Newsarama: The larger ramifications of the new mutant status quo - with most mutants gathered as one on the new sovereign nation of Krakoa - on the rest of the Marvel Universe are just scratching the surface as the linewide “Dawn of X” relaunch rolls on. But this week’s Excalibur #1 brings at least one effect of the new mutant reality to bear – that of Krakoa on magic, and the relationship of magic, mutants, and mortals.
With writer Tini Howard, who was hand picked by X-Men writer and “Dawn of X” architect Jonathan Hickman to be part of the relaunch, on board, Excalibur finds unlikely allies and terrifying new foes alike, and sets the stage for what Howard calls the “deepest mysteries” of “Dawn of X”.
Newsarama spoke with Howard alongside the release of Excalibur #1, out now, to get the low down on how mutants and magic will collide in this unlikely tale.
Newsarama: Tini, “Dawn of X” mastermind Jonathan Hickman said you were a writer he sought out for this relaunch when Excalibur was announced. How did Excalibur come together?
Tini Howard: Jonathan approached me with a really open mind and a lot of confidence in my abilities (which was neat), and I was encouraged to build whatever part of mutant society I wanted to. And for me, that was the building of things that can't really happen when people are on the run - families, art, music, culture. And magic - that was a big part of it to me. Magic as distinct from religion as well, magic as more something like art, a way of accomplishing an as-yet-impossible goal than a set of religious beliefs.
I realized pretty quickly that I wasn't brought on to be safe and normal, that I was brought on to get weird. So I got weird. They liked my weird.
Nrama: On that note, what’s this book all about? What niche does Excalibur fill in the “Dawn of X” line up?
Howard: Excalibur is where we say “What Else, What Next?”. This is a story about finding your own identity when the fantastic becomes the new normal - when paradise is home, but you're still an intrepid explorer and hero at heart who craves the unknown.
Nrama: You’ve got an eclectic team here, all headed up by Betsy Braddock, the new Captain Britain. How does she come to that mantle? What’s her status quo going into this?
Howard: Betsy comes to that mantle in the events of Excalibur #1 - I needed people to see the moment she takes the mantle and why, as it defines her entire approach to the role. We see all that in the book, we're on a ride-along with her feelings toward being the Captain now.
Nrama: For the rest of the line-up, you’ve got Gambit, Rictor, Rogue, Jubilee, and Apocalypse. How do these mutants all fit together?
Howard: There are obvious questions already at play surrounding the cast - what of Jubilee's human baby? Will Rogue and Gambit make more mutants? And Rictor - we'll get to him. You'll see him when you see him. His is a journey I've wanted to see him on since I was just a reader and fan - it's a great feeling to bring him through it.
It's a great feeling to bring these characters together and have them share a meaningful journey, while giving them each a role and a path. Sometimes in my head it's like D&D, and I'm DMing for them.
Nrama: And for that matter, how does Apocalypse find being a team player? There have been some hints he may not be taking to it well.
Howard: ...Anyone who has ever played D&D knows there's one in every party.
In a lot of ways, Apocalypse is the ultimate team player, you just need to be good enough for him to allow you on his team. And most people aren't. Hopefully this team is, right?
Nrama: In terms of teams, you’ve got Marcus To and Erick Arciniega on art for Excalibur. What do they bring to a book like this?
Howard: Everything. Marcus has shaped the most beautiful Otherworld, and Erick's colors have been such a defining part of this, too. Marcus is a great artist to walk the line between beautiful, fantastic, fairy-tale characters and events, and pure superhero action. It feels great when you're really on a wavelength and everything is singing together, when we're seeing the same story as we're crafting it. We've gotten there and it feels really right.
Nrama: What’s your favorite thing Marcus has drawn for Excalibur so far?
Howard: I can't possibly choose, and I'm positive it's something you can't know about yet. [Laughs]
His Betsy design is purely iconic, though. We've already seen such a response to it - it's already cemented itself before the book's even out. Marcus nailed it.
Nrama: What’s it like laying the groundwork for a new era of a classic X-team? How deep into Excalibur lore will this series go?
