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Excalibur Annual #2

“The Interpretation of Dreams”

Writer: Richard Ashford

Pencils: John Royle

Inks: Phil Moy, Bill Anderson & W.C. Carani

Colours: Ariane Lenshoek

Letters: Janice Chiang

“Black Queen Rising”

Writer: Eric Fein

Pencils: Daerrick Gross

Inks: Bob Wiacek, Terry Austin, Bill Anderson & Andrew Pepoy

Colours: Monica Bennett

Letters: Janice Chiang 

“A Change of Worlds”

Writer: Kim Yale

Pencils: Hannibal King & Yancy Labat

Inks: Jason Minor, Keith Champagne & W.C Carani

Colours: Chris Matthys

Letters: Dave Sharpe 

Editor: Suzanne Gaffney

Original publication date: May 1994

Did you forget about Excalibur Annual #2? So did we for a bit, but not anymore! Anna, Mav, and Andrew are on their lonesome this week, hashing out two decent stories and one that made us mad, featuring the returns of Jamie Braddock and everyone’s favourite vampy mutant vampire, Selene! Plus twin magic, witch-on-witch action, and whether there might be some kinda symbolism somewhere in a lonely teenage boy seeing stars after sharing his body and soul with an angsty outer space robot. 

On euphemisms:

“They’re like ‘oh this is where Jamie started to make some mistakes.’ But like—he was stealing from the Red Cross and enslaving people. I don’t think that qualifies as ‘some mistakes.’” -Anna

On misplaced optimism:

“It’s adorable that Brian is imagining the year 2040 in which he’s apparently still Britannic. You had a lot of faith in that idea, huh?” -Mav

On boobs:

“These boobs are drawn by somebody who doesn’t even like boobs.” -Anna

On gender/tropes:

“There’s a reversal of gender tropes here that I enjoy, where Kurt is the damsel in distress, and Amanda is the one who has to be physically and emotionally strong in order to save him from breaking down.” -Anna

On character development:

“Amanda has been around for a long time and we still don’t know who she is. I don’t even know what colour her cape is, because it changes every issue.” -Andrew

On badassery:

“Selene was genuinely terrifying here. Kurt endures one cycle in the spooling chamber and almost dies. Selene’s been in the chamber for who-knows-how-long, yet she endures, because she’s a badass.” -Anna

On teenage diaries:

“It’s Doug’s blog about losing his virginity to his robot friend.” -Mav

On getting the characters right:

“Kurt brings up the pain of being rejected by Kitty, but he’s still the one to hug her when she’s feeling rejected. That was very Nightcrawler to me.” -Anna

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