Chris Lemmerman's Reviews > Excalibur, Vol. 4

Excalibur has always beat to the sound of its own drum, even amongst a line of X-Books that couldn't be more different from one another. It loses none of that individuality in this final volume, as Tini Howard's Otherworld saga reaches another crescendo.

Despite Betsy Braddock being back among the living, Otherworld and the Starlight Citadel are still plagued with unrest. Nothing Excalibur does seems to help, and there are growing threats from all sides. Just the way we like it. This is one of those books that balances the politic with the superheroic, and while Saturnyne sassing her way through court is always fun to see, it's when she's on the back foot that things really get interesting.

Marcus To, the unsung hero of this run, pencils all five issues here on his farewell tour. He won't be carrying over to Knights Of X (a shame), but we can enjoy his beautiful pencils one last time for now.

There's a sense of finality by the time this volume comes to a close; things are looking bleaker than ever, and it seems that Excalibur have failed in every sense of the word, but that's the point. This is just another step on the journey for these characters, and times of change are often difficult to endure.

Writer TIni Howard has always been unapologetic in her storytelling, and by this point she's proven that it's well worth suffering alongside Captain Britain and her friends, because the payoff's going to be even more exciting and unexpected than you could dream. Whatever the follow-up Knights Of X title has in store, there's no way we can guess it, and I'm not even going to try.