Excalibur Epic Collection: Days Of Futures Yet To Come

Excalibur Epic Collection

by Alan Davis, Scott Lobdell, Richard Ashford

Collects Excalibur (1988) #59-75 and Annual #1.

Phoenix faces her fate! The Phoenix-powered Rachel Summers is back, fresh from a battle with Galactus! Meanwhile, faces from Captain Britain's past resurface when the Warpies and the RCX return! But dark days lie ahead as the team joins Rachel on a trip to her own timeline: the nightmarish tomorrow of Days of Future Past! The secrets of Widget are revealed, and some surprising faces need help fighting for freedom against the Sentinels! Back in the present, Meggan and Nightcrawler despair as Captain Britain and Cerise are ripped from the team - and the departures don't end there! Rachel holds the key to Brian's return, but is the cost too high to bear? And what - or who - has Brian become?

Genres: Comics, X Men, Marvel, Comic Book

520 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 4, 2024

About the author

Alan Davis is an English writer and artist of comic books, known for his work on titles such as Captain Britain, The Uncanny X-Men, ClanDestine, Excalibur, JLA: The Nail and JLA: Another Nail and others.

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Reviews

[Sophia · Rating 3.25 out of 5]

i love excalibur it sucks <3 arts beautiful though

[Tomás Sendarrubias García · Rating 1 out of 5]

Leyendo los números contenidos en este tomo, me queda una impresión curiosa, la de cómo es posible que una serie pase de 100 a 0 en un solo puñado de números. Pero así eran los 90, claro (bueno, así es el mundo del cómic en cualquier época, tampoco vayamos a ponernos exquisitos). En este caso, vamos a tener el fin de la etapa de Alan Davis y lo que iba a venir después, y para empezar... pues lo haremos sin Davis, ya que los números 59 y 60 de la colección serían una historia de relleno con guion del omnipresente Scott Lobdell y dibujos de un muy primerizo Scott Kolins (que no parece él), en la que Kitty, el Capitán Britania y Meggan se enfrentan a un ancestral culto wakandiano, con la ayuda de la Pantera Negra, el Capitán América y Máquina de Guerra, antes de que Alan Davis volviera para centrarse en la historia importante, que era el regreso de Fénix a la Tierra, lo que les llevaría a un enfrentamiento con Acab y sus cazadores de mutantes.

La cuestión es que justo tras el final de estos cómics... pues Alan Davis se marchó de pronto, y un puñado de guionistas y dibujantes interinos iban a ir pasando por la colección, con más o menos suerte, y Lobdell daría un salto en el tiempo para mostrarnos un grupo prácticamente deshecho tras el regreso de Fénix, con un Capitán Britania desaparecido, una Meggan en estado catatónico, y el equipo teniendo que hacer frente a los Saqueadores Estelares y el Imperio Shi'ar al descubrir que Cereza era una criminal buscada por estos. Por supuesto, la historia de Cereza sería la de la rebelde que se había enfrentado al verdadero criminal, pero con esto, y un nuevo repaso a los miembros (Micromax, Kylun y Feron dejaron Excalibur entre viñetas), el grupo quedó reducido a Gatasombra, Fénix y Rondador, reubicados en la Isla Muir, junto a Moira McTaggert, e insertándose así en el núcleo de las colecciones mutantes, por lo que por allí pasarían Cable, los Arribistas y la mismísima Siena Blaze buscando el mapa genético de Proteus, pero finalmente, en el número 75, Fénix sería de nuevo alejada del grupo, siendo devuelta a su tiempo para volver a traer al Capitán Britania, que volvía convertido en una especie de Hulk llamado Británico.

Y es todo un despropósito... la idea de que para volver a traer a Britania del futuro tenga que intercambiar su espacio físico con Fénix, es un disparate. El desfile de dibujantes y guionistas hace que la colección se base en una continuidad de historias cortas sin demasiada perspectiva a largo plazo. Y bueno, de esos dibujantes, hay que reconocer que Terry Shoemaker y Jan Duursema por ejemplo hacen complicado leer estas historias.

Así que nada, una muy buena idea muy venida a menos. Qué le vamos a hacer.

[Adam Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I reviewed issues #59-67 as Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis, Vol. 3, I read #68-77 in issues)

I struggle to think of many positives to this run on Excalibur. As someone who was already not a fan of the series, the constant shifting of a team I didn't really care about gave me a bit of motion sickness. Characters I didn't like or care about were given dramatic sendoffs, and then, remarkably, not replaced until the team dwindled down to a bare bones ancillary X-Men team.

Once that happened, I actually started enjoying the book. I don't imagine that's the case with the people who loved Excalibur up until this point but, for me, a team of Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, and Rachel Summers trying to figure out their places in the X-Men universe was way more interesting than shifting through magic and fairy-themed alternate universes.

The highlight for me was the issue where Nightcrawler joins up with Rogue to learn more about his parents. This is connected to a storyline in Sabretooth, and feeds into another storyline in the X-Men. This is the type of story I connect to more than A Bedpost With A Face Gains Sentience And Chews Through Barriers Between Worlds, Some Featuring Nazi Versions Of Heroes. If the latter sounds awesome to you, then you're a better match for Excalibur than I am.

By the end of the story, one character has seemingly given up their existence to return another character who was lost in the timeline and it seems like we're going to get a new status quo with a team more similar to the original Excalibur lineup than the trio we focus on at the end of this volume.

We also get a peek at a villain who's going to be an important part of a future X-Force story.

So, as I say with most Excalibur reviews, if you love the concept and the team, you're going to like this more than I did. I don't think the beginning of this trade is going to be fun for people who aren't already fans of the team but I do think the end of this collection will be appealing to X-Men and, in particular, Nightcrawler fans, so I'm going to bump it up a star.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fragmented reading experience, partly due to Alan Davis' general writing style and partly due to system-wide shakeups that were happening at the time.

The volume starts in a good place, with compelling characters and personalities (well, except for Captain Britain, who's always struck me as a jerk), but it never seems to quite know what to do with them.

David fritters away ideas here and there. We get a cosmic interlude with Rachel/Phoenix as well as some tying up of loose ends with Days of Future Past and a few Captain Britain plotlines that even I'm not well enough steeped in the lore to recognize.

Every time I was ready for the series to cohere, it sort of skittered off in another direction, and the ending was a disappoint thematically and from a storytelling standpoint.

There's some nostalgia in here--it's always fun to see Nightcrawler and Kitty Pryde sort of doing Marvel's version of "Bwha ha ha"--but the general vibe is unfocused and a bit splapdash.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a mixed bag. Alan Davis’s return was a lot of fun, but then it was clear that editorial forced a sharp turn when a majority of the team is written out and Excalibur shifts from the quirky X-book to more akin to the mainline mutant titles. By the end, the status quo is shifted again and Excalibur may never be the same.

[Avril · Rating 5 out of 5]

The five stars is for the series up to 67, Days of Futures Yet To Come, (which is a bit of a tautology, but anyway). I think I agree with Jay and Miles of X-Plain the X-Men; that would have been the perfect place for this run to end. It’s just not the same post-Alan Davis.