Excalibur #21
Writer: Tini Howard
Art by: Marcus To
Cover by: Mahmud Asrar
The Story:
Rictor Hates Parties.
Even the nice ones. And with Captain Britain's return to a changed world, this one is looking to be not so nice. Excalibur's Earth-shattering Hellfire Gala issue will change Krakoan diplomacy forever.
In Stores: June 9, 2021
“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.
39 comments:
This looks good
The art is great! But I guess we can't have an Excalibur issue without someone being moody, can we?
Nice to see Betsy getting attention from the crowd, anyway. She should keep this outfit as her uniform (I mean, the vest does seem to be some kind of armor, and so do the bracelets and boots); sadly, we already know she won't.
It would be cool if her gala look was her 616 lool and the cape with armor would be her OW look!
Indeed. It would be even cooler if the gala look was her look both in Earth and in Otherworld. I don't get why her armor becomes bulkier in Otherworld, since Brian's uniform used to remain the same in both worlds, didn't it?
Then again, the OW look could be the lighter armor she uses on Earth (with the cape, but NOT the helmet).
Yeah not sure 5he logic between the forms. TO said her OW look is "powered up" but that doesn't make sense nor explained on panel lol
Plus as you mentioned Brian never looked different between realms.
Is her outfit white or pink? Seems like two different colors in the panels to me.
I actually like To's version rendition better than Dauterman's. It looks way cuter.
Finally, Betsy being confident and fabulous. I love it when she says "Love", it reminds me of the Psi-War.
"Is her outfit white or pink? Seems like two different colors in the panels to me."
You mean her skirt and sleeves? They're meant to be white.
They do look pink-ish in the first page, but I guess we could say it's the effect of the staircase lighting on them (Rictor's outfit also seems to be a different shade of green in the first page, rather than the more vibrant green in the second page).
The sleeves and skirt material is meant to be a very soft subtle pink if you take a close look at Rautermans design reference. Most artists don't realize so thats why we see it colored white and sometimes pink as it should be.
The Hellfire Gala event has barely started, and Marvel is already teasing the next one...
https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/x-men-jonathan-hickman-inferno-announcement/
Betsy was notably absent in the teaser Mark Brooks made for HoX/PoX, and Brooks didn't include her once again... *sigh* Oh well, Kwannon is in it, so I guess we can always pretend this Psylocke is Betsy? She doesn't look Asian in this art, anyway.
Other than that, it IS a nice art. I like that the story will deal with Moira and Mystique, and it's good news that the main event will be a four-issue miniseries - then again, there will probably be tons of tie-ins in the X-books. I just hope this time Betsy will get to be in the main miniseries; she NEEDS to be written by Hickman (her appearance in his issues of X of Swords doesn't count).
"Strange that NinjaLocke, the woman who was originally just a low-level empath and assassin, and knew none of the X-Men, has been featured so prominently... it’s like she was always there"
True. But to be fair, after I wrote my previous post here, I read that the art is possibly showing just the figures of authority at Krakoa, with The Five, the Quiet Council (even though Jean was kicked out of it, but well... she's Jean), Moira and the Generals - and with Gorgon's death, maybe Kwannon will replace him (or she already did and the X-writers forgot to inform this).
And then there are characters associated with different X-books (Gambit, Polaris, Havok, Wolverine)... either unconscious or dead on the ground. In that sense, maybe it's a good thing that Brooks chose Gambit over Betsy to represent Excalibur in this art.
Hopefully some titles will end after Inferno... like Excalibur lol
That'd work for me @Randybear, Betsy could easily give CB back to Brian.
Have you guys seen the Betsy redesign by @jamiefayx? It’s brilliant and should be her new costume! Plz check it out and maybe someone can post it here.
It’s on his Instagram account @jamiefayx his x-men redesigns in general are just sooooo good.
His redesign for Betsy does look amazing!
The only problem is that he refers to her as Psylocke, and well... this identity doesn't belong to her anymore. Assuming she gives the Captain Britain mantle back to Brian (maybe after Inferno, as X-Man suggested), she'd need a brand new codename (yes, a codename, since in Krakoa mutants need a "mutant name" even if they barely use it, as we saw with Emma and Jean once again naming themselves as White Queen and Marvel Girl)... and I have no idea of what it could be.
Since Kwannon took the Psylocke identity from her, I suppose she could do the same to Kwannon and take the Revanche codename from her (it could be kinda funny to see Kwannon complaining that Betsy is "once again stealing from her", only for Betsy to retort that Kwannon stole her codename first)... but it wouldn't make much sense to her (I mean, she'd be having revanche against what, exactly?).
Y’all really devote too much of your time worried about Kwannon. All you gotta do is support and promote Betsy and if you don’t like the current era then fine. It’s one writer and it won’t be forever.
I'm not worried about Kwannon; if anything, I've been loving her ever since I started reading Hellions. She's a worthy successor to the Psylocke mantle.
I'm just worried about Betsy's future. If Marvel manages to give her an identity that sticks with the readers and make them love her, I'll be very happy. It's just that this is not happening right now, with the conduction of her time as Captain Britain being very underwhelming (and I'm saying that as someone who was very excited with the idea of Betsy being Captain Britain when it was first announced).
Anyway, assuming Betsy continues to be Captain Britain even if Excalibur is over after Inferno, would there be any chance that she'd at least adopt the Hellfire Gala outfit? One thing I hadn't noticed in the Inferno teaser is that Storm is wearing her HG outfit, hinting that she might adopt it as her uniform (and I'd love it; Storm's current uniform is already great, but the HG one is even better)...
