Thinking about the Black Knight takes you odd places. Or maybe it's the state of mind you have to be in to be thinking about the Black Knight in the first place.
- A couple of days ago, probably while plotting yesterday's post, I started thinking about how the portrayal of Black Knight in New Excalibur lines up with the one we saw in Hudlin's Black Panther story. That guy had a flying horse, and seemed to be a religious zealot, fully willing to invade Wakanda and attack those damn Pagans in the name of Alimighty Gaw-d.
- Given Dane Whitman seemed to have his horse stuffed and on display in his museum (or maybe it was a recreation), and doesn't seem particularly interested in religious wars (which makes sense given he already spent years fighting in the Crusades, he's probably burnt out on that), something don't line up. I suppose the simplest explanation is that this is Marvel we're talking about, and Hudlin pretty much got to depict characters however he wished, and Black Knight was simply someone who fell in his crosshairs.
- Thinking about the Crusades brought back a scene from Bloodties. Yeah, I willingly thought about comics from the '90s. Horrible, I know. In it Black Knight (sporting his leather jacket/photonic sword look, ugh) comes face to face with Magneto's old helper Exodus. They exchange words, Exodus flies off, and Whitman is left with the certainty he's met this guy before.
- Honestly, that isn't any surprise. It seems like every character has met every other character at some point, and that you can pretty easily do the "Six Degrees of Separation" with just about anyone. To wit: Spider-Man's enemy Norman Osborn, is father of Peter Parker's (Spider-Man) best friend Harry Osborn, who married Peter's high-school crush Liz Allen, who's brother is Mark Ralston, the Molten Man. OK, that's only five, but the point holds. The question is, where did Knight and Exodus cross paths before? I'm going to guess during the Crusades, since Exodus can apparently survive being buried 100 years by Nate Grey to emerge in 2099, so he's probably pretty old (hat tip to Len for the heads up on that). Maybe he's an Apocalypse child?
- The "everybody's connected" idea brought up something from X-Men #1, when Wolverine says that Fabian Cortez (sigh, more '90s) smells familiar. Did we ever find out what was the history between those two?
- And what ever happened to Fabian Cortez? I know Exodus was planning to kill him in Bloodties, but given the presence of Jean Grey, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Crystal, and Cortez using Pietro and Crystal's daughter as a hostage, I'm kind of doubting it happened.
- And one last thing I thought of while typing this: Exactly how many flying horses are there in the Marvel Universe? Valkyrie had one, at the very least in the Busiek/Larsen Defenders, and probably in the original series as well. Moonstar got one during her time in Asgard. Black Knight had one. Are the stories about cows being Marvel's monkeys false? Are flying horses actually Marvel's monkeys?
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The Valkyrie in the Busiek/Larsen DEFENDERS revival isn't the same Valkyrie as was in the original DEFENDERS. As to her flying horse, the first Valkyrie actually flew around on Aragorn, the Black Knight's horse, while the Black Knight was stuck in statue form. When he got cured, he wound up in the 12th Century, so Val kept Aragorn, although she'd given the Black Knight his sword back, and thus had to be gifted with another enchanted blade, Dragonfang, by... someone, I don't know who.
The later Valkyrie showed up complete with winged horse, from Valhalla, where presumably they breed them, or something. I'd imagine they probably export some to Asgard, in exchange for, I don't know, worked uru trinkets, or something.
Whatever happened to Aragorn, I have no idea. Maybe Dr. Strange is still feeding him in some mystic back lot somewhere.
You are correct on the Exodus front. Just before being augmented by Apocalypse during the Crusades, Exodus did meet up with Black Knight.
Also, Exodus is one of the few of Apocalypse's minions who instantly rebeled, leading to his being sealed in a tomb until modern times.
I like flying horses almost as much as I like ducks. And I fucking love ducks. Kitties, too.
Wait, what was the question?
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