Sorely tempted to go with the page of Kylun barging through the bathroom door on a very surprised Nightcrawler from issue 46, but the Phoenix vs. Galactus throwdown here is too nice to pass up.
I've not read any of the earliest Excalibur, with Claremont as writer and Davis on art. From reading online, I know there was a Cross-Time Caper storyline that went on far too long, and that Davis departed around the time it ended. Replaced by a number of artists who were Not Alan Davis. Claremont left, there were several issues written by Scott Lobdell (never a good sign) and then Davis returned in issue 42, as writer and penciler.
The run lasts 26 issues, concluding with #67, although there are several issues in the 50s that are either only written by Davis, or lack his involvement entirely. Most of those are also written by Scott Lobdell, but are included in the Visionaries collections Marvel did for Alan Davis' stint on the book. Which is how I collected the run, most of a decade ago.
Davis' run feels like it's about identity, or maybe free will. Self-determination? The initial storyline, which runs up to #50, is about how Excalibur came together as a team in the first place. Whether they have any control over their lives at all, or if they're just puppets of higher powers. (The answer would seem to be, "You'll never know for sure you make your own choices.")
Captain Britain in particular has to struggle with feeling manipulated, since so much of that story revolves around Roma and Merlin, who created the Captain Britain Corps. He can't figure out why he was so much better at being a hero on his own than he is in a team. Even after that, he has to decide who he wants to be, and what's important to him. If he's going to be Captain Britain, then that's what he has to do, he can't half-ass it. If he's going to be in a relationship with Meggan, then he needs to amek sure she knows how important she is to him.
Beyond that, Rachel Summers has her own struggles with identity, not aided in the least by the Phoenix Force's sentience hanging around. If Rachel's mind withdraws, the Phoenix can take control of her body, and the Phoenix likes being around on this plane of existence. And Rachel likes having its power, but it messes with her mind, costs her memories of her life before reaching this time period. The Phoenix has to make a choice, and then Rachel decides she has to go back to her time, at least long enough to make it a better place.
Meggan sets out, with Rachel's assistance, to learn more about her origins, and grows more confident in herself. Nightcrawler struggles with being team leader, a role that didn't usually go well for him in his X-Men days. Between adding interstellar traveler Cerise and sheltered wizard Feron to the cast, both of whom don't know much about the world they inhabit, Shadowcat's the most stable member of the team. Kitty doesn't seem to really go through any major trials or tribulations. I don't know if Davis just didn't have anything in mind for her, or figured Claremont put her through enough of a wringer it was someone else's turn.
It's not all deadly serious stuff. For a few issues, periodic foe/annoyance Technet ends up living in the team's lighthouse and are briefly molded into a team by an injured Nightcrawler when the rest of Excalibur's elsewhere. One issue is set in another universe, where reptiles are the dominant force, so their Excalibur are talking, costumed reptiles. Davis' first issue begins with the team being attacked by an angry baby chick named "Hawd Boiled Henwy". Which immediately blows up. So that part's not so funny.
Davis is working with Mark Farmer as inker, and Glynis Oliver as colorist, and so the book just looks lovely. Most of the characters are very pretty people, especially the heroes, but there's just a variety of looks and styles. All of Technet are wildly different looking beings, for example. Even when there's more than one version of the character, their body language and expressions can tell you how the personalities differ. He's capable of body horror when it's needed (within reason, we're not talking Junji Ito here) for the Jamie Braddock issues, and he has to sense of timing and small details needed for humor. I'm particularly fond of the three-panel bit where Cerise investigates "lip massage" with Nightcrawler, and Kurt's tail is making these loops and twists while the clock in the background shows they've been at it a while.
Farmer is able to lend a weight to Davis' work to keep things from looking to sleek all the time. Oliver's colors are brilliant. The psychedelic look she gives everything when we see the world the way Meggan can, as energy, or Jamie does, as all these threads he can pull on. Or during the battle between Galactus and the Phoenix, the use of white space to make the battle almost blinding to represent the amount of energy these two are throwing at each other.
When Davis left, Lobdell took over as writer for over a year, with a run that I'm pretty sure is beloved by no one. He threw Rachel Summers somewhere off into Limbo, and decided Cerise was actually some sort of Shi'ar war criminal. Then came the Warren Ellis run, which I bought the Visionaries collections of the same time I bought Davis'. I don't own it any longer; removed it from the collection within a year or two of buying it. I didn't know about him being a creep, so I can't claim it was some moral stand. I just didn't enjoy it very much. Constantly shifting art teams (and very Nineties art most of the time), more Pete Wisdom than I required, some Hellfire Club machinations I wasn't interested in.
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