Excalibur #29
“Dream a Little Dream”
Writer: Michael Higgins
Pencils: Chris Wozniak
Inks: Josef Rubinstein
Colours: Glynis Oliver
Letters: Tom Orzechowski
Editor: Terry Kavanagh
Original publication date: October 1990
It’s a dreamy pod-friends reunion as the multitalented Wayne Wise, co-founder and co-host of VoxPopcast, joins Anna, Mav, and Andrew to say “weird” a dozen plus times about Excalibur #29, “Dream a Little Dream,” in which the dreams are nightmares and the nightmares involve anthropomorphic horse assemblages with very human breasts. It’s not the Excalibur + Power Pack crossover of our dreams, but we make the most of what we’ve got, discussing Kurt’s insecurities and Meggan’s desires, plus good, bad, and ugly puberty metaphors!
On puberty metaphors:
“I wish we could talk about the interesting puberty metaphors of Power Pack, but there’s really not a lot here. There’s really just the moment with Kurt where Alex is like, ‘Aw man, Nightcrawler’s different, and he’s cool. Maybe being a horse won’t be so bad!’” -Anna
On Brian’s dream:
“If I want to give this scene credit – Brian has a smile on his face after his head’s cut off. That’s interesting. It’s been established that Brian can’t die; his duty as Captain Britain means he’ll always be resurrected. That’s traumatized him. He’s also has suicidal thoughts before.” -Anna
On Meggan’s dream:
“It contradicts Claremont’s iteration of Meggan to make her a horribly jealous, superficial person. She’s not. When Brian is cheating with Courtney, Meggan’s thoughts about Courtney are about how she makes Meggan feel about her own insecurities. Meggan isn’t this classic jealous ‘other woman’ in a crappy love triangle. That’s not how the character was designed. That’s the surface misinterpretation of her through which the depth of the character is revealed.” -Andrew
On Kurt’s dream:
“Len Wein wrote Nightcrawler as a typical brooding ‘freak.’ Claremont said he wanted to go in a different direction. His take was: if you’re born this way, you would learn to accept yourself, or you wouldn’t survive. By the time Kurt joins the X-Men, he’s fairly comfortable with who he is. For him to have a nightmare about being a hideous freak, at this point in his history, doesn’t scan.” -Wayne
More puberty metaphors:
“One of the things Power Pack deals with consistently is Alex growing up. I think what Higgins wanted to do is tell his version of the dealing with puberty story with this horse metaphor. I’m not saying it’s good; but it’s what he’s going for.” -Mav
On a truly nightmarish panel:
Wayne: “I think Anna needs to describe this panel for the listeners.”
Anna: *struggles*
Want more John Darowski?
Want more Wayne Wise? You can find him talking comics and pop culture weekly on VoxPopcast. You can also find him blogging at Wayne-Wise.com.
You should definitely also check out his recent comic book project Chutz-Pow! Supereroes of the Holocaust, published by the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh.
And as usual:
You can find Anna on Twitter (@peppard_anna) and on her podcast with Andrew and Michael Hancock, Three Panel Contrast (@3PanelContrast).
You can find Andrew on Twitter (@ClaremontRun).
You can find Mav on Twitter (@chrismaverick) and on his podcast, VoxPopcast (@VoxPopcast).
Enjoy!
-GGW Team