X-Lapsed, Episode 186 – Excalibur #20 (2021)
X-Lapsed, Episode One Hundred Eighty-Six
Excalibur (vol.4) #20 (June, 2021)
“No Pity From Your Friends”
Writer – Tini Howard
Art – Marcus To
Colors – Erick Arciniega
Letters – VC’s Ariana Maher
Design – Tom Muller
Head of X – Hickman
Edits – Bissa, White, Cebulski
Cover Price: $3.99
On-Sale: April 7, 2021
Today’s is a most malicious issue of Excalibur… which, thank whoever’s listening, does not take place in Otherworld! It does have a Betsy/Kwannon team-up though… which is something that’s getting a bit long in the tooth itself, innit?
We’re going to be learning a lot about Malice McMallister… and talking about some iffy-Resurrection Protocol shenanigans.
Also: Great Mailbag
Also Also: Reign of X Summer of Bloat News!
Also Also Also: A Brand-New Segment – F.A. Comics History, where we’re going to cover the quick and dirty on Malice!
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Twitter: @acecomics / Instagram: @90sxmen
It's amazing how the best issue of Excalibur yet can break me in the first couple of pages. I'm currently working on a series within a series on my podcast where I am looking back at all the Marvel 25th Anniversary issues with the celebratory border and I'm starting to prep an episode about the issue of Web of Spider-Man set in London and featuring the IRA. There is a small part of me that can forgive the terrible depiction of the UK in a comic from 1986 when it was more difficult to get information about the reality of life in the UK but what is the excuse in 2021? They have British writers working on the X-line couldn't they ask one of them to check out the book for Americanisms? This entire rant is my way of declaring that no British person would ever refer to a soap opera as their stories. Never. It literally pulled me out of the book.
Outside of this clanger this was far superior than the average issue of Excalibur. Even the Betsy/Kwannon relationship felt appropriate and not over-emphasised. They have turned Malice into Jericho, though, which explains how complicated her Polaris costume was.
Your fake-ass comic history was very interesting. I am really surprised that it took so long for Marvel to give Malice an origin. Without your research I would have guessed that they were re-using established continuity from when I wasn't reading the books.
I'm reminded that around the era of the Muir Island Saga I wrote up my own version of the origin of Malice where she was one of three Dane triplets (Lorna aka Polaris, Zara aka Zaladane and Mary Dane) who were daughters of Magneto when he was possessed by the Shadow King. Their mother was some kind of elemental who was inhabited by the life-force of the planet Earth. I think I was trying to create an Earthly version of the Phoenix force which I intended to be transferred to Lorna Dane. I think I had read about Chris Claremont wanting to use the Shadow King as the big bad guy for Uncanny 300 and I knew he was leaving so I was trying to think of how I would replace him. I really wish I'd kept ahold of all that kind of writing I did as a teenager. It was mostly terrible but it showed how I felt about the characters back then which is sometimes hard to mentally reconstruct.
I would say that the quality of this issue has raised my hopes for X-Corp but as I'm reviewing out of publication order I know full well that X-Corp has gone down like a cup of cold sick. I genuinely don't recall there ever being a new book that I haven't seen anyone praise. I'm currently both dreading having to read it and looking forward to hearing your response.