Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: excalibur, marvel, x-men, X-ual Healing - The Weekly X-Men Recap Column

Excalibur #5 is the Wolverine's Weiner X-Pick of the Week for January 8th, 2020

Published Tue, 14 Jan 2020 15:00:09 -0600

As Marvel does its best to return to pre-HoXPoX levels of market saturation, last week had five X-books for fans to choose from, so we hope you applied for one of those DC credit cards. In the event that you didn't get to read them all, however, no worries. Your favorite weekly X-Men recap column is here to tell you what happened in all of them.

Well, we've already done that, so now it's time to pick the comic that provided the feeling most like a belly full of grilled meat in tubular casing. That's right, it's time for the Wolverine's Weiner X-Pick of the Week!

Sworn to sell comics for Marvel executives who feared and hated the fact that Fox owned their movie rights, The Uncanny X-Men suffered great indignities, but thanks to a corporate merger and a line-wide relaunch, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in all of comics.

This week, I recapped five X-Books. Here's what I thought about them:

New Mutants #5

I have nothing to complain about with this issue. I like that the story in New Mutants is moving along at a pretty fast pace. Each issue of the space story so far has ended with the team in a very different place than they started, which is a breath of fresh air from many modern comics that spend an entire five-issue story arc to get from point A to point B. Magik has gone nuclear level horny and neither gender nor species will hinder her. I was right not to commit the names of the Death Commandos to memory since three-six of them were killed in the same issue they were introduced in, though it looks like I may need to learn the name of Orgy Mask Leader.

X-Force #5

This issue was pretty great, filled with action and some pretty gruesome violence, but tempered by a sense of humor. It introduces an interesting perspective from Bill, who tells the mutants that they are targets because they're on top now, not just because of bigotry or political motivation. And look, I understand that Bill is a bad guy who tried to kill Wolverine and Kid Omega and all of that, but X-Force needs to let him slide. For Rufus's sake.

Excalibur #5

I've been on board with this series since the first issue, a big fan of the chaotic pace that seemed to mirror Betsy Braddock's introduction to Krakoa. This issue tied together everything that's been happening over the first four. Of all the X-books, Excalibur is the one that best stands on its own in this writer's humble opinion, telling a unique story informed but not hindered by the main X-Men narrative. Add on top of that the art of Marcus To, a god amongst men, and Excalibur remains my favorite X-book.

Also, we've got a blue Rogue. You know where else we had a blue Rogue? In Chris Claremont's X-Men Forever, of course. Paying tribute to the classics: you gotta love it.

Fallen Angels #5

Let's be honest, most of us checked out on this series a couple of issues ago, but to be fair, this particular issue was a little more focused than the last one. The art still isn't appealing for me, but it seems like more effort was put into it this time around at least. There was less poetry and random incomprehensible nonsense and more moving the story along (which I guess is needed since next issue is the last). X-23 at least showed she's still a badass fighter in the training scene, even if all of her other character development of the past five years has been undone by past issues. So… an improvement?

Deadpool #2

Deadpool is an acquired taste for sure, and I would imagine difficult to write. He has an obnoxious personality, but how do you convey that without making him obnoxious to the reader? The team here is doing a good job of that so far, and it definitely helps to have Deadpool call out Captain America on his hypocrisy. Deadpool is at his best when, despite his antics, you can tell that he has more heart than the real heroes who so often look down on him. I'm looking forward to more of this.

And the winner of the Wolverine's Weiner X-Pick of the Week Award goes to Excalibur #5. Congratulations to the creative team for attaining this most coveted honor.

Past weiner winners:

Wolverine's Weiner X-Picks of the Year

Last week, we named five Wolverine's Weiner X-Picks of the Year:

Favorite Twitter Account: Jonathan Hickman

Horniest X-Men Comic: Age of X-Man: The X-Tremists

Most Canceled X-Men Comic: All of Them

Most Underutilized X-Writer: Chris Claremont

Most Overrated X-Men Relaunch: HoXPoX

And here's a few more brief ones:

Most Missed X-Writer: Tom Taylor (please come back!)

Bloodthirstiest Writer: Matthew Rosenberg (still Matty from the block though)

Clickworthiest Artist: Rob Liefeld (where is Major X 2?!)

Mutant with Most Dicks: Wolverine (with two dicks)

Franchise X-Pansion

Dawn of X started with six titles: X-Men, New Mutants, Marauders, Excalibur, X-Force, and Fallen Angels. Deadpool isn't part of the Dawn of X, but I count it as an X-book anyway. Gwenpool Strikes Back was revealed to also be an X-book, but it was a mini-series and it's over. Fallen Angels is ending, but February will introduce two books to take its place: Wolverine and Giant-Size X-Men, along with the four-issue X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover. In March, Cable and Hellions launch. And we know that in April, we'll at least be getting X-Factor by Leah Williams and David Baldeon. That's twelve individual X-Men series shipping in April, and undoubtedly some will double-ship. There's also the possibility we learn what X-Book featuring Storm that Vita Ayala is writing, and/or learn when X-Corps is coming out, announced for artist Carmen Carnero for February launch and then pushed back. Could we get either of those in April too? Or perhaps they're one and the same?