problems.
Bizarrely, Rachel, Kurt and Kitty had to have seen Maddie's broadcast asking Scott to "find" her baby. Yet none of them seems concerned. Did they think that Scott and Maddie were playing a cross-country game of hide and seek? It gets even more ridiculous in issue 6, when we learn that Rachel established a mindlink with the baby so they could track him down in an emergency and Kitty knew about it.
New Mutants 65 might take place before this issue, since Illyana comes to visit Kitty on Muir Island in that story.

Footage of the X-Men's deaths might have been rebroadcast a few times over a week; maybe that helps a bit with the Kurt coma issues.

Phoenix was meant to appear in a canceled Claremont/Leonardi solo limited series after she disappeared from X-Men. True Friends takes place after Excalibur has formed, but before the Cross-Time Caper. It was originally meant to be the third or fourth Excalibur special, in 1990, but it was another Claremont/Leonardi project that got cancelled. And then UN-cancelled almost a decade later.

Davis is never less than excellent, and Claremont has enough spare x-plots and toys to keep the cast busy: this is a fun issue, and most of the Claremont/Davis run on the regular series is, too. (Though I also disliked it at the time; too goofy.) But this is a book seriously deficient in terms of basic premise: not only does the team not have a distinctive theme, but this particular lineup is just a grab-bag. It's two Byrne-era X-Men, Captain Britain and his sidekick/girlfriend, and Phoenix, a character with enough baggage before Mojo is thrown in. These three sets of characters have very little to do with one another, and each set has back-story baggage with different themes. Davis and Claremont can force it to work, but pretty much no one else can.

Colossus's return to the X-Men wasn't planned when Excalibur was first conceived: Colossus was to have joined Excalibur and been in a love triangle with Kitty and Captain Britain, on whom she'd have a crush. Glad that didn't happen.

Claremont makes a good effort in the first few issues of the regular series to mesh the X-Men and Captain Britain mythos: you'll notice practically ever issue has a villain from category A and another from category B. If he'd stayed on the book longer, maybe he could have made it gel. But as it is, this team has a pretty weak in-universe reason for existing in the first place, let alone sticking together.

Being British, the only thing I dislike about having a British super-hero team is that it's made up of characters from the US.I wish they had created brand new characters that felt distinctly British. Maybe Moore's run does, I don't know, but not under Claremont.

I may be in the minority here but I loved this book and the solo Wolverine book, in theory. The Wolvie book was great and only fell off (imo) because Claremont was off it so early. It recovered for a long time under Larry Hama, who had an amazing ear for the character and knack for combining both the solo Claremontian elements and the 90s team stuff.

And this one was fantastic and fun whenever Claremont or Davis was involved. But its tone was so particular, its premise so particular, and the whole thing so strange, that it had no chance to survive out of its creators' hands. Predictably, when Lobdell became the regular writer he immediately (literally immediately) started dismantling the Davis roster and turning it into another bland X-book.

But for a while, what a fun title. And the only one of Claremont's that would have a period after he left that was even better than when he'd been on the book (Davis's solo run, in this case).

Also, JSfan, two are British, one is German, and the other two are American (Jewish-American and Future-American, respectively). The two Brits originated in Marvel UK, as did most of the villains and plots of the early run. It was literally about a 50% Marvel UK title, which is actually amazing all things considered.

Hi, Cauchamar. No, I know that they're not all from the US and I believe the reasoning may have been to appease US fans who might not be interested in super-heroes from the UK; or perhaps the editors wanted to use already familiar and established characters to jump start the book. It just never felt British to me, well atleast not by the time I was aware of them (late 80s early 90s).

Well, it wasn't British. It was a Marvel title rather than a Marvel UK title. As a fan of both Claremont's X-titles and Marvel UK, I think this series (at least the Claremont/Davis and then just Davis runs) was far more Marvel UK than X-Men. There really was relatively little X-involvement other than initially to help get the book over with fans.

