New Excalibur #10

Written by Frank Tieri

Pencils & Cover by Michael Ryan

 

Tieri continues his completely off-track (from what came before) storylines, and after getting through the emergency one-shot last issue (with its very rushed art), we get Michael Ryan back on regular schedule. Except this time, we have the same problem we had last issue—Excalibur itself is only guest starring here as they show up at the end to talk to the protagonist of the first three/fourth’s of the issue.

 

Tieri has left his pet projects aside for the moment and is picking up a whole new line of plotting, the Black Knight. There are plenty of English based characters for Excalibur to explore, but we should be looking at the storylines Claremont had going (which included MANY different villains and heroes), even if it would be stepping in his sandbox. This is a comic book designed to make money, and rebooting the series’ plots just because Claremont had to take a medical sabbatical doesn’t make good business sense. Are we honestly going to have to go through the same thing when he returns because he’s going to pick up all the loose threads from what may be over two years ago? This book existed for Claremont to have a sandbox to play in, and abandoning the toys he choose to play with doesn’t seem like a proper way to keep his fans happy.

 

The bulk of the issue’s time is spent explaining who the Black Knight is, showing the title’s origin (a knight of the Round Table), and introducing us to both its current title-holder and the original. Completely ignoring Hudlin’s portrayal of the current Black Knight as a racist colonialist, Tieri has him acting in the more superhero role. The original Black Knight on the other hand is a ruthless killer who’s only a good guy because the Lady of the Lake forces him to be one.

 

The Lady transports the original from the past into the future where he occupies the body of the current title-holder. Excalibur show up and start fighting him, even though the current Black Knight is supposed to be Captain Britain’s friend, and defeat him. That’s two times we’ve had the whole team show up out of nowhere and made to look foolish, an odd way to start off your run on the book.

 

Tieri does do one thing that Claremont never did properly and that’s give a reason for this team’s existence—it was ordained by God (as a scroll from Camelot extols).

 

As a setup issue, this isn’t bad, but the past history of this book doesn’t allow for many tangents at this time. We were just getting to a point in the comic that had the team members coming together realistically, and now we’ve had two comics in a row that completely shunts the whole team to the background. Even the obligatory round of showing everyone’s powers in action isn’t enough to make this book very new-reader friendly. So, if Tieri isn’t writing to attract new readers and isn’t writing to keep Claremont fans happy then who is he writing for? His own niche of loyal fans maybe? It certainly isn’t for my reading pleasure.

 

Rating - 4