New Excalibur #13

Released: November 22, 2006

Publisher: Marvel

Writer: Frank Tieri

Penciler: Jim Calafiore

Cover: Michael Ryan

 

This is Tieri’s last story arc before Chris Claremont returns, and this one promises to actually serve a needed function. Last story arc saw us add the Black Knight, a British character but hardly one you’d think to find on an X-book, to the roster and generally try to do what the MAX book Wisdom was able to pull off twice as well.

 

Now we have Tieri focusing on Juggernaut and his attempts at reforming. Chuck Austen (a writer it’s in vogue to hate) brought about this transformation in the character, then turned around and made his ex-partner Black Tom a child murderer. So Tieri is here cleaning up that whole series by exploring Cain’s feelings about the switch and mitigating Black Tom’s murdering ways with the ol’ insanity plea.

 

For Juggernaut, we get an interesting scenario where the Wrecking Crew are teasing him/beating on him for betraying the cause, thieves honor and all that. To top it off, it works well to tease the angle of supervillain muscle brotherhood, super-strength evil union or something. I should note that the Wrecker is supposed to be incarcerated after he was recaptured in New Avengers. A minor point really since he works well here as a medium strengthed supervillain who would both know Juggernaut and be a threat to him in a fight.

 

That’s the other half of this coin, Juggernaut is losing strength as he joins the side of the angels. The Cyttorak Gem is unhappy with Juggernaut’s easy going ways, all starting in a past story where Juggernaut went against Cyttorak’s wishes and foiled some mystical brouhaha. So now Cain’s heading to Korea to settle his problems with his patron deity, an aspect of the character which is usually tossed aside since he mostly shows up in a science driven X-books.

 

This is a problem that needed to be addressed and I’m happy to see Tieri do something productive with his time. He’s also added a bit to the leader problem on the team. Technically, Pete Wisdom gathered the team together to work for MI13, but Captain Britain is a character that naturally gives orders, being the King of the Otherworld. In the background is Sage, who’s always played a very specific role as a second in command, tactical manager type, but if Captain Britain is playing that role in the field then she’s either relegated even farther into the background or as Tieri hints at, she’s subtly leading everyone while only letting Pete and Cap think they’re in charge. As a cute aside, it works but it really shows the problems with this team’s existence. At least the Pete Wisdom angle gave them a reason to exist, and presumably an easy means of procuring ‘missions’. But it isn’t written that tightly, the team structure is still floundering about trying to ignore the fact that only three characters have a reason to be on the team and only one of them is a mutant.

 

For now though, it’s focusing small and for Tieri that’s a great idea. The jokes aren’t funny and the camp factor is a little high for my tastes but this is going to become a Chirs Claremont book again sometime so at least it’ll be consistent. On that note, I’m actually looking forward to Chris Claremont’s return—I wish him a speedy recovery.

 

Rating - 5