As to why they used established characters, presumably it's because it would have been impossibly to do otherwise. As shaky as the premise of it was, as little reason as they had to be together doing anything or for their stories to be told, imagine how much worse it would have been if it had just been 5 Marvel UK characters, or the two +3 original British characters. It could not have been an X-book, which doesn't mean it wouldn't have sold so much as it means it would not have been made. The purpose of the book according to Claremont was for a light-hearted, self-contained book to counter the increasingly gloomy titles (Uncanny, New Mutants, X-Factor).

I think British fans and fans of Marvel UK should be very happy about Excalibur through the Davis run. It was kind of a random love letter to them, created by Marvel's foremost writer and set among its most popular character group.

Fair enough. They just never clicked for me.

Not only is Kurt in excellent condition for a guy who just woke up from a coma, he was in pretty lousy shape before he went into the coma. Literally, in the scene where the X-Men find out about the Morlocks being massacred ("X-Men" #210) he barely has the strength to teleport once. Wolverine was similarly depowered at the time and all of that suddenly faded away.

To be fair, Kurt is only able to teleport once before exhausting his power in this issue and the first few issues of Excalibur. That still leaves the problem of Kurt being able to do acrobatics less than a week after waking up from a coma.

Marvel described this back then as "Bookshelf Format" and it was the first one Marvel did. Why call it that? Because they didn't want to call it the commonly accepted name, "Dark Knight Format"...

Never liked this series although the Alan Davis art is fantastic. Only reason I bought any issues. I agree with Walter Lawton - the premise is heavily flawed. I like these X-Men characters who aren't being used, but not on this team. Their connection to Captain Britain is dubious and forced. A new team of former X-Men would be fine, if not that at this point we have too many already. So would a team of British heroes in the main Marvel book. But together? Weak sauce.

I liked this at the time (the special edition and the series proper) because it was beautifully drawn and had its own distinctive tone. That seemed to justify a mutant book every week. the new one wasn't just another dreary slog. Chris Claremont was never exactly my go-to writer for humor, but it was nice to get him 33% less lugubrious.

Regardless of how one feels about the concept of the book, I think it's hard to argue it isn't a better read for the first couple of years than Alpha Flight or New Mutants from the same time.

Amazing Heroes Preview Special #5 listed this as "X-Calibre" and described it as normal format.

You may have meant it as a goof, but as far as Kitty seeing Saturnyne as being attractive; at the time, Kitty was going thru something of an inferiority complex as far as her looks/body image went. It becomes more obvious as the series went on, as she would compare herself to the older Meggan and Phoenix and felt she didn't physically measure up in the looks department. Just a part of Kitty growing into herself.

Now that we're getting into this era, I've actually felt inspired to pick up the Claremont/Davis (and solo Davis) collections on Amazon. Three arrived today (Excalibur Classic 1, 2 and 5) and I was surprised at how quickly I devoured them.

This was a really fun series. Sure, it's burdened with all of the late-era Claremontisms. Having been denied the use of Sir James Jaspers, it looks like he's actively trying to use whatever he can from Moore's run, to the point of making established American villains look goofy and easy to defeat (Juggernaut, Arcade, Mesmero.) And Alan Davis' art makes everything work.

At the time, I hadn't learned that different comic books were drawn by different people, and wondered why the New Mutants looked so weird in the annuals. Now, the worst I can say is it's a little bit stylized and cartoony, and I have no objection to comics being stylized and cartoony. The scene where Kitty wakes up from the nightmare looks gorgeous, and it's just a teenage girl monologuing to herself (and her pet dragon.) Excellent pacing, storytelling, scene-setting, body language. When Nightcrawler tosses Captain Britain into the ocean to sober him up, you can tell that Kurt doesn't give a sh*t what Brian thinks, just from the pictures.

