Excalibur Issue 40: The Trial of Lockheed
Writer: Scott Lobdell 
Art: Dave Hoover

This may be one of my favorite old school Excalibur issues. I had never read it before; it was in my pile of “comics I never got around to at some point in my life,” but I couldn’t resist the cover. I picked it up, started reading, and was overjoyed. First of all, Lockheed is awesome. Let’s get that straight. I was so pissed off when he wasn’t included in X-3 at any point (despite the inclusion of Shadowcat) and think he should be used as a central character more often. With that said, this issue plainly rocked.

For starters, the whole thing is written in rhyme. Well, basically . . . all of the dragon-talk is written in rhyme. Some of the rhymes are a stretch but for 20 pages of dialogue, it’s pretty impressive and a hell of a lot more entertaining than Shakespeare. I found myself breezing through this comic. It read to me like a song. Everything was so poetic despite a rather silly / cheesy topic.

I say cheesy because I’ve noticed that with older comics, they try to bring in the silliest life morals. There’s been a big improvement in the comic industry over the past decade having less obvious and more themes that you actually have to think about. And yes, back then there were some good ones too, but often with the typical Marvel and DC superheroes you got pure cheese. This issue, for example, is all about friendship. In the first pages, Shadowcat recollects that she has wondered about the existence of a pet Heaven in the past, but then it makes her sad about real Heaven because her pets won’t be with her. Which, by the way, pet Heaven? Can I touch on that for a moment? Why did our parents always tell us about that? Kitty makes a good point on this page (though rather obvious). Wouldn’t it be smarter just tell your kid, “Yeah, they’ll be going to Heaven. Pets live in the same Heaven as everyone else.” That gets rid of the disappointment that they’ll never see their pet again, and it’s frankly more practical. ANYWAY . . . 

So yeah, the overall theme is that Lockheed’s friendship with Excalibur is more powerful than death. He makes this argument in front of the rather comical Dragon species and eventually wins over their heart and they let him live. His dragon could-be-wife even understands the situation and lets him go (so touching). Then towards the end he realizes that he may have just kissed his species goodbye. I don’t know what the lesson is there — friends before species? — or if they’re just trying to be practical — nothing can be win win. Oh yeah, and then there’s a random appearance by the X-Men in the last page that is quite possibly the most forced cliff-hanger of all time. Like there really was absolutely no reason they should have come into play but they did. I guess I’ll need to pick up the next issue (which I think I have lying around somewhere) and figure that out. I’ll be sure to post if there’s anything exciting.