Monday, January 19, 2015

Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men with G. Willow Wilson

Art by David Wynne. Prints available until 1/25/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.

X-Plain the X-Men: G. Willow Wilson joins Rachel and Miles' podcast to talk abour her new run on X-Men, comic books and writing. Listen and download the interview here.

Who else is on the team? Psylocke!

Wilson: Psylocke was one character I had to do a lot of background research on because I got into the X-Men at the end of the Claremont era… I religiously watched the Fox Kids cartoon…. So Psylocke was kind of a new one on me. I had to take a look at her history and get a sense of her. There’s opportunity there to do some really deep tissue massage. She’s one of these characters that occupy a body that is not her original body. There are some very interesting things that are kind of problematic to go along with that because her adopted body is of an Asian woman, but she’s originally British. She’s another one I went very conservative with. I didn’t really do anything to her, but if I was going to be on this book for longer, I might’ve put her back in her original body.

Do you see [Psylocke’s addiction to killing] as more of a flash in the pan that’s currently affecting her or something that’s becoming more core of who she is?

Wilson: Each of the four issues is more or less from the point of view of a single character. In Psylocke’s voice over issue, we get to see into her head and we watch her think about where she fits into the power dynamic and how she sees her role. Her powerset as it stands is one of the more destructive ones. Psylocke with her psy-blades not only has the most obviously violent powerset, but also the most disturbing because these are not real weapons. They’re specifically for the inflicting of pain. I don’t go too deep on the psychology, but I do look at what she sees the role of that with regard to her position in the X-Men. We see that she has a very good idea of what the frontlines are in the team and what she has to do in her mind to fill those in. I think you can do a really interesting Psylocke stand-alone book that is almost like Punisher and get really into that stuff.

5 comments:

FSaker said...

"I religiously watched the Fox Kids cartoon... So Psylocke was kind of a new one on me. I had to take a look at her history and get a sense of her"

And that's probably the biggest flaw in X-Men:TAS. It was a great cartoon, but it would be so much better if Psylocke appeared regularly in it... oh well, at least she got a nice participation kicking Angel's, Sabretooth's and Mystique's asses in season 4.

Wilson has an interesting view about Psylocke. Hopefully this interpretation of hers will be duly shown in the issue told from Psylocke's point of view.

Unknown said...

Wilson sounds awesome. It's nice to see a writer with enough balls (unlike the previous male writers the X-Men have seen) to challenge the status quo and try to undo the
massive clusterfuck that previous writers have turned Bets into. "... if I was going to be on this book for longer, I might've put her back in her original body."

Maybe it's, because she's a woman she gets the sexist/racist motivation behind Marvel explooiting the whole thing. I do like that she does want to explore Bets' current emotional state though and the ramifications and that a simple placement back into her real body wouldn't just fix that.

Wish Wilson was staying on now.

Vigmed said...

Aw, man, I wish she was sticking around a bit longer. If sales pick up during her short run maybe they'll put her back on it. Or, hey, maybe even a new mini-series for Psylocke.

Should be a good read, and I hope many others will pick it up to support it. I mean, if it's good heh.

Tazirai said...

Wow such awesomeness. I hope she can get perma writing duties. I'd love to read her on the X-books. Especially in regards to Psylocke.

Waffles said...

Why is Psylocke flashing "the shocker"? No. I an't even.