I can understand British readers complaints that it wasn't really a British series. No, it was about giving Kitty, Kurt and Rachel something to do and tying in with the Captain Britain series, and if it gets in the way of the English (distinct from British) national character, too bad for you. The "Girls School From Heck" was particularly bad in this regard (although a decent story on its own) in that, whether playing proper football, having cheerleader tryouts, supervillainy or running a proper school for girls, really, the English can't do anything without Americans saving the day. It's enough to leave you wondering why we never colonized them.

[That's easy. The weather is horrible.]

It wasn't a British series, it was Claremont getting to play with the British characters, particularly the ones he'd created and/or the ones done so brilliantly by Moore/Delano/Davis. Saturnyne and the alternate universes, the Crazy Gang and the Warpies, it was all grist for his mill.

As for Kitty's self-image, besides the fact that she's a teenage girl, she is possibly the first deliberately flat-chested female character in comics. The "X-Men" series rarely focused on this, and you can make the obvious point that she's young and will get *ahem* older. I agree with the basic "Kitty growing into herself" idea, but she's already a supergenius/ninja, and now she gets to be drawn by Alan Davis, in a series partly-created to give her more screen time. Of course she's going to feel inferiority, possibly mirroring Claremont's own attempt to work on Alan Moore's territory. 'I can see why other people like it, darnnit.'

Somebody should tell Kurt that dropping a drunk man into the ocean does not make him sober. It only makes it likely he will drown.

Yes, but based on what he's seen, Kurt himself says "no great loss." Like I said, Kurt is clearly in 'doesn't give a sh!t' mode here.

I'm not saying it's right or heroic or in-character, just complimenting Alan Davis' depiction of the event and Kurt's attitude about it.

And contrary to what I said above, the on-going series clearly shows Nightcrawler working at a lower power when it comes to teleportation. It eventually got forgotten, but not as quickly as Wolverine's similar problems at the outset of the Mutant Massacre. For the early issues of "Excalibur," Nightcrawler is struggling to teleport, and relying far more on his acrobatic abilities.

"And contrary to what I said above, the on-going series clearly shows Nightcrawler working at a lower power when it comes to teleportation. It eventually got forgotten, but not as quickly as Wolverine's similar problems at the outset of the Mutant Massacre. For the early issues of "Excalibur," Nightcrawler is struggling to teleport, and relying far more on his acrobatic abilities."

Actually, this is incorrect. It was not forgotten. Nightcrawler's teleportation problem was ongoing until properly fixed in Excalibur #37. (Oddly enough, by Doctor Doom accidentally.)

That was a non-Claremont issue. Those have long since departed my memory. Substitute "easily retconned" for "forgotten" and my statement remains the same.

Today I received the first "Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis" collection, and it's about as good as I remember, especially considering I hadn't read the Moore-era issues at the time. [Really, it ties with Larry Hama/Marc Silvestri's "Wolverine" and Peter David/Larry Stroman's "X-Factor" for the best Claremont X-title not written by Claremont.]

I'm not sure what you mean by "easily retconned". "Retcon" stands for "retroactive continuity". It's a way of altering history to suit an evolving plot narrative in the present. One of the best examples of "retcon" is Professor X's death back in the '60s. A few years later, they wanted to bring him back so a flashback tells us that it wasn't actually Charles Xavier who died but the Changeling who was impersonating him. That is retcon.

Nightcrawler's ability to teleport was damaged during the fight with Nimrod. He had trouble teleporting from that moment up until Excalibur's fight with Dr. Doom in Excalibur #37 where Doom's forcefield fixed what Nimrod had damaged and Nightcrawler could teleport freely again like he used to. This was a very linear progression of a plot with a very clear resolution. There was no 'going back and re-writing the past' involved.

Sorry, I'm still confused about what you mean. What were "Wolverine's similar problems at the outset of the Mutant Massacre"? His healing factor and adamantium skeleton were both fine then.

