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aka: Excalibur

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A Marvel Comics Super Team, where the X-Men franchise intersected with the Marvel UK imprint.

After the Mutant Massacre storyline left the X-Men broken, injured members Shadowcat and Nightcrawler were sent to Muir Island in Scotland to recuperate. As a result, they weren't with the X-Men when the team sacrificed their lives to defeat the Adversary on national TV during The Fall of the Mutants arc, and like the rest of the world, didn't know the X-Men got better afterwards. Chris Claremont and artist Alan Davis decided to use this opportunity to put the characters into a new team that incorporated the British characters Captain Britain and his Magical Girlfriend Meggan, who had little U.S. exposure at that point, but had ties to the X-Men through Cap's sister Psylocke.

So Phoenix (Rachel Summers), who had previously been lured to a parallel dimension by X-Villain and Large Ham Mojo, escaped to Muir Island shortly after the X-Men's "deaths" with Mojo's Warwolves hot on her trail. Obstructive Bureaucrat Saturnyne also decided that Phoenix was a threat to all reality and sent a group of interdimensional bounty hunters known as the Technet to capture her. Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler, Cap and Meggan are soon brought into the fray, banding together to rescue Rachel while reminiscing about the X-Men and deciding to keep Xavier's dream alive, thus founding the team.

Then the quirky metal creature and living portal known as Widget found them, and the team was thrown into a series of interdimensional wacky hijinks across The Multiverse for some time. The series started in 1988 and lasted a good decade. For a while, it was known as the weird and comedic X-book. But no team with mutants can ever stay light-hearted for long in the Marvel Universe, so the series eventually adopted a darker tone.

After the series ended, Marvel launched a new 2004 Excalibur title — although it was also part of the X-Men franchise, it wasn't directly related to the first series, instead following Professor Xavier's adventures on Genosha. It was followed by a New Excalibur series in 2005.

Since then, the team has broken up and reformed a couple of times, with different membership each time. A Spiritual Successor Captain Britain and MI13 (even featuring the actual Excalibur sword) was launched in 2008, but cancelled after 15 issues.

The title was resurrected as part of the Dawn of X initiative with Brian's sister Betsy (no longer inhabiting Kwannon's body) taking up the mantle of Captain Britain and leading a new team to help guide a new age of magic. For tropes pertaining to that series, see Excalibur (2019).

Captain Britain and the Black Knight also show up as playable characters in Marvel: Avengers Alliance along with some of the mutants in Excalibur, and MI13 and Faiza also get mentioned.


These comic series provide examples of:

