#Excalibur: Genosha (2004)

[mutantpowerlist]

Magneto - Max Eisenhardt / Erik Lehnsherr 🇩🇪

Master of Magnetism

Summons force fields and shoot electromagnetic pulses that can disable electronic devices

Helmet protects him from mental attacks

✨OMEGA✨

Teams: Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, New Mutants, Hellfire Club, Acolytes, X-Men, Excalibur: Genosha, Astonishing X-Men, X-Men: Blue, Horseman of Salvation, Quiet Council of Krakoa, Brotherhood of Arakko, 198, Great Ring of Arakko Relatives: Anya Eisenhardt (deceased daughter), Scarlet Witch (daughter), Quicksilver (son), Polaris (daughter), Luna (grand-daughter), Wiccan (grand-son), Speed (grand-son), Joseph (clone) TV / Movies: X-men: Pryde of the X-Men (1989), X-Men: The Animated Series (1992), X-Men: Evolution (2000), X-Men (2000), X2: X-Men United (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Wolverine and the X-Men (2009), X-Men: First Class (2011), The Wolverine (cameo) (2013), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), X-Men '97 (2024) First Appearance: The X-Men #1 (Sep 1963)

[xxplastic-cubexx]

*SCREAMS* WHAT?!??!? I DESPERATELY NEED THIS COMIC NOW!!!!! YAAAAAAY MAGS HAPPY WITH MAGDA AND ANYA IS THE BEST THING EVER!!!!!!

[Excalibur (2004) #6: "Who's Better, Who's Best!"]

here's the snippet specifically about mags' 'ideal prison' with magda and anya. this is the most that's included about them, but it's def a nice moment (context is that pirates come to the ruins of genosha with the intent to salvage whatever they can from the rubble and imprison mags and co in the process)

[rei-ismyname]

Magneto finally escapes The Stranger for good

Plus, the emancipation of Mortimer Toynbee AKA Toad

Magneto and Toad were abducted by The Stranger, a super powerful cosmic entity/alien, just because they were there. Mags escaped and started beef with the X-Men, only for Chuck to summon The Stranger who reabducted Mags. They've been there for months enduring who knows what and really want to go the fuck home, away from this weird alien in a distant galaxy

He left poor Toad behind last time - the jerkoff kicked him out of the escape vessel - and has been treating him worse than ever. Constantly insulting him, kicking and torturing him, forever threatening him despite Toad's undying loyalty. Silver Age Magneto is a real jerk with terrible labour practices.

Anyway, Magneto detects emanations from Earth. It's Dane Whitman, The Black Knight, trying to contact aliens with magnets (??) Has nobody told this guy about the dozens of alien species kicking around on Earth? I guess not. Magnets can truly do anything in Marvel.

Instead of alien contact, he gets Magneto and Toad. Dude piggybacked on 'magnetic waves' to travel to Earth from a different system with a passenger! I'm pretty sure it's the wildest thing we've seen Magneto do with his powers so far. Claremont had him open a wormhole from Genosha to New York and back in New Excalibur in 2004, but this might be more impressive.

Naturally, Mags starts ranting and threatening Dane's assistant, insisting he demonstrates how the machine works. Dude is like 'fuck this shit' and tries to send him back, but Mags figures it out and unleashes his wrath AKA conks him with a giant wrench. Ouch! This guy is like an evil assistant anyway, so whatever, but still that wrench is enormous.

Meditating on how Toad doesn't bring much to the party (except friendship 😭) Mags wants better lackeys. He wants Wanda and Pietro back, but I'll cover that another time as he brings both the X-Men and Avengers down on his head intentionally. Toad is happy as a pig in shit, as long as Mags is being nice to him.

Sadly, he's a real bastard to him, cruel and ungrateful. Mags has some really esoteric and amusing insults in his repertoire, but Toad has feelings. Dude has put up with a lot and decides he's had enough abuse from the Master of Magnetism. He's right and he should say it. Toad deserves better. He's like 'fuck you Magneto, I'll show you who's a dolt' and blows up his island castle lair. The heroes are busy fighting each other and arguing, so just this once it's Toad who saves the day by rejecting the arsehole who repaid his endless loyalty with cruelty. He leads Wanda and Pietro to safety as the castle crumbles around them.

The trio are escaping the exploding castle in a non-ferrous metal ship, which Magneto built for reasons. Mags' arrogance and shitty people skills comes back to bite him twice over. He can't affect the ship with his powers and Toad lashes out for the last time. Declaring an end to masters, he stomps on Magneto's hand and yeets him into the water. Mags is shocked that his most loyal lackey would abandon him, but has nobody to blame but himself. Toad is done with his shit, and he won't return to Magneto's side for decades, even trying to get his own Brotherhood of Evil Mutants off the ground. He never truly finds his place, the poor guy. He's clearly got some mental health issues, but he just wanted to be accepted. I can relate.

It looks quite lethal, but Magneto is fucking indestructible. Dude obviously survives the consequences of his actions but all his friends/teammates have flatly rejected him and left him to die. It takes him a really long time to learn from this, instead relying on robots plus his own might until a cult forms around him once he recruits Exodus. I'm not sure what The Stranger is up to these days - he appears plenty after this but he doesn't especially care about Mags anymore. I kinda want a mini about Mags and Toad's time as alien abductees. There's not much canon weighing it down so you could pretty much do anything.

[boo-cool-robot]

Once again thinking about how weird it is that 2004 Excalibur is described in fandom almost solely as a Prof X/Magneto domestic homoeroticism-fest when the standout aspect of that vibe is bizarre nationalist-colonialist gender roles.

