Jim Lemoine
Mar 25, 2003, 03:29 am
<img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/columns/chimarvel_logo.jpg" align=left border=0 alt="Chimerical Marvel">By Douglass Barre, blackflak@aol.com
Excalibur #126-#135: The Nocturne Saga (1998-1999)
I know a lot of people who swear that Excalibur never got better than the Chris Claremont/Alan Davis days. "Wonder and excitement! Unbridled fun and adventure!" they tell me. Others contend that it reached its peak when Alan Davis returned to 'save' the series from the litany of meandering fill-ins. "Clear artistic vision! Rich history combined with wry humor!" they insist. My edgier friends thrust copies of the Warren Ellis run at me. "Rich characterization! Mature forward-thinking evolution!" is their cry. Heck, once someone even tried to tell me they liked one of the other runs, but I don't think he spoke English.
Me, though?
I swear by Joe Sherry's Nocturne Saga, which ran from #126 to the series' final issue, #135.
Joe Sherry had just recently come off of a fill-in run of six issues on Wolverine, and seemed to be the latest in Marvel's unofficial new writer development program, the "Joe Squad." As a result, it was with some trepidation that I picked up his first issue, As The Worm Turns. I had been burned too many times by the British X-book, and I didn't hold out a lot of hope that a newbie writer (who I incharitably suspected was probably some editor's old college roommate) would be able to stave off the cancellation that had been rumored for the last year of Ben Raab's run.
"Pleasantly surprised" didn't say the half of it.
Sherry took a team book that had been wandering and pared it down to the barest of bare bones. His first issue discarded the comfortable trappings of Muir Isle and Braddock Manor and tossed the team's de facto leader, Nightcrawler, into a devilishly twisted world covered in darkness. Alone.
Excalibur fans were no strangers to parallel worlds... in fact, it had almost become de rigueur for an Excalibur writer to poke his pen into some sort of cross-time conundrum or the other. Sherry's script, however, began in media res, giving the reader no time to wonder how Nightcrawler got to what he dubbed the "world of scary monsters who all talk like Oscar Wilde."
His second issue continued the solo adventures, this time focusing on Captain Britain, trapped in a world of corporate finance and superhero marketing. Again, no warning was given, but the black comedy of Captain Britain as CEO of ExcalibCorp was far too engaging to complain about.
By #128, the Kitty Pryde, Queen of Nerds issue, it was becoming clear that behind the comedy there was a greater epic taking shape. We knew that Rachel Summers had gone forward in time to become Mother Askani... so who was the redheaded woman calling herself Nocturne? And how was Nightcrawler--who had leapt into the shadow rift at the end of #126--appearing in his teammates' dreams?
The mystery only continued through #129 (Meggan's return to Faerieland) and #130 (Pete Wisdom, Agent of H.Y.D.R.A.) but came to a head in #131 when we learned the truth behind the cross-time kidnappings. The battle between Colossus and Widgetinel in that issue even foreshadowed Peter's eventual sacrifice to stop the Legacy Virus (a detail that close friends Scott Lobdell and Joe Sherry were particularly pleased to point out in a Newsarama interview after Uncanny X-Men #309 was released.)
It was issue #132, however, that stunned Excalibur fans everywhere. Nocturne's true identity and her murder by her own ex-teammate polarized the X-readership and is still a matter of debate today. Sherry proved that humor wasn't his only strength as a writer... he could also write tragedy with the best of them.
Unfortunately, sales continued to slip despite the positive critical reviews, and before Joe could finish his epic, the word came down from Bob Harras that Excalibur was to be cancelled with issue #135. This left Sherry with only ten issues of his planned twelve-issue story. Considering that he was working on #133 when the decision was made, he was faced with the unpleasant task of squeezing five issues worth of carefully plotted story into three issues.
As a result, the three part finale, Moebius Strip, seems rushed. How could it not? The quest for the artifacts becomes little more than an exercise in off-panel action, and the revenge-of-the-nerds subplot loses the charm that Queen of Nerds had. Fortunately, Sherry knows what he's best at, and refuses to cut time from the character interaction as the team members face the tragedies and turning points from the long history of Excalibur, not to mention the repercussions of issue #132.
