Excalibur #22 Review/Spoilers - Treasures of Britain

[JB]

Holy blast from the past!
And Gambit did some cool stuff.

We start with the preview scenes on Blightspoke. Sheriff Whitechapel questions what the group is doing and Beast explains he’s only taking 3D scans of the material and doesn’t need to take anything. Sheriff is good with that, pets dragon Shogo, informs them that “witchbreed” are very unpopular in Otherworld right now and that Betsy should head to the Citadel. Seems like she may be an ally in the future.

Sweet Meggan returns to Krakoa to be present for Wisdom’s resurrection. She breaks the news that the UK is tearing down the gates, mutants cannot return and Morgan is free. Wisdom is distraught and I actually felt bad for him. The art is gorgeous and his nakedness is done tastefully.

We’re now at the Citadel where a meeting is taking place with all the leaders of the kingdoms. Merlyn is basically over the “witchbreed” and the influence mutants have over Otherworld. Nice cameos by Famine and Pestilence who say Merlyn needs to get over it, mutants are here to stay. Other kingdoms are unhappy with Jamie and mutants in general. Meryln warns Saturnyne that she better properly defend the Citadel from mutant influence or else.

After the meeting Saturnyne tasks Betsy with finding out why Merlyn is being so aggressive and what he has up his sleeves. They have a fun exchange and I get the Betsy sass I live for.



Wisdom has resorted to heavy drinking, wandering around Krakoa and Braddock Isle, drinking away his sorrows.

Data page, a letter to Betsy from Karma and Dani giving her Intel from their trip to Merlyn’s kingdom. They inform her that there are fairies being held prisoner by Merlyn.

In Fae, the team are now rescuing fairies, setting them free. They reach Merlyn’s locked chamber and Gambit, using a stolen tarot card with Longshot on it (hmm), breaks open the lock. There’s a strange well in the room and Betsy can hear voices/whispers at the bottom. But before they can check it out Merlyn arrives like Gandolf all pissed and scary. He launches spells at them and Rictor opens up a hole in the ground and digs a tunnel down to the bottom of the tower.

They find an abandoned train underground and Gambit does the coolest thing he’s done in years. He charges the train and off they launch.



Back on Krakoa Egg tells Wisdom the deceased people he asked about are indeed mutants and they have their backups on file. They’ve been resurrected and Wisdom greets the reborn S.T.R.I.K.E!! Dude, these characters go way back and Lennox was Betsy’s lover way back when. They were part of the Psi-division and it turns out their psychic abilities were due to their X-Gene. Wisdom tells them they can’t return to the UK but he plans to do something about that.

Merlyn is in his now empty dungeon annoyed that his prisoners are gone. He tears back a sheet that was hiding a cage with a prisoner inside that Excalibur missed. He casts a spell on the seemingly mentally absent prisoner, telling him to remember who he is. The prisoner speaks… “I… I am… ARTHUR.”

Woooo! I love this issue. The art was beautiful especially the Wisdom panels and Merlyn and his chamber.
I'm stoked to see S.T.R.I.K.E. again!