This book collects Uncanny X-Men 462 – 465. It was written by long-time X-Men writer Chris Claremont and pencilled by two of my favourite arists – Alan Davies and Chris Bachalo. I know Claremont’s work from various X-Men books but primarily from the original Excalibur series from the late eighties. Davis also worked on that series as well as the fabulous, Alan Moore penned, D.R. and Quinch from 2000AD. I loved Bachalo’s work on the two Death mini-series on Vertigo as well as Shade, the Changing Man and The Witching Hour – in fact my favourite t-shirt to this day remains one that features a Bacholo image of Death (the only picture that I can find online is in the background of this image).

Captain Britain is swept up into the events of the House of M as this story shows that the actions of the Scarlet Witch on Earth 616 threaten the integrity of the whole omniverse. He is tasked with returning to Earth 616 to try and seal the breach in causality before the whole of the omniverse ceases to be. however once back on Earth 616 he he finds himself happy to play the role given to him by the Scarlet Witch’s changes. It is only through messages transmitted through Meggan and a hunt for fugitives from Magneto that he gets back on track.

This is the first book in the spin-offs from the main story that I have really loved. I think part of it is nostalgia for the original Excalibur series that I liked back in the day – and this story feels like an Excalibur story rather than an X-men story as a lot of the characters and the setting come straight from Excalibur. The other part of it is due my love for the two pencillers’ work who both have two chapters each in this story. The story from Claremont is good but the plot line featuring Juggernaut and Nocturne on the run from a bunch of Magneto’s hunters is left largely unexplained – possibly to be resolved in one of the remaining books. An early splash page shows Captain Britain and Meggan being blasted across the omniverse and shows familiar characters in unfamiliar setting and guises – some of these look intriguing and I wish there was a series that explored some of these further (like a Marvel version of DC’s Elseworlds books).