It's clear that Joe Sherry was writing a story with a purpose. That purpose, when he started the Nocturne saga, was to reaffirm the Excalibur team. The true nature of the team as he reveals it in issue #132 is brilliant in its synthesis of all the prior incarnations of Excalibur. Unfortunately, because of the cancellation, the purpose of the story changes from a fresh beginning to a melancholy coda. If one was to look at the entire 135-issue run of the series as one epic novel, the Nocturne Saga is the chapter that ties even the most disparate chapters together.
Unfortunately, after Nightcrawler, Colossus and Shadowcat returned to the X-Men after the cancellation, few of Sherry's plot elements were followed up on by X-Men writers Joe Kelly or Steve Seagle. Fellow "Joe Squad"der Joe Casey mentioned a few times his intention to resolve what he considered "the major loose end left behind by [Joe Sherry's] Nocturne Saga" but his run on Uncanny was similarly cut short before he could do more than platform his ultimate resolution.
Still, to this day, the Nocturne Saga remains one of the great unsung mutant epics, a swan song for a series that had more than its share of ups and downs. In a time where Marvel continuity is considered antithetical to writing a good and accessible story, this final Excalibur storyline proves that one can have that cake and eat it too.
Mmm. Cake.
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Douglass Barre is currently the writer of Mythstalkers from Image Comics and the creator of his own line of Chimerical Comics available at www.blackflak.com. Yes, he lives in his own little world, and no, you can't get him out.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Before you waste a lot of time driving store to store to track down this week's featured title, please click here (http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16839) to make sure you've gotten the joke. We also sincerely warn you not to buy any Chimerical Marvel titles online, no matter how nice the seller seems.
Marvel Comics and their characters, stories and situations are (c) and (tm) Marvel Comics. Existant Marvel Comics creators and editorial staff are real people, and therefore (c) and (tm) themselves and are used here as a fictional depiction or personality parody. Non-existant Marvel Comics creators and editoral staff are entirely fictional characters and any similarities to persons living or dead are accidental and coincidental. CHIMERICAL MARVEL is a satire and/or parody (depending on the week) and not intended maliciously, but out of love. I love you, Harry S. Truman.
Excalibur #126-#135: The Nocturne Saga (1998-1999)
I know a lot of people who swear that Excalibur never got better than the Chris Claremont/Alan Davis days. "Wonder and excitement! Unbridled fun and adventure!" they tell me. Others contend that it reached its peak when Alan Davis returned to 'save' the series from the litany of meandering fill-ins. "Clear artistic vision! Rich history combined with wry humor!" they insist. My edgier friends thrust copies of the Warren Ellis run at me. "Rich characterization! Mature forward-thinking evolution!" is their cry. Heck, once someone even tried to tell me they liked one of the other runs, but I don't think he spoke English.
Me, though?
I swear by Joe Sherry's Nocturne Saga, which ran from #126 to the series' final issue, #135.
Joe Sherry had just recently come off of a fill-in run of six issues on Wolverine, and seemed to be the latest in Marvel's unofficial new writer development program, the "Joe Squad." As a result, it was with some trepidation that I picked up his first issue, As The Worm Turns. I had been burned too many times by the British X-book, and I didn't hold out a lot of hope that a newbie writer (who I incharitably suspected was probably some editor's old college roommate) would be able to stave off the cancellation that had been rumored for the last year of Ben Raab's run.
"Pleasantly surprised" didn't say the half of it.
Sherry took a team book that had been wandering and pared it down to the barest of bare bones. His first issue discarded the comfortable trappings of Muir Isle and Braddock Manor and tossed the team's de facto leader, Nightcrawler, into a devilishly twisted world covered in darkness. Alone.
Excalibur fans were no strangers to parallel worlds... in fact, it had almost become de rigueur for an Excalibur writer to poke his pen into some sort of cross-time conundrum or the other. Sherry's script, however, began in media res, giving the reader no time to wonder how Nightcrawler got to what he dubbed the "world of scary monsters who all talk like Oscar Wilde."
