So everything around Xavier Files Central this week has been about swords, swords and more swords. I don’t know entirely why. Maybe something X-Men related. That’s usually what it is…
But seriously, X of Swords has landed, and Sword Bearers and Sword Breakers abound. But not everyone who studied the blade while you were partying can make the cut to be a Sword Bearer of Krakoa. Some aren’t mutants. Some aren’t even from the right comic book company. So this week, eschewing my usual format, Bonus Reading will focus on 10 sword-bearing comic book characters who definitely aren’t appearing in X of Swords.
1) Zorro
While not created for the comics, Zorro has had his fair share of four-color funnybooks over the years, and he is the grandfather of all dashing, sword-bearing heroes (OK, that would make the Scarlet Pimpernel the great-grandfather, so don’t @ me). Don Diego de la Vega fought the oppressive Spanish governor of California in the turn of the 19th century under the masked identity of Zorro. He played the coward and fop as Don Diego to hide his skills as a swordsman, learned while studying in Spain. This makes him one of the most well-known inspirations for Batman, along with the Shadow, and something of an inspiration for another noted swordsman of pop culture: He-Man and his cowardly alter ego, Prince Adam.
2) Medieval Spawn
Yeah, he’s Spawn with a sword. He was created by Neil Gaiman, in the same issue that created Angela, and led to that whole legal saga between Gaiman and Todd McFarlane. If you like McFarlane designs and swords, Medieval Spawn is your guy.
3) Grendel
While Grendel is best known for wielding his signature fork in battle, the sword was important to the original Grendel’s development into a criminal mastermind. As a teenager, Eddie was an international fencing prodigy, who carried on an affair with trainer Jocasta Rose, a woman twice his age. After Jocasta’s death from a terminal illness, Eddie would take Jocasta’s last name as a tribute, becoming Hunter Rose. Grendels throughout time have wielded the sword as well as the fork, up to the far-future cyborg, Grendel Prime, who wields a laser sword. I avoided putting any Jedi or Sith on this list, but I needed at least one dude with a sci-fi sword, OK?
4) Shining Knight
A DC hero of the Golden Age, Shining Knight is Sir Justin of Camelot. He served King Arthur and the Round Table, and his armor and sword were mystically endowed by Merlin himself, the armor made gleaming and the sword able to cleave most anything. After being frozen in ice in the time of Camelot, he was unfrozen and reawoken in 1941, where he joined the Seven Soldiers of Victory, along with his winged horse Victory, who was frozen with him. He recently appeared in the “Stargirl” TV series. When Grant Morrison created a new Seven Soldiers in the early ’00s, he created a new Shining Knight, a squire named Ystina who hid her gender to join the service of Arthur and who traveled to the present to join the new Seven Soldiers to defeat the Sheeda. A version of this take on the character would appear in Paul Cornell’s Demon Knights series from the New 52, where Ystin was a nonbinary character who identified as both male and female. This is not the only sword bearer on this list Cornell had a hand in creating who really needs to show up again.
5) Blade
His name is Blade. How could he not be on this list? He might be better known for using stakes and wooden knives in the comics, but the ’90s Blade definitely used a sword, as did Wesley Snipes while playing the character in the movies. He kills vampires like nobody else in the Marvel Universe, has fought both original-recipe and the red-armored New Coke Dracula and is an all-around badass.
6) Fandral the Dashing
When it comes to Asgardian weapons, Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor, has no equal. Thor also has an ax, and I bet there are plenty of other weapons, as Vikings and their gods loved to name their gear. But when it comes to swords and Asgard, nobody beats Fandral the Dashing of the Warriors Three. Fandral is a rakish duelist with one of those moustaches that I know exist, but you don’t really see that much outside of Brooklyn or Portland. He has that Errol Flynn vibe, with the smile and the bravado, but without the sex with underage girls or the possible Nazi collaborator stuff, so Fandral wins in that category. He hangs around with Volstagg and Hogun, and while they can both use a sword quite well, Fandral remains the best swordsman in all of Asgard.
7) Azrael
I had to get a Bat character in here somehow. I love Azrael. He is, admittedly, able to compete with Adam-X the X-treme for most ’90s character, but I love Adam-X too, so you know I am a child of the ’90s. Azrael is the brainwashed-from-birth agent of the Order of St. Dumas, an offshoot of the Knights Templar. The title of Azrael passed from father to son, until the most recent Azrael, Jean-Paul Valley, went rogue and joined Batman. He would take over the role of Batman for a time, going a bit crazy and homicidal, until Bruce Wayne returned to reclaim the mantle. Azrael would redeem himself, die and be resurrected by the multiversal nonsense of the New 52 and Rebirth. He has wielded both a broadsword that was gimmicked to be sheathed in flame while in use, and dual-mounted fiery blades that telescoped out of his gauntlets. Telescoping blades, my friends: that’s the ’90s in a nutshell.
8) Katana
By the Blade rule, I have to include Katana, as she is named after a sword as well. Tatsu Yamashiro was the object of love of two brothers, Maseo and Takeo. She chose Maseo, and Takeo went off to join the Yakuza and prepare for revenge. He would acquire a magical blade called Soultaker, which does what it says on the package. He killed Maseo with it, stealing his soul and leaving it trapped in the blade. Tatsu was able to get the blade and began a quest for revenge against Takeo and all who worked with him. She joined the Outsiders and became a staple of that team for nearly all its incarnations, often co-leading it. She became a member of the Suicide Squad in the New 52, where she was the heroic character who would hold their leash, and even had a brief series written by Ann Nocenti.
9) Excalibur (Faiza Hussain)
Faiza Hussain is one of those wonderful minor characters who one meets, falls instantly in love with and then appears far more occasionally than they should. Introduced by Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk in the criminally underrated “Captain Britain and MI-13” [Ed. note: Where a very good boy named Peter Winston Wisdom stopped a vampire invasion from the moon], Faiza is a Muslim-British doctor who has the ability to take bodies apart, look at what’s wrong with them, fix them and magically put them back together. If that wasn’t metal enough as powers go, she is so good and noble she is the current bearer of Excalibur. THE Excalibur. Man, Faiza deserves more play. Get on it, Marvel.
10) Black Knight
Black Knight is a longtime Avenger, and one of Marvel’s more recognizable swordsmen, which shows you how few major Marvel characters wield swords. His is the Ebony Blade, a cursed sword that, at various times, has driven its user mad every time it draws blood and at other times has stolen souls. And while I enjoyed him in “Captain Britain and MI-13” and some Avengers books, dude traveled back in time, inhabited the body of an ancestor and chose to fight in the Crusades. That’s some epically racist stuff, Dane Whitman. For shame.
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.
