Excalibur Epic Collection : Days of Futures Yet to Come

The Epic Collection series collecting the adventures of Marvel's premiere British team of mutants, Excalibur, continues!

The Phoenix-powered Rachel Summers is back, fresh from a battle with Galactus! Meanwhile, faces from Captain Britain's past resurface when the Warpies and the RCX return! But dark days lie ahead as the team joins Rachel on a trip to her own timeline: the nightmarish tomorrow of Days of Future Past! The secrets of Widget are revealed, and some surprising faces need help fighting for freedom against the Sentinels! Back in the present, Meggan and Nightcrawler face despair as Captain Britain and Cerise are ripped from the team — and the departures don’t end there! Rachel holds the key to Brian’s return, but is the cost too high to bear? And what — or who — has Brian become?

COLLECTING: Excalibur (1988) 59-75, Excalibur Annual (1993) 1

The career of British-born artist Alan Davis took off like a rocket after his humble beginnings at Marvel UK. Continuing the collaboration that saw Captain Britain become an enduring critical and fan-favorite, the two co-created D.R. and Quinch. Davis broke into U.S. comics with runs on Batman and the Outsiders and Detective Comics. Hired by Marvel U.S. in 1986, Davis launched Excalibur with Chris Claremont, and the book quickly became one of Marvel mutantdom’s most unique and humorous titles. When Davis took over as writer, he continued many plot threads from his Captain Britain run. Davis also created the super-hero family ClanDestine, and wrote and drew the DC miniseries JLA: The Nail. After a lengthy arc writing and drawing X-Men, Davis went on to work on the miniseries Killraven, Fantastic Four: The End and a ClanDestine revival. He has also illustrated writer Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers Prime and contributed to the status-quo-changing X-Men: Schism, later helping relaunch Wolverine with writer Paul Cornell.

Scott Lobdell wrote both Uncanny X-Men and X-Men during the 1990s. He also launched Generation X and Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, and penned Alpha Flight and Fantastic Four. Elsewhere, he wrote Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Fabian Nicieza, Wildstorm’s Gen13, Top Cow’s Darkness, and IDW’s Ghostbusters: Displaced Aggression and Galaxy Quest. Lobdell scripted Stan Lee’s animated film Mosaic and has performed as a stand-up comedian.

After working consistently throughout the 1990s, artist Scott Kolins made his mark with a critically acclaimed two-year tenure on DC’s Flash with writer Geoff Johns. Kolins reteamed with Johns at Marvel, on Avengers and the limited series Thing: Freakshow. He also partnered with writer Robert Kirkman to revive the classic series Marvel Team-Up. Kolins’ unique skill at portraying larger-than-life super-heroic action with a high level of detail earned him a number of choice assignments, including Beyond!, a sequel of sorts to the classic Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. Often inking his own work, Kolins’ other Marvel projects include Thor: Blood Oath, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Omega Flight, Annihilation Prologue and Stan Lee Meets The Thing.

Ken Lashley’s pencils have graced the pages of such notable books as Black Panther and Excalibur. In addition, his Draxhall Jump Entertainment, an illustration concept and design studio, has worked with Mattel, Hasbro and Lucasfilm. Lashley’s other Marvel credits include the Secret Wars limited series Marvel Zombies and a collaboration with Cullen Bunn on Uncanny X-Men, while his work for DC Comics includes illustrating such characters as Flash, Superboy, the Suicide Squad and He-Man.

In addition to illustrating annuals for New Mutants, X-Factor and X-Force, Terry Shoemaker helped conclude the “Heroes Reborn” version of Iron Man and contributed to the armored Avenger’s subsequent relaunch. He also penciled Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes for DC, CyberRad for Continuity and Zealot for Image, as well several Wildstorm stories.