Like, even besides the obvious text of Xavier and Magneto, uh, recolonizing Genosha, here are some things that happen in Excalibur:

In the first issue, Xavier performs a feat of physical labor outdoors while Erik is in their home cooking dinner

Erik nurses three separate young women of color, including his daughter

Xavier returns from a physical altercation to discover that Erik has retreated to their house and won’t let anyone in

Xavier’s mindscape is one where he is an American soldier in the Vietnam War. Erik’s mindscape is one where he is at home with his daughter 

RUDYARD KIPLING IS QUOTED

Nationalism being the third in Xavier and Magneto’s relationship is hardly unique (see HOXPOX, frex), but the asymmetrical gendered dimension in Excalibur is SO strange to me considering that it basically doesn’t show up anywhere else between these two in the X-Men canon, to my knowledge. I am completely bewildered about Chris Claremont’s intent here! 

[benito-cereno]

So, there's an Excalibur sale on comiXology right now, and I know that everyone should buy all of the issues of volume 1 by Chris Claremont and/or Alan Davis, right? Also, do you recommend any of the other runs?

Hell yeah! People who pay attention to this blog know that Alan Davis’s Excalibur is basically my favorite superhero comics run ever, and if you haven’t read it before, this sale is an excellent opportunity to grab it for the first time.

However, to really get everything that is (imo) important, you’ll have to look outside of that sale. The good news is, the other stuff is (mostly) also on sale.

Here’s what you should get:

Captain Britain: Legacy of a Legend collects pre-Excalibur Captain Britain stuff. At 209 pages, this is not nearly everything (there was a print omnibus a few years ago that was almost 700 pages), but it looks like this hits a sort of best-of. Presumably this volume, since it has the Jasper’s Warp story, will have the first appearances of both Captain Britain and Meggan. It also seems to have the Slaymaster story, which is an important one if you like Psylocke, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, some important elements are introduced here.

New Mutants Annual #2 and Uncanny X-Men Annual #11 are sort of the bridge between Captain Britain and Excalibur, introducing the British players to a US audience. These are, alas, not on sale, but they’re only $2 each.

Now for the Excalibur stuff:

Definitely grab Excalibur Classic volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4. This is the classic Claremont/Davis era. Volume 5 is a maybe imo. It’s not essential like the first four.

Then skip ahead to Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis. This is, in my opinion, the good good stuff, but it plays on so much that came before that it’s a good idea to get as much of the earlier stories as you want/can. You definitely want to get all three volumes. I cannot stress enough that this is basically my favorite shit of all time. 

(If you’re buying in singles, which is a little weird economically, you want Excalibur: The Sword is Drawn and Excalibur #1-24, and then #42-67.)

Then skip some more to Excalibur Visionaries: Warren Ellis. You know who Warren Ellis is. This is some of his earlier work, where he basically turns Excalibur into X-Files, which sounds kind of weird now, but which was a huge thing at the time. He introduces Pete Wisdom, who becomes a major player. Anyway, you want all three volumes of this as well.

The 2004 Excalibur series is completely skippable as it has nothing to do with Excalibur at all, but is just a book about Professor X and Magneto chilling in Genosha. 

New Excalibur is, ah, lesser Claremont, but I guess get it if you like the concept of Excalibur and feel the team would be better served by the presence of Dazzler and Juggernaut.

That’s it for what’s in this sale, but if you want to follow the real spirit of Excalibur up to current day, here’s what you want:

The 2006 MAX imprint Wisdom series. Not on sale and not collected in a single volume for some reason, but definitely worth a read, especially since it leads to:

Captain Britain and MI:13. This book rules, get all three volumes. They’re on sale, plus where else are you going to read a comic about Dracula’s moonbase?  (I mean, besides here, of course.)

You could stop there, but if you’re really hooked, I would suggest grabbing the two-part Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders from Secret Wars and the most recent Rocket Raccoon series, but that’s just me.

Happy reading!

[mutantpowerlist]

Professor X - Charles Xavier 🇺🇸

• Powerful telepath • Can read and control the minds of others • Before Krakoa, was often in a wheel/hover chair • Krakoa, often wears a cerebro cradle • ✨ OMEGA ✨

Teams: X-Men, New Mutants, Starjammers, Illuminati, Quiet Council of Krakoa, X-Corp: Krakoa Relatives: Cassandra Nova (twin sister), Juggernaut (step-brother), Lilandra Neramani (deceased wife), Legion (son), Xandra Neramani (daughter) TV / Movies: X-men: Pryde of the X-Men (1989), X-Men: The Animated Series (1992), X-Men: Evolution (2000), X-Men (2000), X2: X-Men United (2003), Wolverine and the X-Men (2009), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-men Origins: Wolverine (cameo) (2009), X-Men (anime) (2011), X-Men: First Class (2011), The Wolverine (2013), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Legion (2017), Logan (2017), Deadpool 2 (cameo) (2018), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), X-Men '97 (2024) First Appearance: X-Men #1 (July 1963)

[mutantpowerlist]

Callisto 🇺🇸

• Superhuman senses, taste, touch, smell, balance, and hearing • Keen eye sight

Teams: Leader of the Morlocks (when its not Storm), X-Cell, Excalibur: Genosha, Hellfire Trading company Movies: X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #169 (Feb 1983)

[boo-cool-robot]

Sure is interesting that x-men fandom describes 2004 excalibur as a xavier/magneto domestic romance (which it admittedly is) and not a story about xavier colonizing genosha