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Erik and Charles in comics canon, part 4
After the angst, betrayal and BDSM role-play of the last post comes the perfect antidote in the form of Excalibur V3, a 14-issue series that's a essentially a love letter to all Erik/Charles fans.
I'm skipping the nonsense that is the New X-Men Planet X storyline entirely, where writer Grant Morrison attempted to showcase how utterly unredeemable Magneto is by having him destroy much of New York (a city that's leveled with an alarming frequency in the Marvelverse), murder thousands of humans and send them to crematoriums (...stay classy, Morrison) and kill Jean Grey, only to be decapitated by Wolverine. Thankfully this was almost immediately retconned by having that “Magneto” actually be imposter alien Xorn, though the X-Men and the world at large are unaware of that detail.
Over everybody's protests, Charles goes to Genosha, which has been reduced to rubble by Charles evil twin sister (...oh, comics), to bury the body.
Again, context: Magneto is, at this point, the most wanted man in the world, everybody is out to get him, the X-Men were pissed at Charles for even providing him with a funeral, and as far as readers know, he's the psychopath who who did everything I described in the Planet X storyline. Which makes his unexpected appearance and Charles friendly greeting even more awesome.
And of course they wasted no time in resuming their chess game.
I don't know what I love more, Charles' delicate phrasing when referring to the whole supervillain thing or the Erik's violentand hot reaction at Xorn's actions being attributed to him. Which can totally be viewed as meta commentary expressing what Chris Claremont makes of that particular Morrison storyline (you know, the more old comics I read, the more I conclude that Claremont should always write those two).
I'm not even a fan of domestic fluff, but the sight of them preparing dinner together makes me ridiculously happy. I know they're having this whole discussion on the nature of mutation (...which the movie taught us is what Charles considers a come-on) and there are all these specters of Moira, Genosha, mindwipes and crucifixions hanging between them, but this is still basically curtain!fic.
Guys, THAT MIDDLE PANEL. The wine, the balcony, the sunset in the background...this reads as a date even without getting into the dialogue ( “I'm reading your body”-they are killing me here!).
You're not hallucinating things, that's a giant statue of Charles and Erik. It used to be just of Magneto the Genosha ruler, until Polaris, during a philosophical debate over “Magneto”'s body decided to prove a point to Charles by magnetically adding his face to it. Even Magneto's daughter kind of ships them!
And this is the part where they would probably move on to “dessert”, if not for the arrival of Callisto (former Morlock leader and Storm's secret girlfriend in my head) who is, let's put it midly, somewhat surprised by what she finds.
THE WORLD WOULD NEVER UNDERSTAND THEIR LOVE!
Eventually they calm Callisto down (maybe she hopes she'll get to watch), but the cockblocks keep happening in the form of psychic attacks and Moira's ghost .
How cute is Erik's concern and protectiveness? Anyway, the psychic attack is related to some plot-point I can't recall because honestly, plot? Not why I'm reading this series.
I think one of my favorite aspects of this, besides the obvious, is the humor. This is not a series that takes itself too seriously, and both Charles and Erik have more light-hearted moments than they've had in the comics in years.
Callisto is nice not to intrude on Couple's Scuba Diving.
In the water, they come across Karinda Shapandar, a human woman transformed into techno-organic mutant killing machine the Omega Sentinel. It goes without saying that they have very different ideas on how to deal with the situation.
I love that that they're still not seeing eye to eye, but that Charles' passion on the subject is enough to make Erik cast aside his reservations. They proceed to work together and manage to restore Karinda's psyche in an awesome sequence that includes Erik generating an MRI image underwater and demonstrating how they can do pretty much anything when they work together.
By Genosha law, this means they're now married.
Oh Charles, what poetry you have in your heart! Btw, “like the bookends of the same soul” should totally be the official Erik/Charles ship motto.
The thin plotlines continue to happen, when they're attacked by pirates (sadly, not of the space variety).
Erik's “Michael Xavier” fake identity is a running joke that will never get old!
The snark in this book continues to be marvelous, and pissy!Charles is my favourite Charles ever.
I'll just refrain from tacky remarks involving Claremontesque melodrama and heavy rain matching the mood. On a more serious note, Erik's reminiscences are foreshadowing the plot of the amazingly powerful limited series “Magneto Testament”, which is about his childhood and years in Auschwitz. I'd recommend it to anyone, though it goes without saying the subject matter is incredibly heavy.
Bwah! I can practically hear the distaste in Erik's voice when talking about fisticuffs. He misses having flunkies!