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    Original Series (1988-1998) 
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Magical Computer that used to live under Captain Britain's ancestral home.
  • Alternate Company Equivalent: Excalibur was pretty much Marvel's answer to Justice League International, another Lighter and Softer book that also placed a greater emphasis on humor.
  • Another Dimension: It almost seemed like the original Excalibur team were hopping into another dimension every other week. More cynical readers might speculate that this was because the book was usually written by Americans who didn't know anything about the UK, and this was the easiest way to hide that fact (not entirely true, considering that co-creators Chris Claremont and Alan Davis are both British-born, and though Claremont's family moved to America when he was a child, Davis is a lifelong resident—not to mention the fact that Claremont was a co-creator of Captain Britain in the first place, and once the Book DID get into American hands the dimension hopping was all but abolished and most stories from there on out took place in the standard 616 reality). That said, The Multiverse was already a well-established feature of Captain Britain stories—one of which first coined the now-ubiquitous "Earth-616" as the designation of the "prime" Marvel Universe—and it was shown early on that Brian was only one of a dimension-crossing corps of near-infinite Captain Britains. Even with a long storyline explicitly involving parallel realities—"The Cross-Time Caper"—Excalibur really spent no more or less time on Earth-616 than Cap himself did in his previous solo adventures.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Brian towards his teammates, particularly Rachel and Kitty - and of the two of them, especially Rachel (even if she was by far the most powerful member of the team) - because they're the youngest, and, it is hinted, because Rachel reminds him of his psychic sister, Betsy, who he believes is dead.
  • Bizarre Baby Boom: The reality warping of Jim Jaspers causes children born during it to come out mutated. They come to be known as "warpies" as the event itself gets called Jasper's Warp and their powers are commonly so unstable it'd be a miracle for any of them to make it to adulthood without detonating.
  • Blade on a Rope: Miss Emma Steed, the Black Queen of London's Hellfire Club, can create rope of psionic energy that have blades on the end.
  • Bounty Hunter: The spectacularly incompetent Gatecrasher and her Technet.
  • Bouquet Toss: In issue #125, Brian and Meggan's wedding, Meggan tosses her bouquet to the assembled girls and lady guests. As usual, there is a veritable brawl to get the flowers: Psylocke (Brian's sister) ninja kicks Gatecrasher, and Cerise and Amanda Sefton duke it out for the bouquet (and Nightcrawler's heart).
  • Brainwashed Bride: A variation occurs in issues #6-7, when during the Inferno (1988) crossover, Rachel Summers gets a telepathic distress call from baby Nathan (the present version of Cable) and flies from England to New York to help him. She is caught in a storm of demons and changes into a mannequin from a bridal boutique. A lesser demon from Limbo, under Madelyne Pryor (The Goblin Queen)'s command, finds the Rachel mannequin wearing a bridal dress and takes her to their "wedding", which is officiated by another demon. Being a mannequin, Rachel is actually immobile and cannot move, nor speak.
  • Britain Is Only London: Averted. For starters, Excalibur's first headquarters is Cap's lighthouse, located in Cornwall, on the western coast of Britain. Then later, the team relocates to Muir Island, at the northernmost tip of the British Isles.
  • Captain Patriotic: Played With in Brian's case - as Captain Britain, he has the codename, but bluntly informs a 'patriot' that he is nothing of the kind, got the codename with the costume, and is primarily concerned with right and wrong.
  • Chased by Angry Natives: One of the many worlds we get a glimpse of in "The Cross-Time Caper" arc was an Europe colonized by the Native Americans making it, essentially, this world's Wild West. We see Excalibur chased by angry warpainted British "braves" wearing bowler hats and swinging umbrellas.
  • The Chessmaster: Merlyn. And his daughter Roma. But mostly Merlyn. Roma is a Chessmaster to most characters, but to Merlyn she's just another pawn.
  • Chess Motifs: The Hellfire Club, as usual, have ranks named after chess pieces. Also, Merlyn and Roma have a chess board that they place crystal figures of other characters on. When Merlyn returns from his fake death, he places a figure of Roma on the board to point out that even his own daughter is merely a pawn, not a player in his game. Brian at one point gets fed up about it in a conversation with Roma and kicks over a table that had a chess game set up on it.
  • The Commissioner Gordon: Inspector Dai Thomas. His relationship with superheroes was extremely strained due to the death of his wife in the wreckage of a super-fight (he nearly crossed the line to Inspector Javert) but in the end did come to find some respect for Captain Britain, and the rest of Excalibur, with a particular gruff affection for Rachel and Kitty (teenagers who he saw as little more than kids) and Lockheed (excused on the grounds that he's not a superhero).
  • Dirty Mind-Reading: Being a telepath, Rachel catches... interesting thoughts from an alternate Nigel Frobisher. We never find out what the exact thoughts were, but they were bad enough to make Rachel furiously tar and feather Frobisher. When Brian is sternly rebukes her, she projects the thoughts into his mind. About two seconds later, the rest of Excalibur are having to do their level best to prevent Brian from killing Frobisher.
