"The End" Week: Excalibur #125!

Ah, it wouldn't be "The End" week, if I didn't have a book with Nightcrawler. Or one I actively hated. From 1998, Excalibur #125, "Tying the Knot" Written by Ben Raab, pencils by Dale Eaglesham, inks by Scott Hanna.

The nicest thing I could say about Ben Raab is that he wasn't Chuck Austen. Close, though. He took over Excalibur after Warren Ellis, and was probably editorially mandated to roll back everything. It's not as bad as it could be; but bland and forgettable. This issue, Captain Britain marries Meggan; a hungover Douglock annoys Wolfsbane; and Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Kitty Pryde leave Excalibur to return to the X-Men. (To this day, I don't know if Excalibur's cancellation was due to sales, or re-consolidating the X-brand.)

The worst part about this issue, is catching up with dropped plotlines characters that hadn't been seen in the book for whatever reason, usually a change of writers. Micromax, Feron, Kylun, Cerise, all of whom are varying degrees of unsuccessful and/or pissed about falling off the team. Which isn't their fault, or Excalibur's, but probably the writers or the editors, I guess.

Excalibur was a book I was always glad to have, even though it's ratio of good/crap may not have been great. Claremont's issues were all pretty solid, any issue with Alan Davis writing or drawing were great, and Warren Ellis's were my favorite. The rest were spotty, and this one wasn't really a winner either.

More "The End" posts over the weekend! I plan on watching a lot of football Sunday, so that may mean even more than I have now, unless the Cowboys tank it and I spend the evening swearing at the TV...