Wednesday, May 21, 2014

X-Men #14 Art

X-Men #14 Spoilers

Spoilers: Rachel and Monet chase the man who attacked Teon and Sprite. Before they lock his psyche, he warns that the “future” is coming. Back at the school, Psylocke reinforces the security while Storm asks her daughter Kymera if she knows anything about the situation since she’s from the future. Rachel and Monet get the man back to the school and imprison him in a polymer shielding. Along with Psylocke, they decide what to do with him. Storm calls the three of them for a meeting in the Danger Room. Ororo informs that as of now they’re an official team and wants them to vote on a leader. Suddenly, the girls hear an explosion coming from the east wing: the shooter has escaped. Jubilee rushes to the girls and ask for their help since the man is coming for Shogo. Storm orders her to find Kymera. With the aid of her Panther, Kymera manages to take the man down, but he becomes a human time bomb and explodes. From outside, Shogo’s father says phase two of his plan is about to begin.

Brom-Superior: Psylocke trains Hellion to be a leader for his fellow teammates in the Danger Room program.

X-Solicits for August 2014

X-Force #8
Writer: Simon Spurrier
Art & Cover by: Rock-He Kim
• Every country employs covert superhumans to protect their interests.
• And while pursuing the foe who killed one of their own, X-Force is about to run afoul of the United Kingdom’s superhuman operatives: PETE WISDOM and MI13!
• In this game of spy versus spy, how can X-Force manage to outplay the best spy there is?


X-Men #18
Writer: Marc Guggenheim
Art by: Dexter Soy
Cover by: Terry Dodson
• From the executive producer of TV’s “Arrow”! New creative team! And a new mission for the first all-female team of X-Men…
• S.W.O.R.D. is Earth’s premiere counterterrorism and intelligence agency when it comes to dealing with extraterrestrial threats.
• But when the ferocious Shi’Ar warrior Deathbird lands on their doorstep at the brink of death, S.W.O.R.D. calls in the X-MEN to investigate!
• But are the X-Men equipped to handle the horrific new threat that’s emerged from the edge of space?

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

X-Position: Spurrier Takes a Broken "X-Force" Team To War

X-Position: This week, X-Position welcomes back the always-entertaining Simon Spurrier to answer your questions about the current incarnation of "X-Force," the "broken" nature of its team members, and the possible return of the telepathic Starfish to Dr. Nemesis' life. Plus, he touches on constructing story and the importance of an artist to comics as a whole and brings along exclusive art from "X-Force" #6.

Psylocke was never fully on board with Wolverine/Jean Grey School's views during/after the Schism. Do you think she aligns herself with Cable's proactive views or she's in it just to quench her thirst for blood? Does she feel her X-Men teammates are failing to aid mutantkind?

Spurrier: I think... well, this slightly goes back to a question I answered above, about being deliberately open to evolutions in these characters' minds, because Betsy's arguably the most complicatedly messed-up of the whole bunch, and the most liable to go off in a weird direction. Psychologically she's like a swan on a still pond: graceful, beautiful, streamlined, full of dignity and poise and clarity of design -- but you look a little bit closer and you can see her feet paddling like mental just below the surface.

So, let's start with what we know. At her most rational she's inarguably a Good Person. She wants what's best for the highest number of people, with a natural skew towards the rights and dignities of her fellow mutants. I tend to imagine her childhood -- raised in extreme wealth and privilege -- has given her the sort of fascinating reverse-sensitivity for class, poverty and societal fairness one occasionally sees in spoilt brattish kids. She's the Siddhartha of the mutant set: the social warrior who feels the suffering of others most keenly precisely because she was raised so far beyond its reach. In that respect, yeah, I think she fits with the abstract manifesto of the Jean Grey bunch: to provide succor, education and benevolent oversight to one of the most downtrodden groups on the planet. She undoubtedly quibbled over the detail, but I think the concept is something she'd buy into.