  • Disgusting Public Toilet: In the Inferno (1988) tie-in, Kitty needs to answer a call of nature while being carried by Meggan across the Atlantic. They spot a freighter and land on it so she can go to the restroom, but the place is disgustingly filthy. Kitty is horrified, and afterwards makes clear she never wants to speak about it ever again.
  • Evil Costume Switch: Subverted. Rachel Summers eventually ditches her original spiked red bodysuit (which was based on her Hound costume) and settles for the blood-red ensemble of Dark Phoenix. But she's not pulling a Face–Heel Turn; she just prefers these colors over "Light" Phoenix's costume. In her words, "[Dark Phoenix] might have been a threat to the universe... but she had great taste in clothes!"
  • Evil Mentor: Courtney (actually Sat-Yr-9 in disguise) to Kitty. Subtly at first, as she appears nothing but friendly and well-intentioned, but her lessons gradually grow more obviously evil.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Gravemoss and Necrom both count.
  • Expy: Brigadier Alysande Stuart of W.H.O. (do you see what they did there?) was a Gender Flipped version of Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stuart from Doctor Who. Her brother, Alistaire, was W.H.O.'s "scientific advisor"; the same role the Doctor had at U.N.I.T.
    • Interestingly enough Alistaire greatly resembles a later version of the Doctor. He even ends up having a shifting appearance in Captain Britain and MI13 (albeit as a Retcon to explain why he'd been drawn as an older man by a misinformed artist) thanks to "an unfortunate dinner incident with Morgan Le Fay".
  • Eye Scream: A heroic example occurs when Necrom attempts to lure Kylun into a trap with an image of his girlfriend, superimposed over her reanimated corpse, previously killed by Necrom. Kylun isn't fooled, and as Necrom is sneaking up behind him to drain his life he lashes out with one of his magical swords, slashing Necrom across the face and putting out one of his eyes. The sorcerer sensibly flees the battle.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: Very early in the series, almost the whole team was flipped with the Crazy Gang, using a device invented by Tweedledope: Captain Britain with Tweedledope, Meggan with the Knave, Nightcrawler with the Jester, and Phoenix with the Executioner. (Presumably, the villains intended to flip Shadowcat with the Red Queen, but she escaped.) Cap was able to somehow access Tweedledope's skills to use the device and reverse the effect (after the usual misunderstanding fight, naturally).
  • Fun with Acronyms: Most of the fictional government agencies had one of these. Sadly.
  • Future Me Scares Me: When Daytripper is pulling Captain Britain from the timestream, Rory Campbell catches a glimpse of Ahab (the slaver of mutants who tortured Rachel and kept her as one of his Hounds in her original timeline) and, recognizing him as his own future self, started to fear ever going down that road.
  • Giving Them the Strip: In "The Cross-Time Caper" arc, Shadowcat and Phoenix (temporarily de-powered) are bound upside-down in a slaver ship. Kitty shows off her ninja skills (last seen in the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini-series) to slip out of her boots, freeing herself. Rachel comments that she couldn't do that even if she knew how, since her costume is literally one piece of leather going up to her neck. Kitty replies that she could probably still pull it off, if not for embarrassment.
  • Government Agency of Fiction: Plenty! There was the R.C.X., F.I.6. (at threat of being merged with R.C.X.), the Weird Happenings Organization, the Department of Unknown and Covert Knowledge (don't... uh, don't think too hard about that one.), S.T.R.I.K.E. and Black Air.
  • The Heart: Kitty gets separated from the group during the Cross-Time Caper and the stress of her absence raises tensions within the group.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Colossus, who previously had a Face–Heel Turn following his sister's death and joined Magneto's Acolytes.
  • Kill and Replace:
    • Poor, poor Courtney Ross. It does not pay to be the exact physical duplicate of a ruthless otherdimensional dictator.
    • Also the Warwolves, extradimensional creatures who can suck out a person's Life Energy, leaving just their empty skin, then put on the skin and pass as the person (despite being shaped like quadrupedal animals in their natural form). At one point they scour the globe to find exact lookalikes for the other X-Men so they can impersonate them.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: During the team's stay in New York after the events of Inferno, we see a couple named Lois and Clark. Later on, during the Cross Time Caper storyline, Brian and Kitty are accosted by a pair of cops calling themselves the "Dirty Angels".
  • Let's You and Him Fight: In one of the later issues of the first series, Nate Grey came flying in to get a check up from Moira MacTaggert, who was helping him with his power degeneration issues. Excalibur assumed the worst of the extremely powerful telekinetic heading straight for Muir Island, and promptly attacked him. Later in the same issue, another misunderstanding triggered Nate's paranoia, and another fight - which ended quickly and hilariously after Moira scolded Nate into submission.
  • Lighter and Softer: This series was originally conceived as being more lighthearted than the various X-books that were being published at the time, which were pretty dark and to prove it they took the most "fun" members of the X-Men (Nightcrawler and Kitty Pryde) and basically wrote the team around them.
