EXCALIBUR Annual #1 - August 1993

Black Magic

Credits: Evan Skolnick (writer), Chris Marrinan & Audwynn Newman (pencilers), Mark McKenna, Danny Bulandi, & Keith Williams (inkers), Dana Moreshead & Mike Thomas (colors), Janice Chiang (letters)

Summary: A dark elf plagues Cerise’s dreams. With Excalibur, she traces the source of her dreams to a nearby castle, occupied by an elderly magician named Ghath. He blames the dreams on his attempts to return to his true world and apologizes. Suddenly, the dark elf Khaos breaks in and attacks. After taking him captive, Cerise realizes that Ghath is the true enemy; a sorcerer who’s still causing destruction on his homeworld of Irth. Excalibur and Khaos follow her to Ghath’s castle, where they’re magically transported to Irth. They defeat Ghath, only to discover after returning home that remnants of Ghath’s spell have trapped Khaos on Earth. He declines Excalibur’s offer to join and focuses on discovering a way home.

Continuity Notes: This story is set shortly before Alan Davis’ final Excalibur storyline, “Days of Future Yet to Come.”

Gimmicks: This comic comes polybagged with a Khaos trading card.

Review: Excalibur had a 1993 annual? A Collectible First Appearance of a New Marvel Superstar annual?! Somehow, I was unaware of this gem until I discovered an online article about the 1993 annual stunt. This same article has an interview with Evan Skolnick that confirms that Khaos and his associated cast of characters began life as creations in Skolnick’s teenage Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. This means that Khaos has ten times the backstory of the average 1993 annual creation, which Skolnick attentively spells out over a lengthy flashback sequence. Trust me, there’s a lot of history behind Khaos that I haven’t recapped, largely because it isn’t germane to the main story at all.

Now, of course it’s absurd that Excalibur’s caught up in an adventure with a Marvel staffer’s D&D avatar, but I have to admit that Khaos is more tolerable than almost all of the other 1993 debut characters. There’s nothing unique about a noble warrior from a fantasy world that’s trapped on Earth, but I don’t recall those tropes showing up too often in the early ‘90s. Khaos is about ten years behind the times, but considering that those times mostly brought us cyborg bounty hunters with fantastic mullets, he’s almost a welcome bit of nostalgia at this point. The problem with the story is the lack of connection between Khaos and Excalibur. There’s some talk of Khaos being a misfit during his youth, and Nightcrawler is jealous of Cerise’s apparent attraction to him, but these are minor moments in a very dense story. There’s also a tacked-on rationalization that Khaos and his friends could be Irth’s incarnation of Excalibur, which is a weak way of trying to tie Excalibur’s long-running alternate reality shtick into throwaway annual filler. This could just have easily been a West Coast Avengers adventure; trying to sell the audience on some phony association with Excalibur is just a reminder of how generic this story has actually been.

Honey is Money

Credits: Joey Cavalieri (writer), David Boller (penciler), Kevin Conrad (inker), Glynis Oliver (colors), Richard Starkings (letters)

Summary: A knight serving the Princess Flavia holds Numbers hostage, forcing the Technet to retrieve special nectar from another dimension. After narrowly escaping from giant bees, Technet returns with the bounty. Flavia appears and takes the nectar, using it to cure the knight’s acne.

Review: It’s a Technet comedy story, so of course this is going to be silly and lighthearted. The use of Princess Flavia is a nod to people who might be familiar with the character from literature or opera, but it’s not as if Cavalieri is trying to produce a serious work here. It’s a joke story, and since most of the jokes work, I can’t complain.

WEB OF SCARLET SPIDER #4 - February 1996

Nightmare in Scarlet

Credits: Evan Skolnick (writer), Paris Karounos (penciler), Randy Emberlin (inker), Steve Dutro (letterer), Tom Smith & Malibu (colorists)

The Plot: Spider-Man joins the New Warriors to rescue the hostages captured by the evil Scarlet Spider. After falling off of a building, Scarlet Spider shocks everyone by stumbling back to life and continuing the fight. An injured Stephanie Briggs confronts Scarlet Spider and convinces him to face his pain and revert back to Joe Wade. He complies, and is taken away by the FBI.

The Subplots: Firestar is suspicious that she knows this Spider-Man’s “true” identity. When he accidentally calls her by her first name, her suspicions are confirmed.