On the other hand, there's definitely a whole lot more going on in there than an attempt to make amends for her own off-center class identity. She's traveled extensively, she's seen injustice of all kinds, she's undergone the most bizarre series of physical/mental/dysmorphic adjustments conceivable, she's lost lovers, betrayed family members and pried into some of the most obscenely evil minds in the world. By anyone's estimation she's been bombarded by so much sheer nerve-jangling experience that she should by rights be a dribbling wreck.

My suspicion is that she's simply too strong -- mentally -- to succumb to the almost unbearable weight of pain, horror, guilt and self-revulsion sloshing about in there. And perhaps most importantly: the weight of complication. She's so complex, so full of contradiction and uncertainty, that there's literally no way of unmuddling the mess. And so she's done what seems like the only sensible thing: she's internalized it. She's anesthetized herself against the darkness, she's tamped it right down into the chilly little core of who she is, where she thinks (wrongly) it can't hurt her, and it's left her surface-layers utterly numb. The swan on the pond.

It follows that whenever that darkness finds a way out -- which it always will and always does -- it's explosive, it's nasty and it's unpredictable. Even worse it's oh-so-seductive -- because when you spend your life being numb even horror feels like joy -- and there's no easy way of overcoming it. So Betsy will always self-sabotage. She'll always push people away -- partly to save them, partly because she can't help feeling secretly thrilled by the perverse joy of hurting people. She'll always befriend or seduce the worst conceivable candidates. She'll always destroy everything good that comes into her life, whether because the sickness comes out to play or because she rationally pre-empts it in order to limit the damage. Above all else, remember, she's Good And Noble, which means she literally cannot allow other Good And Noble people to get too close to her for fear of what might happen. She tries to control who she is -- even tries to rationalize and use the negative energy -- but unless she can find a way to dig it right out and purge the core, there is no way that anything in her life will ever be easy, simple or smooth.

So to go right back to your question... let's say you're her. Let's say you're a seething black-hole of ugliness and pain, held together -- just barely -- by a paper-thin veneer of poise and grace. Let's say you know that in order to survive you need to let out some of that craziness, now and then, to keep it from bursting out. And let's say that on a far more conscious level your defining aim is to provide a safer, better world for downtrodden mutants.

So, yeah, by day? You can probably fake it. Work at the school, be noble, be idealistic, be part of a functional team. Be the swan, Betsy.

By night? You need an excuse to go slit throats and howl at the moon.

Monday, May 19, 2014

X-Men #14 Preview

X-Men #14
Writer: Brian Wood
Art by: Clay Mann
Cover by: Terry Dodson

The Story:
• The Jean Grey School is under attack, leaving a young X-Man dead on the school’s front lawn.
• Jubilee’s worst nightmare has come to pass... and the future’s being rewritten.
• Clay Mann (GAMBIT) joins Brian Wood for a terrifying new chapter in X-Men history!

In Sotres: May 21, 2014

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Psylocke Joins "Marvel Heroes"; Presale Now Available!


Psylocke is available for Presale now! Her presale pack is 10% OFF the normal price and the discount is only for a limited time, so hurry and grab her pack now!

Originally just a telepath, Betsy ended up switching bodies with a deadly assassin that allowed her to become the psychic ninja she is today.

Costume Preview:

Click an image below to get a closer look at Psylocke's first two costumes in Marvel Heroes.


Psylocke Presale Pack

You can find the Psylocke Presale Pack here! The Presale Pack includes Psylocke in her Classic and X-Force Costumes as well as her S.T.A.S.H. tab, 1x of each Fortune Card, as well as a Retcon Device.
Discuss Psylocke

If you want to talk about Psylocke, drop by the Psylocke Forum for in-depth discussion about Psylocke!

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Psylocke Costume Gallery Update

We've added seven new Psylocke ClipArts to our "Psylocke Costume Gallery Collection: Looks Through The Years": "Danger Room" by Phil Briones, "X-Force" by Rock-he Kim, "Revenant" by Ramon Perez, "Fantomex" and "Astral Plane" by Adrian Alphona, "Marvel NOW" by Kris Anka (herein penciled by Clay Mann) and "Lady Britain" by Greg Tocchini (herein penciled by Leinil Yu). What's your favorite look? xx