  • Living Mood Ring: While Meggan can take on any shape she chooses, her form involuntarily changes depending on her mood, such as becoming more inhuman when she's feeling sad and taking on Nightcrawler's blue skin and hair and golden eyes when they were on the verge of a Relationship Upgrade.
  • Love Makes You Evil: It's revealed that the reason Excalibur ally Rory Campbell became Ahab, the monstrous mutant slaver from Rachel's Bad Future timeline who had tortured her and turned her into one of his Hounds, was because he was in love with Amanda Sefton, who rejected him in favor of Nightcrawler. That being said, it's also shown that Rory had a pre-existing dark side that, though he resisted it for a while, he eventually gave into.
  • Monster and the Maiden: Early in the "Cross Time Caper" arc, the team finds themselves helping a young prince rescue a fair maiden from a hideous ogre while on a version of England based around medieval fantasy. Later it's discovered that this was actually a set-up, with the maiden hoping to become the prince's betrothed by having him rescue her. The ogre? Actually her rather posh butler who was playing the role at her request because he'd do anything to help his mistress.
  • Ms. Fanservice:
    • When she disappeared in Uncanny X-Men, Rachel was a stick-thin tomboy who usually wore gym clothes. When she reappeared in Excalibur, after being trapped in the Mojoverse, on her return she was built like a porn star (perhaps literally, considering where her new body came from) and wore a skintight, stiletto-heeled, spike-studded, red leather catsuit when on duty, and as little as possible off duty.
    • Lampshaded at one point when she and Kitty go shopping, dissatisfied with the conservative suit and pumps Kitty picks out for her she uses her powers to re-arrange Kitty's outfit to resemble something Rachel normally wears. Kitty immediately thinks that she looks like a hooker.
    • Meggan had her moments too. Frankly, most women drawn by Alan Davis do, though Davis actually drew Kitty to look like a young girl.
  • Multinational Team: The original team had Captain Britain (English), Meggan (British/Fey, raised by Gypsies), Nightcrawler (German), Shadowcat (American/Jewish), Lockheed (alien dragon) and Phoenix (alternate future American). Other line-ups also included Colossus (Russian), Douglock (American/techo-organic alien), Wolfsbane (Scottish), Black Knight (American), Feron (alternate universe Fey), Cerise (yet another alien race), Pete Wisdom (English), etc. There's also the constant presence of the extradimensional robot Widget.
  • My Local: The team would often go there to celebrate after a win. Or commiserate after suffering a beating.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Doc Crocodile rightfully imprisons Jamie Braddock for being a slave trader and drug runner but decides to torture him before executing him, ignoring the prophetic warnings of his witch doctor. His torture awakens Jamie's reality warping powers, and also drives him insane thinking reality is a dream meaning he unleashed a person with no restraints on getting what he wants completely absolved of his guilt because he believes nothing is real. Crocodile is aware of this, and laments it once Jamie breaks out.
  • Not in Kansas Anymore: In one issue, Colonel Novikova says something along those lines when she and Nth Man get dimensionally swapped with Rachel and Nightcrawler.
  • Oddball in the Series: This series was not only Lighter and Softer than the other X-related titles (though not without its own share of Nightmare Fuel for which the X-Men comics are justly famous), took place on a different continent altogether (Europe), and had many non-mutants on the roster (a rarity for X-teams), but it features somewhat obscure Marvel UK characters that had little to nothing to do with the X-Men, and the stories were mostly sci-fi and fantasy when most X-titles focused on whatever mutant hysteria was going on at any given time.
  • Out-of-Genre Experience:
  • Power Incontinence:
    • Something of an epidemic of this in the early days of the book, such as Shadowcat having her powers disrupted so solidifying took a supreme effort. Another example seemed to be for the sake of making things easier on the writer, which was Nightcrawler having a harder time teleporting so he had to rely on it less.
    • At one point Meggan couldn't control her empathic shapeshifting and copies whoever is closest to her. This was the worse with Rachel, who she reacted so strongly to she would switch feature and clothing and risk losing her identity.
    • Later on Necrom's scheming causes a buildup of the energy matrix that empowers Brian. At first this increases Brian's strength beyond his control before he basically hulks out size-wise, destroying clothing he's wearing and objects around him because he's not used to his new form.
  • Progressively Prettier:
    • When Nightcrawler first appeared in X-Men he was short and creepy looking. When he was moved to Excalibur, Alan Davis purposefully drew him standing at six feet tall and modelled his facial features after Errol Flynn. Sure, he was still a blue elf but he was noticeably more charming-looking than his earlier Dave Cockrum incarnation. Other artists have followed suit for the most part.
    • When Rachel Summers first appeared she was a skinny tomboy with a crewcut. When she joined Excalibur she was given a very well-developed build and a skintight costume that didn't leave much to the imagination. Justified since her transformation happened while she was in Mojoworld, a place known (among other things) for reshaping people into attractive movie stars.
  • Public Domain Character: There are a lot of references to Arthurian myth.
