X-amining Excalibur #110

"Hearts Bled Crimson"

June 1997

In a Nutshell

The battle with the Dragons of the Crimson Dawn leaves Captain Britain powerless.

Writer: Ben Raab

Penciller: Salvador Larroca 

Inker: Scott Koblish

Letterer: Richard Starkings & Comicraft

Colorist: Kevin Tinsley

Editor: Matt Idelson

Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras

Plot

Led by Spiral, Excalibur arrives in Hong Kong, near where Captain Britain is being held by the Dragons of the Crimson Dawn. Meggan confers with the mysterious figure only she can see — Xiandu, once a member of the Dragons who was betrayed and murdered by them — and asks for his help. Meanwhile, the Dragons are torturing Captain Britain, attempting to unleash the Crimson Dawn on Earth. Just then, Excalibur attacks, with Spiral battling the Dragons while Excalibur is led to Captain Britain by Xiandu. Reunited with Meggan, Captain Britain is able to reverse the Dragon's spell, reabsorbing his energy, but he can't reabsorb it fast enough. With Meggan's help to regulate the flow of energy, he manages to seal the rift, causing the Dragons to flee. Later, Brian reveals he's now powerless, and tells Meggan he is leaving the team to discover what he needs to do next. Meggan worries this is the end of their engagement, and Brian says he'll understand if Meggan can't wait for him, but she says she would wait forever.  

Firsts and Other Notables

Captain Britain leaves the team (again) as of this issue, having lost his powers in the battle with the Dragons of the Crimson Dawn. He'll return in issue #122, as part of the run-up to its finale in #125. 

This is the second significant delay in Brian and Meggan's engagement; the pair first got engaged in Excalibur #61, but Brian was written out of the book/lost to the timestream between issues #67 and #68. He returned in issue #75 as Britannic, and the question of getting back together with Meggan didn't really come up until he started to return to normal around issue #100. They will ultimately, finally, get married in issue #125.

The Dragons of the Crimson Dawn will appear again, in flashback, in the third issue of the upcoming Crimson Dawn miniseries starring Psylocke and Archangel. 

A Work in Progress

For what it's worth, we get the origin of the Dragons and the mysterious figure who's been appearing to Meggan. 

Kitty says she has to hold her breath while phasing to avoid a cloud of toxic gas released by one of the Dragons, but Kitty can't breathe when phasing regardless. 

A footnote misappropriate the source of Kitty's martial arts training to Wolverine, rather than Ogun.

Austin's Analysis

In general, I try not to turn every review of some otherwise random issue of an X-book into a treatise on the state of the line or the series at the time, especially when it's done because there's not much else to say about the issue, but it's hard to escape the feeling that this issue is emblematic of what the series and the larger X-Men line is struggling with as it heads into its big crossover event for 1997 (and a good example of why this book will be cancelled in just over a year). In terms of the art, scripting, plotting, etc. everything here is fine. You can quibble with Larroca's proportions or the way so much of the plot resolution is comic book mumbo-jumbo or that the villains are mostly interchangeable. But in terms of doing the job, it gets it done. There's some superhero action, some interpersonal beats, the visual storytelling is at least rudimentary. It's a shrug of a comic.  

But at the same time, it's hard not to wonder, what even is this series about at this point? The Dragons of the Crimson Dawn are characters connected (however loosely) to Psylocke, who isn't even in an X-book at the moment. There's some corporate synergy with the Crimson Dawn mini from the same creative team, launching in two months time, but it's not like any of the characters from this story appear in that one in any major way. Spiral isn't a character with much specific history with any of the current roster, and she's just kinda here. And while using the events of this story putting a pin in the Brian/Meggan engagement would normally be a decent enough hook for everything else, we've been down that road before; they've been technically engaged for almost 50 issues at this point, and the engagement itself really just became a thing again at the start of this story — clearly to set up it being paused here. So that feels less "significant narrative development" and more "narrative water treading" — which, more than ever, is the X-books' stock in trade. 

Once upon a time, Excalibur was a series with at least some artistic points of view, of late it feels more much of a piece with the long "fill-in" period between Claremont's departure and Alan Davis' return, when it was a series that existed just to serve as a holding pen for this particular assortment of characters until someone with something specific to say about and do with them would come along. Except right now, the book has a creative team. The problem is, it seems like the only thing they have to say with each issue is "here is another issue." That makes for neither terribly compelling stories in their own right, nor much of a hook to keep reading out of anything other than sheer habit — which seems to be the inertia the entire line is coasting on at this point. 

Next Issue

Return to Asgard in X-Force And Cable Annual '97 #1!

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