Well I thought these last three issues were excellent
I reread the entire crossover last night in anticipation of today's releases and it read much, much, better as one cohesive story. The shifts in tone were not as jarring and once I knew what was coming I was less let down. I, like many here, was disappointed we did not get an "epic" sword fighting tournament section of the crossover. But then again, that might have been repetitive to get 9 different sword fights, and the "Mario Party" section of the story does fit with the tone of the original Excalibur run. Excalibur was always the "other" X-Men book so fully incorporating its universe and tone to a mega crossover is a cool acknowledgement of it's place in the lore. After all Excalibur was still a Claremont book and if we can build huge events out of the Phoenix (AvX), Days of Future Past-esque dystopias (AoA) and all the other foundational work Claremont and company laid down for 17 years, why not do an event that plays in Excalibur's sandbox? Did it need to be 22 chapters? Absolutely not but I think we have to allow for the fact that the Covid-19 epidemic and what it did to publishers played a part in this and it was a way of boosting sales and having a big event to get into the winter season.
But back to these issues...good golly miss molly what a conclusion. I cannot get over how good Pepe Larraz is. He really might be my favorite X-artist in 30 years. He's just incredible. I hope the X-Office can keep him in their stable for the foreseeable future because the man is redefining the look of the X-Line like no artist has for a generation.
X-Men 15 - I loved Cyclops big damn hero speech. I thought it was a beautifully constructed scene in the council. While one or two lines read a bit stiff, I just accept that is how Hickman writes dialogue sometimes (the same way Morrison, Millar, Miller, Bendis, Claremont, etc. all have their picadilloes when it comes to dialogue). It brought to mind a speech Hickman had Captain America give in his Avengers run about heroics and whereas then he had Kang dismiss Captain America as naïve, here Magneto approves of what Cyclops is doing. I thought we got our best sword fight of the tournament between Genesis and Apocalypse. Honestly, I thought we were being set up for Apocalypse winning the fight, Cyclops comes barreling with the S.W.O.R.D. base and somehow ruining everything but I was relieved that's not what we got.
Excalibur 15 - The best issue Howard has put together so far. I should mention Asrar's art here. He's such a perfect blending of Larraz and Yu that it is almost spooky. They somehow managed to find an artist that perfectly complements both Yu and Larraz despite not being a clone of either of them. I've liked Asrar ever since the Ultimate Spider-Man All New X-Men arc and he's just gotten better and better. I hope he's kept in the rotation of artists going forward.
Doug and Bei are delightful even if there is a bit of Scott Free / Big Barda energy coming off in waves.
I'm not sure what the confusion is for some people concerning Saturnyne is. She specifically wanted Brian to have the sword so that he would be the one to get broken and she could reconstruct the core with Brians. When that didn't work she still went ahead with her plan anyway, thinking that her heart's desire and power could still will the Captain Britain Corps to be made of Brians. But something went wrong, Betsy is supposed to be Captain Britain it seems, and fate denied Saturnyne her wish. But maybe she'll learn this is for the best. Anyway, I thought Betsy's return was illustrated beautifully and again, was the best work Howard has done on this series to date. I also enjoyed the Jubilee moment, a nice hero moment for her, and it was properly set up earlier in the crossover. Anyone who complains she talks about Shogo too much hasn't been around a mother with an infant I think.
Destruction - HOLY MOTHER FORKING SHIRTBALLS. This was everything you could have wanted in a conclusion. Probably singlehandedly raised the whole event a whole letter grade for me. Really amazing what a strong finish can do in storytelling folks. Cause this issue was perfection. I know I already praised Larraz but it cannot be said enough times that he is the premier artist at Marvel right now and maybe in all of comics. There were multiple splash / 3/4 splash pages that took my breath away.
If there was one moment that didn't work for me it was when Isca turned. I couldn't tell what we were supposed to be reading in that scene art wise. How did people know she had turned? Because she didn't kill explode-boy?
Anyway, I adored these final issues and really liked event overall. Not my favorite X-Men Crossover, and not as good as HoXPoX was, but really fun. A solid B+ event