*See _________ For Details: The evil Scarlet Spider took a group of citizens hostage in New Warriors#67.

Production Note: The indicia is still one month behind the cover date.

Review: And finally, Web of Scarlet Spider, the series no one really wanted to publish, is gone. The previous issue had some entertainment value due to Skolnick’s dark sense of humor, plus it’s interesting just to see how he deals with the illogical existence of these comics in the first place. This issue isn’t as funny, the art is still ugly, and the story cops out with a predictable “friend talks villain out of madness” ending. Apparently, another motivation for doing this story was to besmirch the Scarlet Spider’s reputation and essentially force him back into the Spider-Man role, but that idea hasn’t been expressed in any of the chapters I’ve read.

Given the vocal backlash to the clone storyline, it’s amazing that Marvel considered the “Scarlet Spider” such a valuable name that it couldn’t just die when Ben “reclaimed” the title of Spider-Man. If it was a brand name they really liked, you would think Marvel would’ve been more protective of the material it appeared in. Reading the Life of Reilly, it’s amazing to see the various hoops Marvel went through to get Ben into the Spider-Man role, even though it seems like everyone knew all along that Peter (and MJ) shouldn’t be written out of the books. Marvel’s solution was to make Ben the “real” Spider-Man, have Peter “retire” with MJ in a series of mini-series, and try to carve out a new supporting cast for Ben in New York. This was destined for failure. Not that anyone asked, but tomorrow I’ll present my solution to the Peter/Ben conundrum…

WEB OF SCARLET SPIDER #3 - January 1996

Nightmare in Scarlet Part One: Rude Awakening!

Credits: Evan Skolnick (writer), Paris Karaounos (pencils), Randy Emberlin, (inks), Steve Dutro (letterer), Kevin Tinsley & Malibu (colorists)

The Plot: Undercover FBI agent Joe Wade finds himself physically transformed into Scarlet Spider following the destruction of Dr. Octopus’ lab. Overcome with a manic sense of mischief, Wade performs cruel pranks throughout the city in the Scarlet Spider persona. When an exhausted Wade reverts to his true personality, he meets with his partner Stephanie Briggs and explains the story to her. Before she can help, he’s overcome by his dual identity. Nastier than ever, Scarlet Spider ambushes Firestar and plots to kill her.

The Subplots: None.

Web of Continuity: Scarlet Spider joined the New Warriors a few months earlier, although by this specific issue, Ben Reilly has reclaimed the role of Spider-Man and is no longer calling himself Scarlet Spider (or associating with the New Warriors, apparently). The New Warriors want to know why their latest member has gone rogue.

*See _________ For Details: The malicious Scarlet Spider persona previously appeared in Scarlet Spider #2 and Spectacular Scarlet Spider #2. The specific story of how Joe Wade was transformed into a digital copy of Scarlet Spider is told in Scarlet Spider #2. The real Scarlet Spider joined the New Warriors in New Warriors #62. This story is concluded in New Warriors #67.

Production Note: The cover date lists this as the January 1996 issue, but the indicia has December 1995 as the date.

Review: Well, this is certainly different. Ben Reilly has retaken the identity of Spider-Man in the January 1996 titles, yet Marvel’s marketing machine still wants to milk the name “Scarlet Spider” for two more months. The solution was to create a second Scarlet Spider and place him in a storyline that’s partially divorced from the main titles. Tom DeFalco and Todd Dezago are now off the hook, leaving New Warriors writer Evan Skolnick the privilege of creating a last-minute story that satisfies the arbitrary demands of bean counters.

To Skolnick’s credit, this is more enjoyable than the previous two issues. That’s like saying shampoo in your eye is preferable to mace, I understand, but many of the “evil” Scarlet Spider’s lines in this issue are actually funny. How exactly Skolnick is trying to pull off the illogical premise of two extra Web of Scarlet Spider issues is also an interesting feat to watch. The story is unfortunately tied in with the absurd virtual reality/hard light hologram nonsense from the previous chapters, but treating Joe Wade as the innocent Dr. Jekyll in this scenario, and recasting the Scarlet Spider as a more sinister Creeper, injects a lot of life into a dull premise.

Even if Skolnick is somehow making the story less intolerable, there’s no excusing Paris Karaounos’ art. If you think that cover looks bad, I can assure you it’s the best art in the entire issue. I already had low expectations going into this miniseries, and even I can’t believe how unprofessional this comic looks.