With the arrival of X-Men ‘97’s second season, most nerds are looking longingly back to the 1990s. By this point, the era has been fully analyzed, especially where Marvel’s Mighty Mutants are concerned. We’ve all discussed ad nauseam how speculator markets, endless crossovers, and a love of pouches and guns tainted the X-Men, but we’ve also come to recognize that people such as Fabian Nicieza, Joe Madureira, and Peter David did some great work at the time. Heck, some people even stick up for Rob Liefeld as a sort of vulgar auteur.

To be sure, most of these discussions acknowledge Excalibur as the wonderful weirdo of ‘90s X-Men. Everyone agrees that the team had a great lineup, that Alan Davis’ art and scripts were a delight, and that the covers are hilarious. But here’s the thing: that’s still not enough, because every ‘90s X-Men fan should acknowledge that Excalibur was the best book of the era, and one of the best X-Men series of all time.

For the uninitiated: Excalibur spins out of the 1988 Fall of the Mutants storyline, in which the X-Men seemed to die on live television, sacrificing themselves to save Dallas, of all places. Recovering from serious injury in Scotland when their teammates “died,” Nightcrawler and Kitty Pryde find purpose again when the shape-shifter Meggan asks them to help her distraught boyfriend Captain Britain (whose sister Psylocke apparently died with the X-Men), an adventure that eventually reunites them with Phoenix a.k.a. Rachel Summers, the time-displaced, alternate dimension daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey.

Those are heavy themes, the likes of which would continue throughout the first two years of the book’s existence. Writer Chris Claremont did not avoid nasty moments in those 24 issues, ranging from monsters who wear the skin of their victims to an alternate-universe Nazi version of the team, complete with the Jewish Kitty as an emaciated woman tortured into service. Yet, Claremont always wrote to his artist’s strengths, and the playful, wispy pencils of Alan Davis meant that the book always had at least some sense of whimsy.

That whimsy came to the forefront when Davis returned to the book with 1991’s Excalibur #42, long after he and Claremont had been replaced by various other creative teams, to not just draw but also write the team’s adventures.

Davis sets the tone immediately with the cover for Excalibur #42, inked by Mark Farmer and colored by Glynis Oliver. The classic team stands at the center of the page, all cowering in fear, even the mighty Captain Britain and the cosmically-powerful Phoenix. In the foreground, stomping toward the team is a tiny lil’ yellow guy, who warns in an expressive balloon from letterer Michael Heisler, “Pwepare to die!”

On the surface, the story reads like any other superhero comic of the era. Hoping to impress the magical empress Saturnyne, the bounty hunter team known as Technet attacks Excalibur in their lighthouse, first by exploding a bomb in their headquarters and then by gathering the unconscious bodies. Excalibur comes to and responds, resulting in a brawl that finally ends with the arrival of a higher authority, who briefly intervenes, giving our heroes a chance to both defeat Technet and offer the villains a truce.

Again, any number of comics published in 1991 have similar plots. But the Excalibur story, entitled “A Hatch is Plotted,” uses the conventions as a launching point for transdimensional silliness. The bomb that explodes the Lighthouse comes in the form of Hawd-Boiled Henwy, essentially an evil version of Tweety Bird, who emerges from an egg in the team’s kitchen, berates them for a few minutes, and then blows up. 

The higher authority that intercedes is Horatio Cringebottom of the Ministry of Crosstime Transport Regulation Monitor and Control, Sanction Implementation Department who, a stuffy Doctor Who riff, complete with his own companion, a cool dude called “Bert.” Even the way Excalibur defeats Technet is goofy, as they take advantage of Cringebottom’s decision to freeze the baddies in time and rearrange each member so that, when they’re released from stasis, they all punch each other in the face.

As goofy as these plot beats sound, Excalibur isn’t a parody of superhero comics, like The Tick, nor is it taking a sitcom approach to the genre, as Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis did with Justice League International or Peter David was doing over in X-Factor, the other great X-book of the era.

Instead, Excalibur gets goofy because they live in a goofy world, a world of absurdities that they regularly encounter by virtue of being superheroes who deal with the supernatural and the paranormal. Under Chris Claremont and especially under Alan Davis, Excalibur plays like the X-Men in an episode of The X-Files written by the staff of Doctor Who.

Everyone who knows ‘90s Marvel knows that about Excalibur. And yet, for some reason, they’re not constantly talking about how great Excalibur is, and that needs to change, today.

— Joe George, Den of Geek contributor

Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciller: John Romita Jr.
Inker: Dan Green
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski
Colorist: Glynis Oliver

Okay, okay—I know what you’re thinking. There is no way anyone in the world would have forgotten Uncanny X-Men #200, one of the landmark issues of the Chris Claremont run! It’s the Trial of Magneto! It has that iconic cover, with Magneto in his “big M” and “sultry long gloves” costume, wearing handcuffs in the foreground while the X-Men battle Fenris in the background! It’s the culmination of Claremont’s redemption arc for Magneto, turning him from a one-note Silver Age supervillain into a morally-grey hero!

All of that may be true, but I must ask you… Do you remember what actually happens in this issue? Given how rarely those particular plot points come up in adaptations. Even X-Men ‘97, which did not shy away from wacky comic book logic, had Magneto earn his pardon by saving the UN.

That was not the case in Uncanny X-Men #200. Yes, that comic does indeed end with Magneto defending the members of the UN from the Strucker twins, who have come to avenge the death of their Nazi father Baron Von Strucker. And yes, in the final pages, Magneto does accept Xavier’s plea to be a better man, which leads to him becoming the new headmaster of Xavier’s School, a plot point also adapted into season one of X-Men ‘97.

However, neither the show nor any other adaptation of the story has included the argument made by Magneto’s lawyer, Gabrielle Haller, the argument that convinces the general council to pardon him. In 1974’s The Defenders #16, written by Len Wein and penciled by Sal Buscema, Alpha the Ultimate Mutant turns Magneto into a baby for holding the UN hostage, which becomes the bedrock of Haller’s defense.

“At that time, Magneto was reduced to infancy, returned to a state of grace,” Haller argues. “His life can be said to have begun again. The man that was, at that moment, ceased to exist. In effect, he died.”

Turns out, that was good enough for the United Nations. His babyhood recognized by the world, Magneto was deemed innocent of previous crimes and allowed to walk free. The decision changed Marvel Comics forever… even if most have forgotten why it happened.

Columnar storage. No split architecture. No new query language. TimescaleDB extends Postgres with hypertables, Hypercore compression, and continuous aggregates so analytics run on live data.

CERN uses it to handle sensor data from the Large Hadron Collider.

One database. No pipeline.

Start with $1000 In Credits

🏳️‍🌈 Although not canonically an LGBTQ+ character, Supergirl’s stories have often attracted a queer fanbase.

🖌️ In 1976, Black Panther began his first solo series and brought on one of the greatest artists in comic book history.

🐉 In a surprising twist, Marvel has given Cyclops a D&D-inspired high fantasy outfit that feels perfect for his next dungeon-crawling adventure.

⛩️ Blade Runner: Tokyo Nexus ventures into uncharted territory, blending the iconic sci-fi universe with Japanese mythology and action-packed duels.