His second issue continued the solo adventures, this time focusing on Captain Britain, trapped in a world of corporate finance and superhero marketing. Again, no warning was given, but the black comedy of Captain Britain as CEO of ExcalibCorp was far too engaging to complain about.
By #128, the Kitty Pryde, Queen of Nerds issue, it was becoming clear that behind the comedy there was a greater epic taking shape. We knew that Rachel Summers had gone forward in time to become Mother Askani... so who was the redheaded woman calling herself Nocturne? And how was Nightcrawler--who had leapt into the shadow rift at the end of #126--appearing in his teammates' dreams?
The mystery only continued through #129 (Meggan's return to Faerieland) and #130 (Pete Wisdom, Agent of H.Y.D.R.A.) but came to a head in #131 when we learned the truth behind the cross-time kidnappings. The battle between Colossus and Widgetinel in that issue even foreshadowed Peter's eventual sacrifice to stop the Legacy Virus (a detail that close friends Scott Lobdell and Joe Sherry were particularly pleased to point out in a Newsarama interview after Uncanny X-Men #309 was released.)
It was issue #132, however, that stunned Excalibur fans everywhere. Nocturne's true identity and her murder by her own ex-teammate polarized the X-readership and is still a matter of debate today. Sherry proved that humor wasn't his only strength as a writer... he could also write tragedy with the best of them.
Unfortunately, sales continued to slip despite the positive critical reviews, and before Joe could finish his epic, the word came down from Bob Harras that Excalibur was to be cancelled with issue #135. This left Sherry with only ten issues of his planned twelve-issue story. Considering that he was working on #133 when the decision was made, he was faced with the unpleasant task of squeezing five issues worth of carefully plotted story into three issues.
As a result, the three part finale, Moebius Strip, seems rushed. How could it not? The quest for the artifacts becomes little more than an exercise in off-panel action, and the revenge-of-the-nerds subplot loses the charm that Queen of Nerds had. Fortunately, Sherry knows what he's best at, and refuses to cut time from the character interaction as the team members face the tragedies and turning points from the long history of Excalibur, not to mention the repercussions of issue #132.
It's clear that Joe Sherry was writing a story with a purpose. That purpose, when he started the Nocturne saga, was to reaffirm the Excalibur team. The true nature of the team as he reveals it in issue #132 is brilliant in its synthesis of all the prior incarnations of Excalibur. Unfortunately, because of the cancellation, the purpose of the story changes from a fresh beginning to a melancholy coda. If one was to look at the entire 135-issue run of the series as one epic novel, the Nocturne Saga is the chapter that ties even the most disparate chapters together.
Unfortunately, after Nightcrawler, Colossus and Shadowcat returned to the X-Men after the cancellation, few of Sherry's plot elements were followed up on by X-Men writers Joe Kelly or Steve Seagle. Fellow "Joe Squad"der Joe Casey mentioned a few times his intention to resolve what he considered "the major loose end left behind by [Joe Sherry's] Nocturne Saga" but his run on Uncanny was similarly cut short before he could do more than platform his ultimate resolution.
Still, to this day, the Nocturne Saga remains one of the great unsung mutant epics, a swan song for a series that had more than its share of ups and downs. In a time where Marvel continuity is considered antithetical to writing a good and accessible story, this final Excalibur storyline proves that one can have that cake and eat it too.
Mmm. Cake.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Douglass Barre is currently the writer of Mythstalkers from Image Comics and the creator of his own line of Chimerical Comics available at www.blackflak.com. Yes, he lives in his own little world, and no, you can't get him out.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Before you waste a lot of time driving store to store to track down this week's featured title, please click here (http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16839) to make sure you've gotten the joke. We also sincerely warn you not to buy any Chimerical Marvel titles online, no matter how nice the seller seems.
Marvel Comics and their characters, stories and situations are (c) and (tm) Marvel Comics. Existant Marvel Comics creators and editorial staff are real people, and therefore (c) and (tm) themselves and are used here as a fictional depiction or personality parody. Non-existant Marvel Comics creators and editoral staff are entirely fictional characters and any similarities to persons living or dead are accidental and coincidental. CHIMERICAL MARVEL is a satire and/or parody (depending on the week) and not intended maliciously, but out of love. I love you, Harry S. Truman.