Excalibur #113
“Faith”
Writer: Ben Raab
Pencils: Pete Woods
Inks: Scott Koblish
Colours: Kevin Tinsley
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft & Kiff Scholl
Editors: Matt Idelson, Kelly Corvese & Jason White
Original publication date: October 1997
This week, we’re definitely not making Bove/Bova puns as returning guest, comics scholar Bryan Bove, joins us to wonder why we’re in Wundagore in Excalibur #113, “Faith.” Also! Boybots get kisses and Pete Wisdom needs stitches and Lockheed needs better friends because he’s been missing for weeks and apparently nobody noticed…? All of that plus ruminations on the challenge of staying creative when your hobbies become your job.
On character types:
“I like when Raab writes 17-year-olds better than when he writes adults.” -Anna
On anticlimaxes:
“I want to know what happened behind the scenes of this issue, because this is clearly a massive anticlimax.” -Andrew
On status:
“We’ve talked before about Excalibur being the red-headed stepchild of the X-franchise. At this point, it’s being used as advertising for a Quicksilver solo series.” -Anna
On romance:
“Ben Raab was the editor for the first 19 issues of Generation X, and the Douglock and Rahne romance feels very Generation X to me.” -Bryan
On motivations:
“When Rahne admits that she wishes Douglock was Doug—it’s a horrible thought to have, and a great bit of writing.” -Anna
On branding:
“Black Air remains the absolute best spy organization, and I know this because their operatives apparently have sexy midriff tattoos of the spy organization’s logo.” -Anna
Want more Bryan Bove?
For more on what Bryan Bove gets up to, from writing to comics to writing about comics and comics about writing (and X-Men and queerness and disability!), check out his website.
You can also find him on BlueSky @nerdbove and at most social platforms under the same handle.
You can also check out his critical autoethnographic comic “‘Bobby…You’re Gay’: Marvel’s Iceman, Performativity, Continuity, and Queer Visibility” in The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies!
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