Howard: It's been a minute since we've had a regular Excalibur book, so I want to make this what feels best to me as a comic fan - a reward for knowing the deeper mythology with a welcome into the unknown. I'm deep mining everything from Captain Britain to the Matter of Britain. We'll see it for sure.
Nrama: Bottom line, what’s in store for new readers and classic Excalibur fans?
Howard: The deepest mysteries of the X-Men's new story begin here. Trust me. Whole new things are spinning out of this book and we're going to start reading the cards a whole new way after this.
“For so long, my life has been out of control. Chaos and serendipity, wrapped in insanity. I have suffered, I have lost. Not just my life, but my very soul, my self. But no more. Now I know who I am.” – Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Braddock, daughter of Otherworld, mutant, telepath, telekinetic, defender of the realm and, above all, X-Man.
21 comments:
I've got a complaint. Betsy didn't steal anyone's life and skin. Hers were taken and changed with violence.
It would be an acceptable remark if Betsy applied for a botched episode to undo a voluntary race change but the actual body swap was done without her permission, her volition, her knowledge. Betsy was plucked from her defenseless body and planted in a filthy Yellowface situation.
Blame the freakin Claremont for doing that not the character.
Betsy Braddock isn't Max who decided to become Xiahn the Oriental Gaucho because of obsession with K-Pop.
With the venting done I liked the rest of the first issue and Betsy and Brian interactions, Betsy and Jamie and the team with Apocalypse.
I was very surprise with this book, Betsy was given a lot of dialogue for this series. It feels like this story is more heavily focus on her heritage as a Braddock rather than her past self as Psylocke. It kind of feels sad the way she is treating her past self as if like nothing had happen.
Atomic, this is all marketing. I knew this was going to happen it would be too confusing at this point to show flashbacks or reference stories where she was Psylocke in the bathing suit when Kwannon is cemented as Psylock in the bathing suit now.
Its "easier" for Marvel to just start fresh with Betsy. Not saying I agree with the logic but this is what's happening.
I just hope Rogue won't spend the entire first arc in stasis (as the cover for Excalibur #5 seems to indicate). She's too cool to be a mere damsel in distress throughout the story.
Other than that, the book looks very promising. I wonder how Rictor will enter the story.
Likewise FSaker. I love Rogue and it looks like shes down till at least #5 (where shes still shown in her 'coffin' as described in the solicit)
I'm curious if Betsy enters her mind to save her or something. And maybe Rictor comes into play as his powers are earth based and Rogue is wrapped in Krakoa foliage.
💜💜💜 Loved it! Loved Jamie’s comment, “You look like Brian with eyelashes again.”
Also, I was hoping we’d learn why Kwannon took the codename/slave name! Is she just deciding to house it, because Bets doesn’t want it!
Betsy looks absolutely fantastic in this book in both uniforms.
@Rahsaan. Did they confirm Kwannon has received the name yet? Maybe it's coming up?
Kiki M. Ishola same of my point of view
Just to point out, not that it changes the point that the body mods were against her will etc (As well as the unfortunate implications of such a thing)... Nicieza was the one who made it a body swap. When the original Acts of Vengeance storyline ran (under Claremont's pen) it was just genetic modification; tinkering on the original body. This is why the images of Mojo and Spiral dragging her into the Body Shoppe is important. It also wasn't meant to be overly drastic: Wolverine recognizes her /visually/ when he runs into her for the first time as Lady Mandarin. This was one of the chief reasons why when the Body Swap retcon happened it /didn't fly well/ and 10 issues later, it had to be revisited (X-men (91) 31 and 32). Claremont also had intended for it to be temporary but the design, mostly thanks to Jim Lee's art, proved to be insanely popular, so it was kept. Claremont also, when he returned to the book, had several plans to try to put her back in her original body, but stuff kept getting in the way (such as her death in X-treme X-Men - the 'dead stay dead' policy, which didn't stick obv, was just implimented.) Just wanted to point this out.
