Frank Tieri has an unenviable assignment on New Excalibur.  In interviews, he's made it perfectly clear that he's simply filling in until Chris Claremont is able to return, and that Claremont should be able to pick up where he left off.  That implies no advancement of the ongoing storylines, and no major changes for the core characters.

But Tieri is also presently scheduled to write the book through to issue #15, which won't be out until early 2007.  That's a long time to tread water.  Normally, I'd expect to get a series of stories in which the heroes go about their regular business, with Tieri making the most he can out of the villains.  After all, he can write stories about them without messing up Claremont's plans, which are apparently sacrosanct, even though nobody seems entirely sure what they are. 

This first issue is a downright strange choice.  It's not really an Excalibur story at all, but that's only to be expected.  Instead, Tieri has chosen to follow up on Chamber, who was left powerless and hospitalised in Generation M.  The hapless soul is kidnapped from hospital by Clan Akkaba (the descendents of Apocalypse), who set about healing him.  All of this follows up on some hints set up in Tieri's own recent miniseries X-Men: Apocalypse vs Dracula.

It's difficult to work out quite what Tieri is trying to achieve here.  It's not a proper story, so much as a set-up issue designed to get Chamber back into circulation.  In itself, that's a questionable move.  Marvel have now re-powered three high-profile victims of M-Day - Quicksilver, Polaris and Chamber - and it really hasn't been that long.  In Chamber's case, it also seems to saddle him with a load of continuity clutter wholly unrelated to anything that's been done with the character before.

Moreover, there's no purpose to the story unless Tieri is planning to follow up on Chamber at some point in the future.  It's not immediately obvious how he would fit into the storylines already announced, although anything's possible.  Giving the benefit of the doubt, I suppose I've got to assume that Tieri must have some concrete plans for Chamber, since I can't think why else he'd be writing this story.

Beyond that, there's not a great deal to be said about this issue.  It's essentially an exercise in tinkering with some characters to bring them into circulation again, and it does what needs to be done for that purpose.  It isn't an Excalibur story in any meaningful sense, but Tieri's hobbled in what he can do with the lead characters, so I can't really blame him for de-emphasising them.

I'm entirely unconvinced that this is a wise direction for the character, but presumably Tieri's coming back to it shortly, so we'll see what he has in mind.  In the meantime, it's an issue that serves its purpose.

Rating: B-

back | continue