I had looked it up the other day, but "the Cross-Time Caper" in Excalibur was like 30 years ago! And today's book a mere twelve or so: Clandestine #3, story and pencils by Alan Davis, inks by Mark Farmer.
This issue's cover is a homage to Davis's own Excalibur #1; which hasn't been homaged as many times as Maguire's Justice League #1, but it's had a few! And this was midway through their last (to date) limited series but ties back into the Cross-Time Caper era, as a misadventure involving a role-play date (best left alone!) leads to Dominic thrown through a dimensional doorway and landing on Excalibur's train! Their Marvel-misunderstanding scuffle doesn't last long; partially because Excalibur is pretty polite for a super-team, but they also have the best telepath, Rachel. (Jean < Emma < Rachel < Alan Davis's Rachel. I will brook no discussion on this topic.)
Landing on yet another alternate reality, Kitty quizzes Dom, and doesn't think he's from their earth, since he was from 2008. Kitty doesn't say what year she was from, but it "definitely" wasn't 2008. But after Kurt saves some ungrateful slaves and Rachel punches out some remote-controlled red dinosaurs, an alien ship knocks them out and takes some of them! Ooh, I bought this random issue out of a quarter bin to blog, and have the whole series elsewhere, but are they on Killraven's earth?
Also this issue: the main plot involving the Clan Destine losing control of their powers continues. When their dad Adam disappears, the youngest of the family, masked kids Rory and Pandora; try to get their older siblings Kay Cera and Sam from a goth wedding. Goth wedding? It may actually have vampires!
I took a second to look up the sales numbers and...man, this issue sold worse than Simon Dark? Well, I haven't read that, maybe it was swell--oh, c'mon, Jenna Jameson's Shadow Hunter sold better? I wish I could sit comics in the corner to make it think about what it's done, since as always, Alan Davis draws the living hell out of this.
Well to be fair Jenna Jameson has the better name recognition factor going on, and horny teens probably bought it thinking they might chance upon a nip slip or something, so there's that, but that is pretty bad. Simon Dark too which I didn't think sold much at all which is why it didn't last long.
ReplyDeleteI'm not 100% sure just how well Davis does to moving stuff based solely off his name and art. You'd think fairly well, and he usually does, just NOT with the Clandestine stuff though.
Love those panels btw.
As for the better telepath...My money's usually on Jean myself. Now I'd say Rachel was probably the better overall host of the Phoenix since she didn't have as many of the physical or psychological issues her alt mom did with it, so there's that.
I think the Alan Davis version of most characters is the best version. Nightcrawler, certainly. And I will take Rachel over Jean or Emma every day of the week.
ReplyDelete(Emma Frost is firmly in that Namor territory of "why the hell would anyone willingly spend time with this person" for me).
I know there's a later Claremont/Davis Uncanny where Rachel and Emma get into it a bit. She wasn't thrilled with Scott then either, which only made me love her even more.
ReplyDeleteAnd shoot, I should look up how the first Clandestine sold. Probably numbers that comics won't see again soon...
ReplyDelete