Excalibur vol4 #23 (2021)
by Tini Howard & Marcus To
cover by Mahmud Asrar
We are still in the Krakoa era, but this will be far less painful because we’re just hanging out the magic side of mutants.
Betsy Braddock is the leader of this team, and she already needs a bit of a tangent.
She’s definitely more famous as Psylocke, but she’s currently Captain Britain… and you might be confused by the fact that she’s no longer a sexy Asian ninja.
In case you didn’t know, Betsy is so British that she’s the sister of the original Captain Britain… but in the 90s she was body-swapped with a sexy Asian ninja.
At this point in her history, Betsy has been restored to her original British body and she’s doing Captain Britain stuff, while the woman she was body swapped with is the original Psylocke that continues to do her sexy Asian ninja stuff.
And with that out of the way, Doctor Doom begins the story by visiting the latest Excalibur headquarters, on its own island.
With Betsy being the new Captain Britain, she’s technically the guardian of the mystical passage that connects Earth with Otherworld, the dimension where Avalon and various magic Arthurian stuff are located in Marvel comics.
One of the aspects of the Krakoa era is that mutants had exclusive access to a special teleportation network. Unsurprisingly, Doom has a way around it.
A consistent thing about Doom is his conviction that mutants aren’t anything special.
Which might come off as racist, but Doom doesn’t discriminate. He treats everyone like crap indiscriminately, but you have to admire his honesty!
Shockingly, nobody here thinks that allowing Doctor Doom to bring a baby into a super dangerous alien dimension is a good idea.
But you also have to expect that Doom either wouldn’t take no for an answer or would figure out a way to access that dimension on his own, so Excalibur insists on escorting him.
Did… did a mutant team just take a sensible decision?
Are they allowed to do that and still be associated with the X-Men?
Doom, I also have trouble keeping up with the X-Men, but you’re supposed to be up to date.
So Excalibur escorts Doom to Avalon, where the team is reunited with Meggan… who is currently the Queen of Camelot.
Hilariously, Doom is disappointed he didn’t take the throne for himself!
Guys, I praised you for being sensible, but maybe ask Doctor Doom what he’s looking for BEFORE escorting him to a magic dimension?
Doom ditches them when some convenient assassins show up, and Jubilee does my job for me by pointing out why Doom is here.
Doom’s search is inconclusive.
DOOM DEMANDS TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER!
Excalibur tries to get some information from the local fairies (from what I understand they interacted in a previous issue), and you have to love Doom’s frustration with dealing with more whimsical types of magic than his usual dark stuff.
This pays off, since the fairies actually knows what happened to Morgan LeFay’s castle: it’s up for sale!
It goes without saying, but I would read the hell out of a regular series about Doctor Doom haggling with merchants in a magic market.
It wouldn’t last long because Doom would probably incinerate the seller, but still.
Doom’s attitude towards the rest of the cast in a nutshell.
Stop doing my job for me, comic!
Well maybe we COULD get that series, because the seller isn’t exactly easy to kill.
Turns out that what Doctor Doom has been looking for… is avoiding a personal scandal.
Look, it’s not like I want to read a book detailing the love life of Doctor Doom… it’s just that reviewing it would be vital to the scope of this site.
I don’t have a problem and I can stop whenever I want.
He was 100% expecting to just walk away with it, Betsy.
Come on Excalibur, I was just praising you for not being as dumb as the X-Men!
Unfortunately for Doom, they don’t call him Jim “Mad” Jaspers because he’s easy to work with.
He has a pretty high price to give Doom back his secrets: all of Latveria!
Before Doom can even respond, Captain Britain objects… and Doom immediately follow it up by flirting.
First Storm, now Captain Britain… does Doom have a thing for mutants now?
Probably not.
The exchange is cut short by the appearance of one of the Fury…
…and if you’ve read Captain Britain, you understand why Jim Jaspers IMMEDIATELY gives away whatever Doom wants if he doesn’t have to interact with Fury.
Because Fury is… well, take a Terminator and put a Super-Adaptoid on top of that, then multiply it by nightmares.
Thankfully those mass-produced versions aren’t as terrifying as the original, but still.
Even Doctor Doom is like, NOPE.
I was only joking about Doom being after Morgan LeFay’s book. He just recovered HER WHOLE CASTLE.
Doom significance: 0/10
I don’t think the castle thing comes up again.
Silver Age-ness: 2/10
A bit more on the whimsical side, but still.
Will it stand the test of time? 9/10
I have to believe that the having Doctor Doom show up in a comic book typically helps sales; not only because he keeps doing it, but because I can’t be the only one who keeps an eye on where he shows up and proceeds to pick up a series.
Because I had no idea this series even existed before this appearance, and now I’m going to check out the rest because this was actually pretty good!
Take it as an endorsement from a guy who hates the Krakoa era and never really connected to the whole Captain Britain mythos or to any version of Excalibur… this was pretty damn good.
Doctor Doom is very in-character, Betsy is interesting, and while I lack a lot of context for the overarching plot I wasn’t lost at any point. The rest of the team is completely out of focus; I couldn’t get the sense whethere they’re interesting in other issues, but this one did pick my interest.