  • Put on a Bus: In issue #125, Kitty, Colossus and Nightcrawler tell Brian and Meggan they plan to go back to America, to the X-Men.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Let's see... there was Brigadier Stuart and her scientific advisor Alistair of the Weird Happenings Organization... and the "Girls School from Heck" story arc, a clear nod to St. Trinian's (down to the school itself being called St. Searle's after the author).
    • In an early issue, Arcade abducts people and forces them to entertain a crowd with stand-up comedy. If they can't hold the crowd's interest, he kills them... with a descending giant mechanical foot.
    • In several of the more lighthearted fight scenes (Nightcrawler vs. Jester, Nightcrawler vs Chevalier Bretagne), combatants can be observed bantering with "Saracen pig!" and "Spartan dog!".
    • During the Inferno tie-in, Brian and Kitty are trapped in a pocket dimension where they act out various stereotypical 80s movies. They go through a Rambo-style action flick and an obvious A Nightmare on Elm Street parody before getting out.
    • Then immediately after that arc, Brian decides to take a quick morning fly through New York City. The crowd of onlookers includes unimpressed reporters named Lois and Clark.
    • One reality is a pastiche on Judge Dredd where urban development makes giant skylines and the local Captain Britain analogue is a member of a familiarly uniformed enforcement squad called a Justicer.
    • The Canon Immigrant villain from Age of Apocalypse Emma Steed is named after the protagonist duo of the British Spy Drama Tv series The Avengers (1960s) (no relation to Marvel's superteam), Emma Peel and John Steed. She also has a close resemblance to Diana Rigg, the actress who played Emma, plus the black hair of Patrick Macnee, who played John (Rigg had brown hair).
  • Smoking Is Edgy: When Warren Ellis assumed the title in the 90s, he introduced British spy Pete Wisdom. He used to be shown smoking, and previous Audience Surrogate, Kitty Pryde, even dated him for a time, maybe to look like a "grown-up girl" and forget her literal childhood crush Colossus, from the X-Men's main team. Later, in his own Marvel MAX mini-series Wisdom (2006), he regains his smoking habit.
  • Superpower Lottery: Phoenix outpowers everyone else (combined) by quite a bit, and for that matter outpowers most of the Marvel Universe, being the human host to a Cosmic Entity; she gets psychologically damaged, sucker-punched (she's a Squishy Wizard), or written out to compensate.
  • Team Title: Excalibur is the name of the team, and it's a series about that team.
  • Terminator Impersonator: The cover of Issue #67 features Kitty Pryde with sunglasses and a huge gun, exclaiming, "Hasta La Vista Baby!" with the tagline "X-Terminator."
  • Took a Level in Badass: Nightcrawler went from the dorky and silly fun member of the X-Men to the leader of the European equivalent of The Avengers. He even formed former enemies The Technet into his own personal "N-Men" complete with X-Men-inspired uniforms. And most of that he did with his leg broken.
  • Two Girls to a Team: The original line-up inverts this, having three girls and two guys (and Lockheed).
  • Was It All a Lie?: Kitty's reaction after "Courtney Ross" is revealed to be evil Sat-Yr-9, who previously befriended her during Kitty's Heroic BSoD.
  • Wedding Episode: Issue #125 of the original series is the wedding of Brian Braddock and Meggan. Also serves as Grand Finale of the series, since it is the last issue.
  • West Coast Team: When Excalibur found out the X-Men were still alive, they decided to remain together, having bonded over time, and styled themselves as the X-Men's European branch.
    • For all intents and purposes, they were also the British Avengers (not those ones), partly because there were no other super-teams who could play that part, and partly because mutants were less controversial in Britain than in the U.S. at the time (just like Canada, one suspects that the British took whatever superheroes they could get).
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Feron the sorcerer accidentally turned himself into a waterfall, and his disappearance went uncommented on until the book's penultimate issue, five years later.
    • In more of a "What Happened To Our Dramatic Reveal?" vein, the moment when Excalibur found out the X-Men weren't dead went completely unrecorded, as it became more and more awkward to explain why the X-Men hadn't been in touch with them. Eventually the writers were forced to admit, in the letter column, that Excalibur did in fact know, and they'd been in touch via phone.
      • The fact that the X-Men probably waited longer than they should have in letting their teammates know they were indeed alive was later explained as why Kurt, Kitty, and Rachel stuck with Excalibur as long as they did due to hurt feelings.
  • What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Kylun, a huge dual-sword-wielding badass raised in an alternate reality, has the mutant power of... perfectly reproducing any given sound. He's rather embarrassed about it, and changes the subject whenever it comes up, until Excalibur press him. Brian at first snarks that he can see why he didn't want to talk about it, before pointing out that if anything, this made Kylun's remarkable feats even more impressive - fortunately, he doesn't really need a mutant power to kick ass.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: In the "Girls' School From Heck" three issue mini arc, Kitty finds herself enrolled at a boarding school where all the other students are troublemakers to such a degree that no other school will take them, an outcast at first she starts bonding with the students after a particularly violent field hockey match, and then goes on to band the various cliques together in an outrageous scheme to save the school when it's threatened to close because of financial complications. Why does that sound familiar?