@Nightambre, solid 💯❗️
Well Claremont did what he did with Vengeance but everything conspired against him from restoring Betsy to her biological body/pre-Asian face lift condition. Excuses, reality? Got to admit the thong bathing suit was the biggest obstacle along with the exposed thighs and buttocks of the ninja version essentially making it Claremont's biggest enemy.
I hope X-Men scripts of Claremont of that time leak on the internet to read the fate of Betsy as Psylocke and whether the Body Shoppe modification by Mojo and Spiral was really temporary. To play devil's advocate I say Claremont had plenty of opportunities to restore Betsy to normal although he didn't. In his Exiles run for instance. Instead the body restoration happened in an event tie-in about missing Wolverine.
Claremont is problematic. He wanted to restore Betsy but leave Sharon Friedlander and Tom Corsi is faux Native Americans.
Actually, didn’t both those characters eventually die as fake Native Americans without ever addressing the issues of being white people in extreme marginalized bodies. SMDH. Claremont in how own way as problematic as Nicieza.
Jaime, imo his best chance was during his 2nd run (revolution) he started it with a 6 month gap of time and that's when Betsy randomly appeared as a telekinetic. It would have been interesting if he just reintroduced her back in her biological body at that point but I guess he felt he needed to kill her for the plot to work which I'm surprised he couldn't have found a more organic way besides straight up killing her off to do it.
They could have just did it in that Sisterhood storyline. Betsy was back in her original body but I think Dazzler basically blew half her face off. I could be wrong but i dont even think Betsy was attacking her at the time lol.
In this conversation I found a ton of points that make sense and raise many more questions about Chris Claremont.
Claremont could wipe off the Yellowface Body Shoppe from Betsy in the X-Tinction Agenda, in his Revolution run, his X-Treme X-Men run, right after Betsy's resurrection and his Exiles run.
For these I can't rationalize Claremont's thoughts anymore. Any justifications I will think of to his defense are destroyed by his obsession for body swaps and race swaps.
Rahsaan mentions Sharon Friedlander and Tom Corsi as faux Natives and must be more. The Storm and Emma Frost body swap is another of the same controversy.
I can't ignore Marvel Comics responsible for letting the body swap mess of Psylocke last so long. Were they blinded by the success of the sexy ninja pastiche they created that they didn't think about the humanitarian and cultural problematic?
X-Man tells an interesting thing about the Sisterhood storyline. Marvel had the chance to fix Betsy's body right then. People from early 00s were taking out on the internet about the wrongs and cons having a White person trapped in an Asian body or of any other ethnic background.
“They’re still Red Indians!”
Tobias, yes. Chris Claremont is extremely problematic. We often blame Nicieza for how he made and used Kwannon, but none of this mess would have started with Claremont’s weird fetish with race changes where he does no work to address the reality and ramifications this would cause for white person in a racist world where the concept of race was started by people who created whiteness as its pinnacle and everyone deemed non-white beneath them.
Basically, in many ways while great like the spotlight he gave to women characters, Claremont was also very sensational, very racist, and very lazy in his writing style.
https://www.cbr.com/x-men-tom-corsi-new-mutants/
It's worse to read the comic source than rumors.
Thanks for the link Rahsaan. I haven't read all of New Mutants and I'm happy I didn't. I read their annual to know how Betsy joined the X-Men.
The CBR review is the same with how Betsy was kidnapped by Mojo and transformed to his slave by the name Psylocke. Cruel and sick stories.
@Rahsaan I wanna share a pic of Sharon.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-l2fl24oAXbE/WWk337MDJeI/AAAAAAAAASQ/rFa41aGFZ34IFa4HJs-8D0Zj31Dh3gt0gCLcBGAs/s1600/Sharon%2BFriedlander-B.jpg
You all gonna be judge to the image Sharon had after the race swap. Look at the garter lingerie belt similar to Betsy's ninja thongs most of all the X-Treme X-Men update of the thongpiece.
Claremont not only did love body swap shenanigans, he loved kinky underwear uniforms for women.
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