Customer Reviews

House of M Prelude: Excalibur

5 star:		(0)
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3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
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This is a pretty good story, but this is being billed as a House of M Prelude, when only a handful of pages of this collection are really about the House of M thread. The vast majority of this book is about the Weaponeers doing some kind of coup in a small country and several Excalibur and X-Men members team up to stop it. It has Angel in it, Calisto, and a few other mutants that serious X-fans probably recognized but I didn't. Then there is a small side-show story involving Professor Xavier and Magneto's attempts to help cure the Scarlet Witch. If you want an actual prelude to House of M then I recommend reading Avengers 500 - 503, which is the "Disassembled" story line arc. That's a damn fine comic story. This one in Excalibur is a good story, but it's being billed as something it really isn't, and that's why I give it a somewhat low score.

Billed as a "prelude" to Brian Michael Bendis' House of M event, there is really nothing here that any reader, newbie or veteran, will have to read to get the big picture. After the Scarlet Witch goes crazy and slaughters the Avengers, she is taken to Genosha by her father Magneto who, along with Professor Xavier, seek to repair her broken mind. Naturally, as anyone who has read House of M knows, that is easier said than done. There's also some additional stories including interaction between Archangel and Calisto, but there's really nothing here that would be needed to know what is going on in the long run. Legendary X-Men scribe Chris Claremont doesn't do much here to add any kind of flare, but Aaron Lopresti's art is pretty good mostly. If you want a read "prelude" to House of M, check out Bendis' Avengers Disassembled storyline, which leads to the House of M, which would lead to the current shattering events of the Civil War.

It has a decent battle in it between Angel, Husk, other mutants and a group of killers called the Weaponeers.
It also has a story featuring Pro. X, Dr. Strange and Scarlett Witch that leads into House of M.
However, it's not needed to understand the House of M books. Everything is re-explained several times in the House of M tpb.

Nearly the entire book is about Excalibur and the Weaponeers, with only blurbs in the first chapter, and the entire last chapter being actual House of M material. Overall though, the story is pretty good, I liked it.
What's criminal, however, is vendors on Amazon selling this book for excess of $40. This is one of the cheapest Trade Paperbacks from the House of M collection, only being 11.99 as printed on it's cover. You can probably find this book at your local comic shop for cover price, and you'd still not be paying anywhere near the highway robbery that are these Amazon vendor prices. Heck, if you even had to drive to another city or town to a comic book shop to find this title, you'd still not be paying anywhere near what these Amazon vendors are charging. So don't buy from Amazon, you'll save a ton more cash if you buy it from a store.