I went to Seattle a couple weeks back, and hit a ton of comic shops; all of which were very nice, but didn't have the big bins of quarter books that I had my black little heart set on. I did get a pretty good stack of trades on the cheap, sure, but they don't fit in the scanner; and neither does one of the few cheap singles I found: from 1991, Excalibur: Air Apparent, written by Scott Lobdell, with art by Ron Lim, Dwayne Turner, Brian Stelfreeze, Jackson Guice, Rick Leonardi, Erik Larsen, and James Fry; inks by Al Gordon, Karl Story, Klaus Janson, Tom Palmer, Joe Rubinstein, Erik Larsen, and Don Hudson. And a Walt Simonson cover!
That's a pretty good roster of artists!...for a completely throwaway story. We've seen some specials that I thought were structured to be serials in Marvel Comics Presents, but this particular one was set up with seven-page chapters; MCP would've been eight. So this seems to have been meant to be like this. Huh. Lobdell wrote another one, 1992's Excalibur: XX Crossing, which was a newsstand book, not a prestige format like Air Apparent, but with a similar split-the-team set-up.
Anyway, from a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, the Weird Happenings Organization's Brigadier Stewart (wow, I knew that was a Dr. Who homage, but it's a double one!) gives Excalibur a mission: stop a mad scientist, who among other things, had a Life Model Decoy with a nuke in it running around, and had salvaged a piece of the destroyed Air-Walker android to make a duplicate one. The team splits up to stop various threats, and while Nightcrawler shoots up the LMD with an M-60, and Kitty fights an Alien-styled robot over lava; my favorite is actually Meggan vs. Coldblood! I kinda like him as the Player-2 version of Deathlok, only he's suave and smooth while poor Deathlok is more coarse. Coldblood's like the James Bond of Marvel cyborgs...I'd mention I would like a Coldblood Marvel Legend, but poor Meggan hasn't even got one yet.
Anyway, not an essential book, but fun enough. Especially since you could probably find a copy for cheaper than the $4.95 cover now.
Damn that's a lot of artists for one book. I don't remember this one but I do remember seeing the XX Crossing one. Wasn't that the one where they time-travel and fight the original X-Men or something? Then there's the Mojoworld one right?
ReplyDeleteKurt welding an M-60 is pure badass. I may have to start using Frank's guns w Kurt now. Or you could as well during the big battle scene towards end of your Magnificent Seven storyline.
Poor Kitty. Her and aliens just do NOT mix. First she fights a Xenomorph rip-off in the Brood, and now an actual (kind of) Xenomorph.
Yeah, the XX Crossing vs. the original X-Men, it was a cheaper, not-squarebound book. Even less substantial plot, honestly.
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