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Excalibur #90

“Blood Eagle”

Writer: Warren Ellis

Pencils: Larry Stroman, Darrick Gross, Ken Lashley & Jeff Moy

Inks: Cam Smith, Darrick Gross, Tom Wegrzyn, Philip Moy, Don Hudson & James Palmiotti

Colors: Joe Rosas & Digital Chameleon

Letters: Comicraft

Editors: Suzanne Gaffney & Bob Harris

Original publication date: October 1995

It’s gloves off, autopilot on as font of wisdom Liz Large joins us to debate and dissect the crushability of floppy haired sexy-criers who may or may not be sociopaths in Excalibur #90, “Blood Eagle,” in which pride’s better than wisdom but isn’t is always? Shocking twists abound as Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom explore the depths Black Air’s alien repository and Pete’s tortured mind, while the GGW team delves fearlessly into the equally dark recesses of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to resurrect fandoms past. As they said back in 1995: where there’s smoke there’s fire and probably hot knives.

On the world of webrings:

“Back in the 90s, fandoms were very much split up into specific websites. So if you were a Kitty/Pete shipper, you’d never meet a Kitty/Rachel shipper. And that was maybe for the best.” -Liz

On the declining appeal of Pete Wisdom:

“I think I gave Pete Wisdom a pretty good shot. But it’s at the point now where every time he talks, I’m laughing.” -Andrew

On contextual tropes:

“Pete Wisdom is a classic 90s guy: a tortured guy in a trench coat thinking tortured thoughts and hoping he can find a younger girl to fix him.” -Mav

On failed dramatic irony:

“A character who’s fated to be corrupted by moral compromises is a good story. But it requires us caring about the character being corrupted. Rory Campbell just isn’t established enough for me.” -Andrew

On sympathy for witches:

“I felt badly for Amanda here. Here introduction is like—this is Amanda Sefton! She’s great! Unfortunately, she makes nothing but bad decisions.” -Liz

On the debuy of Wolfsbane:

“There are a lot of interesting aspects to Rahne Sinclair. One of them is her relationship with Moira. She loves Moira but us deeply insecure about the relationship.” -Andrew

On symbolism:

“As explicitly as you can make it in Code-approved comics—Kitty and Pete have sex at the end of this comic.” -Mav

On why Black Air remains the best spy org:

“Why does Black Air have an orientation museum outlining all their top-secret aliens and connections to the Hellfire Club?” -Liz

Want to check out the Fonts of Wisdom fanfic archive via the Wayback Machine? We’ve got you covered.

Want more Liz Large?

Want more Liz Large?

You can find her on Twitter (@lizbethanne).

You can find her writing at ComicsXF, where she reviews Hellions, Doctor Aphra, and New Mutants, and contributes to various other comics and culture projects, including the site’s Excalibur Primer, co-written with the pod’s own Anna!

You can also find her reviewing awesome books at Gatecrashers!

And as usual:

You can find Anna on Twitter (@peppard_anna) and at Sequential Scholars (@seqscholars). 

You can find Andrew on Twitter (@ClaremontRun) and at Sequential Scholars.

You can find Mav on Twitter (@chrismaverick) and on his podcast, VoxPopcast (@VoxPopcast).

Enjoy!

-GGW Team