Issue(s): Excalibur: XX Crossing
Cover Date: 1992
Title: "XX Crossing"
Credits:
Scott Lobdell - Writer
Steve Lightle / Ron Lim / Brian Stelfreeze / Joe Madureira / Jae Lee / Malcolm Jones III / Rick Leonardi - Penciler
Jimmy Palmiotti / Alan Gordon / Brian Stelfreeze & Karl Story / Shawn McManus / Jae Lee / Malcolm Jones III / Al Williamson - Inker
Mark Powers - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
I find myself to be overprotective of Dr. Doom, to the point where i feel like the majority of his appearances aren't done right. I suspect i'm not alone in this (hence Walt Simonson's Fantastic Four #350) but it doesn't seem to stop most writers from getting Doom "wrong". Take this story, for example. I feel like Dr. Doom would never be soliciting super-powered mercenaries (he makes his own super-villains on the rare occasion that he feels he needs them).

And i feel like he would never sit there and tolerate some cocky idiot making jokes and making a general ass of himself while repeatedly failing to do what he was promising to do. My Dr. Doom would have disintegrated him a minute after he opened his mouth. And more to the point, i feel like Dr. Doom would never admit to himself that he has a reason to extract vengeance from Excalibur over the events of Excalibur #37-39. Doom would believe that he got exactly what he wanted out of that encounter as part of a longer term goal, and indeed my Dr. Doom wouldn't just believe it; it would be true.

So that sours any opinion i was going to have over this issue, which is really just an excuse to have the members of Excalibur fight the original X-Men in strange scenarios in individual chapters illustrated by different artists. (If you're comparing my credits to the actual issue, be aware that the credits for chapter 3 were corrected in the lettercol of Excalibur #54, with Brian Stelfreeze & Karl Story replacing Dwayne Turner and Josef Rubenstein. And Steve Lightle and Jimmy Palmiotti do both the opening and closing chapters.)

And then again without the weird settings.

I think the assassin, Sidestep, might really be Brian Michael Bendis, because who else thinks that bringing the original X-Men into the present is a good idea? And of course Excalibur manage to beat them. The original X-Men, especially when they were still kids, weren't exactly powerhouses. Sidestep says "maybe I should have shanghaied the Avengers" at one point. No kidding!

Nightcrawler eventually gets the vest off of Sidestep that gives him his powers, and the original X-Men are sent back to their own time period with no memory of the incident. So Sidestep can't really be Bendis, because the X-Men don't linger around forever. Then we see Doom drop Sidestep down a trapdoor and call on the next applicant.

One thing i like is that the only dialogue we get from Doom in this story is that bit at the end with him calling the next potential assassin. This way i can pretend that the whole time he's thinking to himself, "How did i get myself in this ridiculous situation?".

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Nightcrawler's cast is off, so i've placed this after Excalibur #54.

References:

• Excalibur caused Doom some trouble recently in Excalibur #37-39.
  
• Faced with the idea of fighting Cyclops during the American Revolution, Captain Britain wonders if he's in an alternate dimension, but reminds himself that they saw the last of the Cross-Time madness in Excalibur #50.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A