Cosmo Digital

      I began reading the comic book series Excalibur a little over ten years ago. I had begun with issue #95, and continued through until the series was cancelled with issue #125. Around this time, I also started buying up the back issues, a task which would take several years to accomplish. At one point when I had many of the issues, I looked online to see if there were any my local comic book store did not have. I turned to Mile High Comics, since their online store seemed to have the most complete list. To my suprise, one title was listed that I had never heard of: Weird War III.

From the very beginning, this seemed to be a rather rare issue. While Mile High Comics is sometimes quite expensive, most of the other Excalibur issues were one to three dollars. A couple of times I was even able to find issues on sale, priced at around 75 cents. Weird War III, on the other hand, was priced from 30 to 60 dollars. Furthermore, Mile High Comics did not have this issue in stock. Searching elsewhere online, I was unable to find out anything more about this issue beyond the title. Other online comic stores did not have it, and I soon gave up on my attempts to find information about it. Well over a year later, I was decided to try to find this issue once more. Since no comic book stores had it, I tried online booksellers. After several attempts using varations of the title (Weird War, Weird War 3, etc...) I finally found success with Alibris.com. Even better, the comic was listed for only six dollars! Much better than the sixty that Mile High Comics listed.

Immediately upon opening the package when it arrived, I realized just why I was never able to find it at a comic book store. It was massive. While only 64 pages, the width and height of the graphic novel are far too large for a conventional comic book. The width is 8 and 1/4 inches, while the height is 11 inches. Contrast this with a normal modern comic, which is 6 1/2 by 10 inches. This disproportionate size is illustrated in the comparison to the left. As can be seen, Weird War III is far larger than I had anticipated. It is too large for any of my comic boxes, and as a result now sits on my bookshelves. This explains why I was unable to find it for so long. Looking through boxes of modern sized comics for this issue was simply a waste of time. Since it is a strange size, comic shops could be unwilling to carry the issue, or possibly were like myself and not realizing that this is not a "normal" comic. It makes a twisted sort of sense that this could be classified as a book and sold on a site for used books. Anyway, now that I had the comic, I could read and study it to my satisfaction.

One of my complaints regarding "special edition" comics is that it is very hard to find where they chronologically fit into the normal issues. Weird War III presents the same dilemma. The publication date listed on the copyright page dates it as December 1990. This date would fit it into the early 30s in the normal Excalibur series, roughly around issue #32, which is also dated December 1990. It may not be as clear as this, since comics usually are dated a month or more ahead of when they actually arrive. Thus, a comic that comes out in October may be dated as November or even December. I do not know if this dating trend is followed with graphic novel/special editions, and the available online distribution data only goes back to 1996. Checking the Standard Catalog of Comic Books which does cover the early 90s, the only dates listed are the cover dates. Looking at Marvel's listings of forthcoming comic books within the relevant Excalibur issues, no mention was made of Weird War III. As a result, there is some ambiguity to when this was actually published, and where this issue lies within continuity.

Reading through the issue, it is clear that it comes after the "Cross Time Caper", which is no suprise as that occured from issue #12 through #24. The plotline within this graphic novel comes out of that event, dealing with an alternate Nazi world. Early on within the Excalibur comics, they had faced off against Nazi versions of themselves, which started the whole "Cross Time Caper". Now, instead of encountering their Nazi doppelgangers, they are thrown into the world their Nazi selves came from. This includes a Nazi Professor Xavier, who is set up at the villain of the story. Yes, an aging, decrepit Hitler is present, but he comes off as rather harmless and dependent on the Red Skull, his loyal henchman. This leads to a strange unspoken cold war between Xavier and the Red Skull, as both men try various scientific experients to gain the upper hand and control of the Nazi regime. Xavier uses various well-known mutants to aid his creation of the "X-Man" (an omnipotent superbeing), and Red Skull builds an anti-aging machine for Hitler's personal use.

And then Excalibur are flung into the middle of this. The title of the comic is somewhat misleading, as there is no true "war" between countries or any large battles. There are a few superhero fights, including the final battle between Phoenix and Xavier, but much of the issue has the team assuming the identites of their Nazi counterparts and opting for a stealthy approach instead. Nor does Excalibur get to beat up on Hitler, an omission which I was vaguely disappointed about. Hitler instead becomes a victim of his own hubris, with no superhero help needed to usher him into the afterlife. And for Xavier? In a twisted and philosophical sense, he actually wins. The omnipotent X-Man is created, even if the method of creation was somewhat different from what Xavier expected. And even through all of this, once Excalibur are returned to their own timeline, the issue manages to end with a hearty team laugh.

So how can I sum up this issue? I can safely say that even with my complete run of Excalibur, this issue is the centerpiece. This is because it is rather unique within the comics, due to its size, its artistic style, and its rarity. As this issue can attest, the idea of an "evil" or "dark" Professor Xavier is nothing new or novel, and has been around for quite some time. Take that, Astonishing X-Men!

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