In Nightcrawler's case, it wasn't a clear plot. Granted, I have no memory whatsoever of Excalibur #37, but I'm pretty sure I'd have remembered if it explained why Nightcrawler went from "I seem to have lost my power" in #210 to nearly passing out after one 'port in #211, and then a half-dozen pages later, making over half a dozen teleports in the space of one panel, and he's still on his feet (feeling lousy, but still on his feet) to realizing in "Excalibur" #7 that one good jaunt per day was his new limit. "Retcon" may not be literally accurate, but it's close enough for my purposes, wiping away what came before.

With Wolverine, he was in such bad shape in #207 that the X-Men brought him down to the Morlock healer, and even then he was still too weak to be moved. He basically stayed out of the fight with Nimrod and the Hellfire Club. I think it's implied that Rachel and her dreams were interfering with his recovery, but then she's gone, and still in #211, even Peter and Rogue can see something's wrong with him. "He has recovered from worse injuries far faster than this."

Then in the battle, Harpoon stabs him right in the chest, (remember what effects that had on Colossus and Kitty.) Yet after all this, he's still well enough to get into not one, but two consecutive fights with Sabretooth, one of them long and bloody? I'm surprised that Storm even let him stay down in the tunnels by himself.

Ah! I just remember Wolverine seemed to be fine during Mutant Massacre. I'd forgotten he was in rough shape before.

As for Nightcrawler, there was alway some indication that teleporting was difficult and exhausting up until Excalibur #37 where Doom inadvertently re-aligned his EM field and he could teleport freely and easily after that. You'll see he was rather overjoyed at it when that issue comes along. ;)

Like I say, I have no actual memory of that issue, and the very vaguest of memories based on your description. "Retcon" isn't a literally-accurate term, but it's close enough, and considering we're talking about retcons, "close enough" is, well, close enough.

Wolvie's massive injuries were ignored after a few pages to give us the big fight scene a couple issues later. Nightcrawler's injuries weren't ignored (and I freely admit forgetting both "Excalibur" #37 and the extent to which Kurt's power loss was covered through the Claremont/Davis "Excalibur")but the overall effect is the same. The way it was fixed is "close enough" to forgetting it that the entire plotline might as well not have existed.

An issue I read once upon a time happened to fix Nightcrawler's power loss, and it was so forgettable that I forgot it. Issues I've read more often than I care to admit in the last six months made a big point of Wolverine's power loss, and then he's able to fight Sabretooth for ten pages and show up healthy the following issue.

Talking about retcons, it's effectively the same thing. In some cases, it's the timeline [Xavier fighting in Korea, Reed and Ben fighting in WWII] and in others it's just unimportant stories that simply happen. YMMV, but it's especially noticeable in creator-driven series like "Excalibur" where it was about Alan Davis, and then Claremont.

I've been looking at the non-Davis issues of "Excalibur" and wondering if they are the best evidence of the Shadow King's power. Even when the issues aren't horrible, they're horrible. They're a chore to read, and even when I'm really interested in the story, it's difficult to figure out what's going on.

I still love that Logan and Kurt were able to commiserate about their own weakness, and that was literally the panel/page that the X-Men learned about the Mutant Massacre, which was originally supposed to be caused by Sir James Jaspers/The Fury, but Alan Moore said "no."

Wolverine's healing factor wasn't quite so insanely powerful back then. I assume it became that due to the reliance on him as a solo lead, a role that ill suits the character, but has a certain appeal to a certain mindset. It makes for a lousy story when the protagonist keeps seeking fights and then can't deal with the consequences.

You're probably right about why Wolvie's healing factor became so ridiculous. At least back then, we could be sure that he'd heal up sooner or later. [See the post-#250 issues, where Jubilee and Psylocke were constantly worried about Wolvie's inability to heal.] But this development has all the flaws of Mort Weisinger's "Superman" and none of the benefits. There's no tension involved in a guy who can't be killed, destroyed or even permanently harmed. With Superman, we can accept that concept and (sometimes) the stories were good too. He's flat-out invulnerable. Fair enough. Wolverine getting hurt and then immediately getting better is a twisted joke on the reader.