    New Excalibur (2005-2007) 
  • Aloof Big Brother: Sir Percy is a major Jerkass to Dane when the team travels to the past, bordering on Big Brother Bully. Turns out it's because he's afraid of the Ebony Blade taking Dane over the way it's taking over himself and did a number of previous Black Knights.
  • Becoming the Mask: Sage tries to infiltrate Albion's organisation, which she succeeds at, only to become her false identity. Things go horribly worse from there.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: A swordfight between Sir Percy and a bar full of angry peasants in Issue #10.
  • Death is Cheap: A recurring subplot is Dazzler dying and reviving, which never got resolved.
  • Evil Counterpart:
    • The Shadow X-Men, versions of the original team who were brainwashed by the Shadow King.
    • Albion, for Captain Britain. He's an alternate version of Brian Braddock who comes from a Crapsack World, and was given the same choice as Brian, but chose the sword instead, which Merlin allowed for his own reasons.
  • Hollywood Atlas: Chris Claremont is English, but he hasn't been back here for about thirty years, so his portrayal of the UK is mostly based on the Hollywood version, or else painfully out of date. Whereas Frank Tieri tended to assume that the UK is exactly like America.
  • Kudzu Plot: See The Chris Carter Effect.
  • In Name Only: This team consisted of a few returning Excalibur characters, a whole bunch of Chris Claremont's personal favourites, and a few Excalibur villains (most of them were sad victims of Villain Decay and/or Badass Decay). And they made so little use of the setting that it could easily have been set in New York or California without changing any of the content.
  • Legion of Doom: Attempted. Three major villain factions appear during the title's run: the Shadow-X, agent Scicluna (independent agent from Black Air) and the rogue Captain Britains Albion and Lionheart. In issues #18-19, they forge an alliance, which falls apart as soon as next issue.
  • Mission Control: Sage spent most of the time behind a computer interface compiling and analysing data. Lampshaded in issue #13:
    Piledriver (from the Wrecking Crew): Ya know, I just realized something. You let those two goofs [Captain Britain and Pete Wisdom] argue who's boss. Meanwhile, you're the one really calling the shots.
    Sage: Shhhh... Not so loud. You'll spoil my little secret. *proceeds to kick his ass*
  • Multinational Team: Compared to previous incarnations of the team, New Excalibur has two British members (Captain Britain and Pete Wisdom), two Americans (Dazzler and Juggernaut), a woman of unidentified background (Sage) and a girl from an alternate reality, daughter of a Romani-Jewish heroine and a German hero (Nocturne).
  • Off with His Head!: Sage, overtaken by her cover identity, beheads Dark Cyclops.
  • Putting the Band Back Together: To an extent. The first arc of the series (#1-3) reunites Shadowcat, Rachel Summers and Nightcrawler with Captain Britain - all members of the original team. The first three do not rejoin the team, however.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Shadow-X or Shadow X-Men are an alternate version of the founding members of the X-Men, plus Xavier, controlled and corrupted by the Shadow King. Their outfits are in shades of black with red highlights.
  • Stalker without a Crush: Dane towards Sir Percy due to being worried about the latter's behavior and suffering from a bit of Broken Pedestal, to the point where even Merlin calls him on it.
  • Take a Number: An issue has Kitty Pryde getting 10^23 from the dispenser — which is probably a reference to Avogadro's Number.
  • Tall, Blond, and Snarky: Sir Percy, though he does soften up somewhat eventually.
  • They Killed Kenny Again: Dazzler keeps finding herself dying, then coming back to life. Exactly why is never explained.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: Strangely enough, the team spends just as much time arguing and fighting each other as "heroing" in Frank Tieri's "Unredeemed" arc (#13-15).
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: A lot of plot-threads go unsolved:
    • Dazzler's newfound resurrection.
    • Courtney Ross (who may or may not be Sat-Yr-9) having her bank assets frozen (#4-5) and signing her resignation (#16-17). No explanation as to why.
  • You Already Changed the Past: When the team has to travel back in time to save Camelot. Bonus points for the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere coming about because Pete Wisdom tried seducing Guinevere himself.


Alternative Title(s): Excalibur, New Excalibur, Excalibur 1988

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