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

Apocalypse, Baby, Please Come Home – Excalibur #16 [XMXH]

Published Fri, 25 Dec 2020 13:00:40 -0600

Season's greetings, and welcome to a special X-mas edition of X-ual Healing. What makes this a X-mas edition? Well, it's taking place at X-mastime. If it's good enough for Die-Hard and Batman Returns, it's good enough for an X-Men comic book recap column on a clickbait website. Ho ho ho! Just one X-book hit stores on December 23rd, Excalibur #16, making this an easy week for ol' Jude Terror, a true X-mas miracle.

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. Still, thanks to a corporate merger, a line-wide relaunch, and Jonathan Hickman's giant ego, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in all of comics for lovers of soap opera drama.

EXCALIBUR #16
OCT200570
(W) Tini Howard (A) Marcus To (CA) Mahmud Asrar
THE SWORD IS SHEATHED !
The team is left changed in the aftermath of X OF SWORDS… and some things lost cannot be replaced.
Rated T+
In Shops: Dec 23, 2020
SRP: $3.99

Excalibur 16 Recap

The cast of Excalibur deals with the aftermath of X of Swords. Over an egg breakfast, Rogue and Gambit mourn the loss of Captain Britain. Jubilee enjoys having a human baby again. Rictor tries and fails to connect with Apocalypse.

At the Green Lagoon, Rogue and Gambit commiserate with The Blob, who is very sad about Betsy too. Does he remember his time with her during Age of X-Man? I forget how that worked. Rictor picks a fight because no one else cares about Apocalypse as much as he does.

The team is called to the Boneyard to talk to X-Factor about their investigation into Betsy's death. Because Betsy weirdly shattered into a bunch of pieces during X of Swords, X-Factor cannot confirm she's actually really dead, so they don't recommend resurrection. Rogue is pissed, but Rachel talks her down by suggesting Excalibur investigate Betsy's status in Otherworld.

They head to Avalon. Captain Avalon, Meggan, and their kid are living there with King Jamie Braddock. Meggan believes she might pick up a trail for Betsy at the site of her fight, but she needed backup in case Saturnyne gets involved. Excalibur go with her. They head out into the fields and Meggan explores her connection with the land while Rictor looks through Apocalypse's spellbook.

Meanwhile, Jamie also has plans for finding his sister. He visits Mister Sinister on Krakoa and asks him to make a clone body. Back in Otherworld, Excalibur and Meggan combine their powers with a spell and summon the Captain Britain Corps, who agree to look for Betsy. In the book's final scene, we see Betsy's consciousness awakening in a new reality where she's the queen and she's having sex with Warren Worthington.

Excalibur is the one book that wasn't really interrupted by the X of Swords crossover because the X of Swords crossover was mostly a continuation of Excalibur's ongoing story. That's good news for Excalibur because the book feels more mature than a Marvel book would normally be at 16 issues, probably having just barely established its premise and yet already on the verge of a reboot. I don't know how Rictor got so attached to Apocalypse so quickly, but I'll chalk it up to daddy issues. All the best heroes have them. And it looks like we may see Excalibur embarking on an interdimensional rescue mission for Betsy Braddock, which I am totally here for.

That's all for this week. Merry X-Mas and also a happy whatever-holiday-you-choose-to-celebrate-or-no-holiday-at-all-it's-all-cool-with-me.

If you do need more stuff to read though, I looked at some X-Men X-Mas stories back in 2018 for A Very Claremont Christmas, and you can read about those here, here, here, and here.