It's nice to see that sometime between all the fighting in the post-Apocalyptic setting, they took the time to acquire some proper wine glasses rather than the plebeian plastic ones they were using on their first date.
Everybody else is having a natural creeped out reaction at the world's most powerful telepath cracking mind control jokes, while Erik is all proud “that's my boyfriend!”. Also, out of all the great secondary characters in this book, Callisto is probably my favorite-she’s good at both pointing out the slash and providing the snarky commentary that keeps this from going into full Harlequin novel territory.
Callisto, honey, stop trying to apply earth logic to their relationship, it doesn't work.
Meanwhile, in the Avengers comic book, Magneto's daughter Wanda/the Scarlet Witch goes crazy and kills a bunch of her teammates. Feeling her distress, Magneto sweeps in and grabs her from under her teammates noses.
Charles is less than thrilled at this new development.
This whole page is made of pure win! Charles' facepalm at the helmet, Erik's casual mention of defying the laws of physics, Charles' “I can't leave you alone for one night!!!”...I'm thinking somebody's sleeping on the couch tonight.
To help Wanda, Charles enlists sorcerer supreme Doctor Strange. There's a whole issue of Charles in the telepathic plane where we learn lovely tidbits like the fact he mentally coerced Gabrielle Heller into having a relationship (I knew it!), until we eventually get to the most relevant scene, of what should be Charles and Erik's third breakup .
The book Erik is reading to Wanda is “The Once And Future King”. I don't know whether this being both Charles and Erik's favourite book started off in the comics and passed on to the movies, or the other way around, but either way it's nice to have some constants in their relationship in any universe.
Oh, right. Plot.
I know I should be sad and all, but I'm too busy at the “I can't believe this is canon” nature of the dialogue. Don't leave me! You're not the man I thought you were! Good Lord.
It's official, people, Magneto's driving force is LOVE. Charles is lucky it's the equally overdramatic and loquatious Stephen Strange listening to all this, rather than, say, the X-Men. There would be a lot more eye-rolling otherwise.
So yeah, this wraps up Excalibur, and leads to the House of M storyline, wherein Wanda creates an alternate reality where Magneto rules the world (at the urging of her inappropriately attached brother Pietro) and the whole things culminates in Wanda depowering most of the world's mutant population.
And just so I don't end this post on a sad note, here's a random scan from an X-Men holiday issue around the Excalibur era.
So Charles took enough of a break from happy coupledom to telepathically check in on the students he abandoned-that makes sense. Bringing Erik along for this...only makes sense if you accept they are a couple, and Charles wanted to watch the fireworks with his boyfriend.
I'm skipping the nonsense that is the New X-Men Planet X storyline entirely, where writer Grant Morrison attempted to showcase how utterly unredeemable Magneto is by having him destroy much of New York (a city that's leveled with an alarming frequency in the Marvelverse), murder thousands of humans and send them to crematoriums (...stay classy, Morrison) and kill Jean Grey, only to be decapitated by Wolverine. Thankfully this was almost immediately retconned by having that “Magneto” actually be imposter alien Xorn, though the X-Men and the world at large are unaware of that detail.
Over everybody's protests, Charles goes to Genosha, which has been reduced to rubble by Charles evil twin sister (...oh, comics), to bury the body.
Again, context: Magneto is, at this point, the most wanted man in the world, everybody is out to get him, the X-Men were pissed at Charles for even providing him with a funeral, and as far as readers know, he's the psychopath who who did everything I described in the Planet X storyline. Which makes his unexpected appearance and Charles friendly greeting even more awesome.
And of course they wasted no time in resuming their chess game.
I don't know what I love more, Charles' delicate phrasing when referring to the whole supervillain thing or the Erik's violent
I'm not even a fan of domestic fluff, but the sight of them preparing dinner together makes me ridiculously happy. I know they're having this whole discussion on the nature of mutation (...which the movie taught us is what Charles considers a come-on) and there are all these specters of Moira, Genosha, mindwipes and crucifixions hanging between them, but this is still basically curtain!fic.
Guys, THAT MIDDLE PANEL. The wine, the balcony, the sunset in the background...this reads as a date even without getting into the dialogue ( “I'm reading your body”-they are killing me here!).
You're not hallucinating things, that's a giant statue of Charles and Erik. It used to be just of Magneto the Genosha ruler, until Polaris, during a philosophical debate over “Magneto”'s body decided to prove a point to Charles by magnetically adding his face to it. Even Magneto's daughter kind of ships them!
And this is the part where they would probably move on to “dessert”, if not for the arrival of Callisto (former Morlock leader and Storm's secret girlfriend in my head) who is, let's put it midly, somewhat surprised by what she finds.
