The X-Men franchise in the late 1980s and early 1990s was in its creative doldrums with the core X-Men team spending a couple of years missing in action in Australia, Xavier's school was led by Magneto, and X-Factor was... who knows what X-Factor was doing at the time? Excalibur was a shining beacon in this sea of mediocrity, with funny, witty, and entertaining stories by Chris Claremont coupled with some of Alan Davis' finest work.

The England-based mostly mutant team got caught up in a year-long story called The Cross-Time Caper running from issues 12 to 25, which had the team bouncing around from one alternate reality to another as they desperately try to find their way home. The premise is similar to TV series Sliders (which debuted many, many years later) and is an important part of Claremont's current X-series New Exiles.

This issue sees the end of Excalibur's jaunts around the omniverse, when they wind up at Opal Luna Saturnyne's domain, who also happens to be the ruler of the omniverse and is an alternate version of team leader Captain Britain's ex-lover Courtney Ross. Hilarity ensures when Saturnyne's forces attempt to look for Rachel Summers (Phoenix), who is being disguised as Kitty Pryde with a bad wig. Meanwhile back at Earth-616, Kitty Pryde is staying with Courtney Ross who teaches the former on how to dress up and have fun with high society.

This would be Alan Davis' final issue with Claremont, before returning as both writer and artist with issue 42. The issues in between floundered badly with Claremont leaving shortly thereafter, stranding the book with temporary artists and writers who simply could not match the fun and witty genius of the original Claremont/Davis issues.

This issue is collected in the Excalibur Classic vol.4 trade paperback.

Despite many criticisms heaped upon the X-Men titles titles throughout the mid-1990s, it was in these years that I started buying these titles and they made me a fan. However, I had quit collecting comics shortly after the Age of Apocalypse event and it would be many years later before I discovered the magic of Warren Ellis' run on Excalibur.

This is not his first issue, he had been assigned on the title for close to a year by the time this issue was released. However, this was the first issue that Ellis truly showed off the talent and potential in him, and is miles ahead of his earlier issues which were standard superhero stories.

Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom had hooked up in the previous issue, Wolfsbane and Colossus are new additions to the team, Moira McTaggert has just been infected with the Legacy Virus, and Captain Britain is lost in the timestream. Needless to say, the team was in dire need of some downtime and R&R. And what better way than to get shit-faced drunk in a pub near Muir Island?

I literally laughed out loud while reading this issue, and it opened me to the genius of Warren Ellis and would lead me to spend oodles of money collecting every Ellis-penned trade paperback I could find, culminating in my exposure to StormWatch and The Authority. As such, this issue holds a special place in my heart thanks to it being a stepping stone that would change my taste in comics forever.

The high concept for Scott Pilgrim is he is a videogame loving delivery dude who falls in love with Romana Flowers. However, to win her love, he must defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends in mortal combat. Since its initial release in 2004, this series has garnered critical acclaim and Universal Pictures is prepping a live action adaptation with Michael Cera in the lead.

And the most economic way to sample the series (which has been released as four OGNs by Oni Press) is this 2006 Free Comic Book Day one-shot, which should still be available at participating shops for free or at a small price. I paid only a quarter for my copy at The Comic Bug last year.

This issue features Scott, who along with love interest Ramona Flowers and friend Wallace Wells are getting late for a movie when they are suddenly attacked by duplicates of pop sensation Winifred Hailey, which turns out to caused by a ninja spell from one of Ramona's exes. Hilarity ensues. The story can be found in its entirety at http://scottpilgrim.com/index.php?id=previews.

The backup tale by Andy Helms features monster hunter Fearless Griggs. The only thing I liked about the backup strip was the Mike Mignola-esque art, as the story simply failed to attract my interest.

Despite growing up in the 1980s and being exposed to what was undoubtedly the Golden Age of Saturday morning cartoons, G.I. Joe somehow managed to elude me. Maybe it's its schedule with the local television channels, but I never found the time to watch more than the occasional random episode or two. This is in comparison to the likes of Transformers, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe or Thundercats, all of which I followed religiously.

As such, I never got to know the G.I. Joe pantheon of characters and never picked up the Marvel Comics series. I found this issue in a back issue discount bin a couple of years ago, and while none of the familiar mainstays (i.e. Snake-Eyes, Scarlett) may be found in this issue, it quickly made an impression of me.

With new toys featuring new characters debuting all the time, Larry Hama introduced us to the G.I. Joe boot camp in this issue as we see new recruits going through the G.I. Joe training process. Some of which are the typical military drills and stuff that we usually see on TV or in the movies, but there are some fun bits such as the safety film torture training session, as well as the quiet before the storm after a big gourmet treat.

This was also my first exposure to the Iron Grenadiers, when I thought the only bad guys in the G.I. Joe universe was COBRA. It is all good, innocent fun and it was ingenious of Larry Hama to use an off-kilter humorous approach to introduce new characters.

This one-shot is so unlike anything Marvel Comics had ever published (or published since) that I can't help but spotlight it here. Written, drawn, and lettered completely by Jim Mahfood whose style is influenced more by graffiti and hip-hop than traditional comic book illustration, this is a hilarious take on Marvel Comics' then teenage mutants as well as a great exposure for mainstream comic book buyers to Mahfood's immense talent.

The first story is nothing more than Skin obsessing over beating M in a game of Space Invaders on his old Atari 2600 console, while the second story is a hip-hop sci-fi Charlie's Angels riff featuring Skin, Jubilee, and M with X-Man Bishop as their 'charlie'. The third story takes a sudden turn from the comedy and fun of the previous two tales, and is instead a soul-searching look into the horribly scarred Jonothon Chamber.

The cover is printed on an unusual card stock that is usually found only on independent or underground comics, and I have never seen it used on mainstream commercial comics before. Compounded by the flat single colors, one would be hard pressed to think this was released by Marvel Comics were it not for the name of the publisher on the top left corner of the cover.