"Swallow."

OK, it feels like I haven't done one of this style strip in a while, although I probably have: where we visit a bunch of characters briefly and see if by random chance anybody moves the plot forward or if they're all part of the same problem. It's a good excuse to dig up a ton of figures, which I maybe have to organize now. 

Moon Knight's sword is from real current continuity in his book, and it's great! Well worth grabbing. Gwenpool has obviously seen the second season of X-Men '97: I have not yet! But I know what happens and am okay with it. I'm kind of hoping in a season or two they speed-run Amazing X-Men. Also, pink fills! Ah, I didn't miss those.

I feel like there's a better MCU Valkyrie figure, and I have the MCU Sif as well but really prefer this Simonson-style look. Although, I seem to associate it with just before Simonson's run, where Sif seems to slowly realize her extremely long-term boyfriend loves stupid Midgard and its stupid people, maybe more than he loves her.  Also, I like the Sylvie figure from the Loki show, except for her coat-cape thing: it makes her look hunched over, doesn't it? Sadly, I also think hers was not a well-selling figure; you might be able to find her on discount pegs still. 

Gorr's cloak maybe does him less favors than Sylvie's: her articulation was perhaps hindered a bit, but Gorr's is buried. But I like the idea of Gorr more than the execution: Thor: Love and Thunder is kind of a mess tonally? The scene of Gorr scaring children and seemingly having a ball doing it, kind of undermines any sympathy for the plight that drove him to kill gods. Anyway, finding Gorr was strictly an accident, but a good-enough excuse to use him, largely for ridicule. Couple weeks back, the great Poe Ghostal showed off a new Elric figure; that I completely missed the bus on; the aftermarket is not gonna be forgiving on that one. But it reminded me that Gorr, Knull, Dagon Gera from some Star Wars; there's a lot of Elric-lookalikes out there. (Generally they're pale with an evil sword: the bad guy in Hellboy II: the Golden Army is very based on him.)

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"Dancing."

The song playing last time was Real Life's "Send Me an Angel," but maybe I should've gone with They Might Be Giant's "Spiralling Shape." Which was on the soundtrack to the Kids in the Hall movie Brain Candy, but was also used in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle. "Okay, guys...have the last candy bars of your childhood." Just a bit of fluff this week: I don't think Kurt would really let Spiral run off with Longshot...no matter how annoying he is...and rest assured, she didn't get very far with him. But more Angel next time! Read more!

"Damaged."

Is it largely happenstance that Spiral is here? Probably! Also, I have the old Toy Biz Pyro--I'm not sure how, since I didn't buy it new--and don't have the new one since I bought that Rogue at a show; and Avalanche, let's be honest, you can probably hold out a bit for his price to drop. That would get us a fairly solid Brotherhood/Freedom Force lineup, except they're still short Destiny, and I'd really like one of her. Although Kurt doesn't have the history with her that Rogue does, I think he sees her as a not-mitigating influence on Mystique, almost as a bad step-mom. Also, are the Brotherhood crew pals, found-family, work friends? Have we seen them together in the Krakoa era? I get the feeling they don't look back with fondness on their time together; I see them like a band that toured and toured and toured until they hated each other's guts and broke up pretty hard.

We're also dipping our toe in, just a smidge, into current X-book continuity: in the last storyline in Legion of X, Nightcrawler started getting progressively more monstery; starting with horns and going from there. Orchis used him to murder some anti-mutant politicians or podcasters or whatever, to stir up anti-mutant sentiment; but Kurt was more concerned with, if he was the 'soul' of the X-Men, how did he not notice things were so messed up? Which has benched him for the time being, until his turn as Spider-Man coming this fall. The murders weren't really his fault, but probably weigh on him; but I'm more interested in that a very similar plot happened to Elektra in recent issues of Daredevil, where I think she might've been framed for murdering the president of France. I think. Honestly the last few issues have just fallen out of my memory; like they planned on going somewhere, then couldn't and hit a swerve. Still, I really wanna see DD-Elektra and Spider-Kurt team-up; probably going to have to do that myself.  

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The real spiral here is probably the sales numbers.

I'm still waiting for my new Marvel Legends Spiral to ship: it's by all accounts, a pretty well done figure. Particularly since her old one wasn't that great; although I think I probably still have it in the garage. Still, it seemed like a good excuse to pull this one from the quarter bins: from 1997, Excalibur #109, "Dragon Moon Rising" Written by Ben Raab, pencils by Salvador Larroca, inks by Scott Koblish.

Post-Onslaught, Excalibur was still thinking about how to fill the void left by all the heroes that got shipped over to Image, but they aren't off to a great start as Nightcrawler blows up Cerebro while trying to repair it. (Do most failed computer repairs explode like that? They damn well do in X-Men comics!) Kurt is also fretting about how to get Moira MacTaggert's mind off her troubles: namely, that she still hadn't found a cure for the Legacy Virus she had also contracted. Kurt's teammates, meanwhile, are themselves fretting since his girlfriend and their occasional teammate Amanda Sefton seemed to have flaked out and bailed. But, enough of that, as Spiral appears! She's apparently captured Meggan, so Kurt clashes swords with her, but with only three swords to her four, gets punched out. Pete Wisdom distracts Spiral, so Kitty can grab her and phase her through the floor, then checks on Meggan, who claims to see an invisible man with a warning about Brian, and takes off. While everyone gives chase to Spiral, in Hong Kong, the Dragons of the Crimson Dawn examine the captive Brian Braddock. I forget if he was Captain Britain again at this point, or still going by...ugh...Britanic. Seriously, that's gotta be a placeholder name that made it to the final. Brian tries to make a showing of it, since he doesn't know what happened to Meggan, but he's lost his can-do attitude, since he knew he was losing power by not being in Britain.

Also placeholders: the Dragons. I feel like everybody vaguely remembers them from a couple Joe Madureira issues of Uncanny, and Psylocke had a red kinda mark over her eye afterwards? Wolverine got a ninja Wolvie action figure outta the deal? Well, the Dragons themselves have made five appearances, total, three of which were this run in Excalibur! I know they have names but don't recall them or care to look, but one of them looks like kung-fu Tharg. Also, the pages set in Hong Kong have borders in the style of a Chinese restaurant's menu circa 30 years ago.

I actually had to look if my copy was missing pages, since the scene shifts back from Hong Kong to Spiral vs. Wolfsbane, but wasn't she fighting Kitty? Yeah, there are pages out of order. The whole comic actually reads kind of choppy anyway if you get a copy; in the middle of the book there's a big three-page ad for Howard Mackie and John Romita Jr.'s run on Peter Parker, Spider-Man. Kurt manages to get the upper hand on Spiral, who then explains she no longer works for Mojo, and was there because she needed their help to save herself: she had run into the Dragons in her extradimensional Wildways, and had been given the same red brand Psylocke had. She was trying to get out from under them, and didn't want them to get Brian's power. Kitty and Colossus know they can't trust Spiral, but Meggan begs them to let her try, since she and Brian were about to be--married! A long time coming. With some cheesy lines, Kurt agrees to the mission, and the team is teleported to Hong Kong... 

Ugh. Following Warren Ellis would be a tough go for anyone, but Ben Raab wrote several books at Marvel about that time and I didn't like any of them; like the last issue of Spider-Man 2099. (In his defense; he co-wrote that one after regular writer Peter David quit, so he could've been on the spot there.) He's done more work for TV in recent years. Larroca had one more issue on Excalibur, and then the book gets really hit-or-miss on the art for a little over another year, when Excalibur would be cancelled with #125, and Kurt, Kitty, and Piotr would be rolled back into the X-Men. Phooey.

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