THE WORLD WOULD NEVER UNDERSTAND THEIR LOVE!
Eventually they calm Callisto down (maybe she hopes she'll get to watch), but the cockblocks keep happening in the form of psychic attacks and Moira's ghost .
How cute is Erik's concern and protectiveness? Anyway, the psychic attack is related to some plot-point I can't recall because honestly, plot? Not why I'm reading this series.
I think one of my favorite aspects of this, besides the obvious, is the humor. This is not a series that takes itself too seriously, and both Charles and Erik have more light-hearted moments than they've had in the comics in years.
Callisto is nice not to intrude on Couple's Scuba Diving.
In the water, they come across Karinda Shapandar, a human woman transformed into techno-organic mutant killing machine the Omega Sentinel. It goes without saying that they have very different ideas on how to deal with the situation.
I love that that they're still not seeing eye to eye, but that Charles' passion on the subject is enough to make Erik cast aside his reservations. They proceed to work together and manage to restore Karinda's psyche in an awesome sequence that includes Erik generating an MRI image underwater and demonstrating how they can do pretty much anything when they work together.
By Genosha law, this means they're now married.
Oh Charles, what poetry you have in your heart! Btw, “like the bookends of the same soul” should totally be the official Erik/Charles ship motto.
The thin plotlines continue to happen, when they're attacked by pirates (sadly, not of the space variety).
Erik's “Michael Xavier” fake identity is a running joke that will never get old!
The snark in this book continues to be marvelous, and pissy!Charles is my favourite Charles ever.
I'll just refrain from tacky remarks involving Claremontesque melodrama and heavy rain matching the mood. On a more serious note, Erik's reminiscences are foreshadowing the plot of the amazingly powerful limited series “Magneto Testament”, which is about his childhood and years in Auschwitz. I'd recommend it to anyone, though it goes without saying the subject matter is incredibly heavy.
Bwah! I can practically hear the distaste in Erik's voice when talking about fisticuffs. He misses having flunkies!
It's nice to see that sometime between all the fighting in the post-Apocalyptic setting, they took the time to acquire some proper wine glasses rather than the plebeian plastic ones they were using on their first date.
Everybody else is having a natural creeped out reaction at the world's most powerful telepath cracking mind control jokes, while Erik is all proud “that's my boyfriend!”. Also, out of all the great secondary characters in this book, Callisto is probably my favorite-she’s good at both pointing out the slash and providing the snarky commentary that keeps this from going into full Harlequin novel territory.
Callisto, honey, stop trying to apply earth logic to their relationship, it doesn't work.
Meanwhile, in the Avengers comic book, Magneto's daughter Wanda/the Scarlet Witch goes crazy and kills a bunch of her teammates. Feeling her distress, Magneto sweeps in and grabs her from under her teammates noses.
Charles is less than thrilled at this new development.
This whole page is made of pure win! Charles' facepalm at the helmet, Erik's casual mention of defying the laws of physics, Charles' “I can't leave you alone for one night!!!”...I'm thinking somebody's sleeping on the couch tonight.
To help Wanda, Charles enlists sorcerer supreme Doctor Strange. There's a whole issue of Charles in the telepathic plane where we learn lovely tidbits like the fact he mentally coerced Gabrielle Heller into having a relationship (I knew it!), until we eventually get to the most relevant scene, of what should be Charles and Erik's third breakup .
The book Erik is reading to Wanda is “The Once And Future King”. I don't know whether this being both Charles and Erik's favourite book started off in the comics and passed on to the movies, or the other way around, but either way it's nice to have some constants in their relationship in any universe.
Oh, right. Plot.
I know I should be sad and all, but I'm too busy at the “I can't believe this is canon” nature of the dialogue. Don't leave me! You're not the man I thought you were! Good Lord.
It's official, people, Magneto's driving force is LOVE. Charles is lucky it's the equally overdramatic and loquatious Stephen Strange listening to all this, rather than, say, the X-Men. There would be a lot more eye-rolling otherwise.
So yeah, this wraps up Excalibur, and leads to the House of M storyline, wherein Wanda creates an alternate reality where Magneto rules the world (at the urging of her inappropriately attached brother Pietro) and the whole things culminates in Wanda depowering most of the world's mutant population.
And just so I don't end this post on a sad note, here's a random scan from an X-Men holiday issue around the Excalibur era.
So Charles took enough of a break from happy coupledom to telepathically check in on the students he abandoned-that makes sense. Bringing Erik along for this...only makes sense if you accept they are a couple, and Charles wanted to watch the fireworks with his boyfriend.
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