I remember when Fabian Nicieza's New Thunderbolts had a cameo by Wolverine during his "Enemy of the State" storyline in 2004.

A then-new Swordsman actually transpassed Wolverine with his sword. Not a fencing foil. A big sword, a broadsword if I am not mistaken. The kind of wound that would put a normal person in immediate danger and doubtlessly put him out of the fight for good (the wound entry and exit alone were big enough to cause a considerable loss of blood as to necessitate prompt treatment, even leaving aside punctured organs and infection).

And that was the last we saw of Wolverine in that book, at least for a good while. He simply went on with his own storyline, possibly without even making any reference to his fight with the Swordsman. Nor were the readers of New Thunderbolts even told whether he survived the fight. By that point they probably did not even ask the question.

Far as I can guess, the whole crossover/cameo happened just to invite a few Wolverine readers to try New Thunderbolts; to introduce the new Swordsman and show his fighting credentials, because see, he manages to piece Wolverine belly to back and survive to tell the tale!

I don't think it was even seen as a significant fight by Wolverine readers. Even for NT the impressive fact was that Swordsman survived without a scratch, despite giving Wolverine reason to feel enraged.

That was obviously just a dupe. I mean, by that time in the Marvel Universe, Wolverine has obviously gained something like Madrox's power so that he could simultaneously appear in almost every book.

The cover of Amazing Heroes #134(early February 1988) showed an earlier design for Widget. According to Claremont in the interview in the issue, Colossus was supposed to be a member but got bumped when it was decided that two big strong guys weren't needed. Rachel's whereabouts between X-Men #209 and this Special were supposed to be revealed in a 1988 Longshot miniseries by Claremont/?, but the mini didn't happen.

This was such a thrill when it came out. I believe it did actually hit stands right after Fall of the Mutants, because the "death" of the X-Men was something I had already read (or it would have felt weird to read it here).

My one nitpick was that they didn't really give us US readers any idea who all the UK characters were from Captain Britain's series. As it was, I only knew who Meggan was from X-Men Annual #11 (and didn't realize her chameleon powers which I don't think were used in that issue, so was confused by the art when she was with the dolphins). I think the constant presence of the Technet was a reason why a lot of people dropped the series (that and that it really was very different from the other X books and didn't interact at all), but since the UK readers had to put up with all our comics for so long, good for them to at least get their own characters being used.

But this was so refreshing - we finally get Rachel back after her disappearance and for those who are fans of Kitty (my favorite) or Kurt (such a great character), it was so great to have them back. I love Kurt in this issue, from pushing himself too hard to throwing Brian in the drink. We get to see the characters really react to death and we learn more about all of them from their reactions.

The series would be a bit uneven, with the goofiness eventually, IMO, over-whelming it. But this was a great start.

In the opening scene, Mojo's film company is called "Mojo's New World Pictures." Marvel had been sold to a company then known as New World Pictures a year or so before this was published. Kitty says the X-Men here (really Warwolves of course, and this is a dream) are "more puppets than heroes, travesties of the heroes I remember." Rachel says "when the reality no longer exists, exploiters" can do whatever they want with the legend. It's weird to see Claremont making this point years before his exit, but certainly he was already under pressure to expand the line.

Know what's icky? Take a look at the page where Meggan looks at Brian's memorabilia of Betsy, and note the photos of sexy, confident Betsy with nebbishy, pre-muscles Brian. Young science nerd Brian Braddock is a dead ringer for Doug Ramsey.

Mark, Rachel's story was to be told in a LS by Claremont/Leonardi, and the second Longshot LS was to be by Nocenti/Adams. Both involving Mojo, both aborted.