Check Out Those Ads! – Excalibur 75

I was a big fantasy dork back in the day. That’s how I got interested in Excalibur. I thought it was a comic based on King Arthur and his legendary sword Excalibur. The X is even fashioned from swords! I was (mostly) wrong…

Excalibur is a group of Mutants based in the United Kingdom and led by Captain Britain. Phoenix named the the group Excalibur after King Arthur’s sword.

The comic ran ten years, from 1988-1998 with 126 issues. I didn’t collect the entire series. I have the first 50 or so issues and bought issue #75 as a one-off. It was a milestone issue number and it had the ubiquitous 90s gimmick cover. Also they stopped using the swords to make the ‘X’ at issue #50. Maybe that’s where they lost me…

Exclaibur #75, “Hello, I Must Be Going” March 1994

It’s a metallic foil cover, officially called a Foil Enhanced Prismatic Cover. It’s silver and shiny and reflects light in different colors, like a prism. It still won’t pay for my retirement…or a cup of coffee. I was lied too!

Excalibur #75 isn’t a good jumping on point for the series. There’s a lot of back story missing for the casual reader and it’s a confusing story.

The group are returning from Cyclops and Jean-Grey’s wedding and Phoenix (their daughter) is excited they are married because she is now closer to being born…wait, what?

Yeah it’s a whole multi-verse, timeline craziness that I loathe. Phoenix is in this timeline but now must give up her spot so Captain Britain, who is trapped in another timeline can come back to this original timeline. It’s a mess. And a horrible place to start reading the comic.

Why is Captain Britain in the wrong timeline? Why is Phoenix in this timeline? Why is she the only one who can save Captain Britain? Why wasn’t this comic about King Arthur?

Thankfully I’m not here to review or critique the comic. I’m here for the ads!

Let’s take a look at the ads in this milestone issues of Excalibur.

Marvel Screen Posters

Marvel on your computer screen!

Only in the early days of personal computers were these called ‘screen posters’ and honestly I’m not sure anyone ever used that term. Wallpaper, backgrounds, screen savers, but never screen posters. Nice try Marvel.

Marvel Screen Posters ran on the After Dark engine. If you were around computers, or pop culture in the early 90s you may remember Flying Toasters. Flying Toasters was all the rage when it come out. A simple screen saver with toasters and toast moving across the screen.

Marvel Screen Posters are the same idea, only with Marvel characters. Screen savers aren’t needed today but they were huge in the 90s. No one wanted a spreadsheet image burnt into the computer monitor.

I used a few screen savers back then, Flying Toasters, of course. The Simpsons, built on the After Dark engine and maybe one of the best screensavers ever made, Johnny Castaway.

Entertainment This Month

A comic shop based in Virginia. It’s not Mile High Comics so that’s a plus.

I never ordered comics through the mail. The prices aren’t bad but I never trusted I’d get them or if they’d be in good condition. I like browsing the comic titles in person, not from a list.

I’ve always been interested in the comic grab bags these mail order places offer. I wonder what comics were included.

If you order soon you can get a free Batman/Spawn Poster, Spider-Man Poster and Spider-Man Ashcan comic!

NBA Topps

I had a lot of trading cards as a kid, mainly football, baseball and non-sports cards. I never collected basketball cards. The only ones I have in my collection were given to me, I didn’t buy them on my own.

This is a great ad, showing Phoenix Suns defensive powerhouse Dan Majerle. He played his first 7 season in Phoenix before moving to Cleavland, Miami and then back to Phoenix. Majerle retired in 2002 as a 3-time NBA All-Star and 2-time NBA All-Defensive player.

The Phoenix Suns retired Majerle’s jersey number, 9, in 2003.

X-Am Jeans

90s fashion was so very 90s.

Back in the day l I wore two brands of jeans, Levi 501s and Guess.

Steve Berra is a big name in skateboarding. He was even on Tony Hawk’s team in the 90s.

I have no memory of X-Am jeans. I wouldn’t buy the jeans based on this ad.

Hi-C & X-Men Crossover

I couldn’t drink Hi-C as a kid. I’ve only had it once in my life, orange flavor. Back then Hi-C came in a metal can, not a fancy little drink box.

I would love to have these boxes of X-Men Hi-C to collect. I wonder how long the boxes hold up? They probably start breaking down and leaking after a decade.

Branding Hi-C with the X-Men is a good marketing tactic. Kids drank those juice boxes like crazy, why not put the X-men on them to expand the readership.

The cool thing is they also came with Hero Caps. I called them pogs and they were everywhere. In the comic industry Marvel had the Hero Caps and the SkyBox card company made DC SkyCaps.

I’d love to have those Hero Caps too.

Bullpen Bulletins

Not an ad but a profile of up-and-coming artist, Ron Garney.

Garney started out on Moon Knight, then drew the first eight issues of Nightstalkers before moving on to other titles. I loved Nightstalkers! The “Rise of the Midnight Sons” crossover/story arc, which introduced the Nightstalkers is one of my favorite story arcs ever.

Garney worked at Marvel over 30 years and drew ever major character; Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Hulk, X-Men, JLA, Silver Surfer, Thor, the list goes on and on. His last credit was drawing BRZRKR for Boom Comics in 2023.

Subscribe to Marvel

I have it on good authority that hitting a mailbox with a hammer, or maybe a bat is illegal.

You should subscribe to Marvel comics.

For the record, I was at work that night…

X-Men Fleer Ultra Trading Cards

What a beautiful set of trading cards!

I collected all* the Marvel and DC trading cards and there were a lot! While I enjoy DC comics more than Marvel the trading cards are a different story.

The artwork and production quality on the Marvel cards were always top notch. The DC cards seemed cheaper, poor quality card stock, not as glossy, just a step down in general.

The one exception to the ‘collected all’ statement is the Fleer Ultra X-Men series. I missed getting the full set of the series. There were three series from Fleer; ‘94, ‘95 and a Chromium set. In 1996 Fleer partnered with SkyBox and created five more sets; X-Men International, X-Men: Wolverine, X-Men, X-Men 2099 and X-Men ‘97.

I’m farther behind than I thought.

Love trading cards? Check out the Geekster collection on Wax Pack Flashback!

Spider-Man & X-Men

A fantastic ad to end on. Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge!

The screen shots must be from the Sega Game Gear, the Game Boy wasn’t in color. (The first Game Boy Color didn’t come out until 1998).

In the game Spider-Man notices Cyclops, Wolverine and Storm are missing. He tracks them to Arcade’s hideout in an abandoned building and rescues the X-Men.

Once inside the Heroes must fight their way through the deadly games of Murderworld (what a great name!) and defeat Arcade.

This ad is for the Game Boy and Game Gear, the game was also released on Super NES and Sega Genesis.

You can play Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge on emulatorgames.net or you can watch someone else play it…

That will end our look at the ads in Excalibur #75. An OK issue with some great ads.

Don’t forget we want to hear YOUR comic stories too. Get some inspiration from this post and then click the ‘Submit a Post’ button. There’s some great prizes waiting for the best submission.

Check out the previous installments of
Check Out Those Ads!