In Review: Excalibur (2019-) #9

Synopsis: Betsy is tasked with finding the Starlight Citadel.

The Story

Apocalypse sends Betsy and her friends to the Starlight Citadel so they can secure a meeting with Saturnyne who is its Guardian, but Saturnyne perceives Apocalypse as a threat and will not allow for the mutants to have an audience. Her main job is to maintain a balance between worlds. Making matters worse. The Akkaba Witches seek to take back Otherworld. Another war is looming between human and mutant kind.

Artwork

Markus To presents some awesome art on this issue with some dramatic panels of Jubilee flying on Shogo only for him to get shot down. As well as the scenes in which we see the Priests and Priestesses from the Citadel launch and auditory assault. We also get a great panel where we see the face of Apocalypse hovering over the Citadel, which starts alarm bells ringing.

Overall

Tini Howard brings us a bit of a slow-burning issue here as she sets up a lot of things for the story to come. I loved how Apocalypse explained the reason for the Starlight Citadel and how it was once occupied by all Captain Britains and so forth. I also loved the coven meeting of the Witches of Akkaba and how things were left to the imagination when a human sacrifice was made. We’re getting this story in bits and pieces and it seems to be building up rather nicely. But I am hoping more becomes clearer in the next issue. Because it looks like we are going to have a conflict on three fronts now that the Citadel has gotten involved.

I’m also beginning to wonder why we have a few X-Men trusting the judgment of Apocalypse in all of this and hope we get some answers to that soon as well. Especially given my limited knowledge of their history.