Storm probably gets to keep her Gala look due to the enormous positive feedback, a lot of people hate on Betsys gala look i think its polarizing some love it some hate it. Plus we see on cover to Excalibur #22 she goes straight back to the iron lung with superman cape
I'm supporting anything close to Betsy and far from Captain Britain so the gala mix and match from Betsy's Psylocke days is for keeps.
Betsy has lotta revenge to get from her stalker. Matsuo Revanche's boyfriend used Betsy to reboot his bride and bind Betsy in Revanche's stinky flesh. Betsy caught Revanche's killer flu and saw her real body get burned by Matsuo. Revanche should zip it and give Psylocke back to Betsy and stop being a spoiled brat.
I stopped being the kooky conspirasist who said Marvel is slowly replacing Betsy the OG Psylocke with Revanche. Now everyone can see that the whitewashed Ninjalock is the new yellowface Psylocke. Clap claps to C.B. Cebulski.
My bad got it mixed up... Clap claps to Akira Yoshida.
I feel that Betsy’s new code name should be Lady Braddock. It has status and would be a cool way for her to reclaim her heritage. As for her signature the butterfly was cool but it represented her insecurity more than her strength in my opinion. Because It was connected to her not feeling comfortable in her own body and wanting to be something else a warrior. I feel her new signature should be a rose or rose petals and that represents her heritage as well as an English Rose and her Coming to terms with who she is and where she comes from as an British princess. That’s just my opinion I feel it really makes sense to her character growth and her journey of living in someone else’s body as a butterfly and now excepting who she is and being comfortable in her own skin and reaffirming her identity as the English rose
I feel that Betsy’s new code name should be Lady Braddock. It has status and would be a cool way for her to reclaim her heritage. As for her signature the butterfly was cool but it represented her insecurity more than her strength in my opinion. Because It was connected to her not feeling comfortable in her own body and wanting to be something else a warrior. I feel her new signature should be a rose or rose petals and that represents her heritage as well as an English Rose and her Coming to terms with who she is and where she comes from as an British princess. That’s just my opinion I feel it really makes sense to her character growth and her journey of living in someone else’s body as a butterfly and now excepting who she is and being comfortable in her own skin and reaffirming her identity as the English rose
See I disagree because I feel that when Betsy was inside Kwannon’s body she in a way fulfilled her dream of becoming a warrior because when she was in her original body she always felt weak and insecure so it makes sense that if you’re in someone else’s body and mind that you would take on their characteristics so I feel what she did is she started to tap into the warrior element of Kwannon The murderer the stealthy fearless shoot first ask questions later ninja assassin vibe so we saw Betsy through someone else’s identity and characteristics. the audience then got used to a deadly Betsy because that’s who she’s been for so long we’ve placed and projected these characteristics on her so it makes sense that when she’s back in her original body that the same insecurities come up again because you still have to reconcile with who you are and her journey is about facing her fears and taking what she’s learned from being in this ninja warrior assassin body and finding her own warrior inside and coming to terms with who she is and where she comes from and what she wants to be so I feel that we need to give Betsy time for her to go on the journey to reconcile that experience and come to terms with her real self and understands that she needs to empower her self with what she’s learned on this journey of being psylocke to overcome her insecurities and believe in herself again and that’s why I feel her reclaiming lady Braddock and her English heritage and changing her signature to an English Rose shows that she has finally come to terms with her insecurities and now believes in herself and is her own warrior so having her have the shield and the sword and her becoming a knight That’s her own version and her heritage’s version of becoming a warrior and we need to let go and let Kwannon reclaim her identity and be her true self and stop putting them in the same category and let each character exist independently
What does Leah Williams have to do with Kwannon and Betsy? Don't recall her writing either of them.
Leah wrote Betsy in Age of X-Man. It's the alternate universe that X-Man trapped everyone in at the end of Dissassembled.
In that universe, Betsy had a forbidden romance with the blob. She also had an eating disorder.
Most of us thought logically that it was clear this was a false idea planted that Betsy believed in that alternate universe. As the universe also had love itself being forbidden, Jean and bishop in a relationship I believe. Basically everyone believed false things at the time.
However, of course Tini has grasped on the idea that this is accurate for Betsy in the real universe. As someone pointed out above, that doesn't gel with the Betsy we knew. Who walked around in lingerie all the time and posed nude for Colossus.
Betsy Braddock was clearly very comfortable in her body before previously. I falt Tini more than Leah for that nonsense though. As at least Leah had Betsy saying it when everyone wasn't themselves at the time.
@Psyboom you have great well written thoughts, but I agree with @Psi-Girl.
I do agree with you that Betsy liked the physicality when she became a ninja and did feel inferior at times beforehand, but by the time the team went through the Siege Perilous, Betsy had already become very confident.
So much that it looked like she was starting to become the team leader in Storm's absence.
She was already comfortable in her body and definitely a lethal warrior in her own way.
Speaking of, she was also her own lethal warrior when she was a ninja. Not due to Kwannon but due to herself.
She gained ninja skills due to the brainwashing she received not due to being in Kwannon's body. We know this because Kwannon retained her ninja skills and displayed them when she arrived in Betsy's original body as Revanche.
We should also note that Betsy also believed that she was still in her own body for awhile, she thought it was altered by magic and technology. So while she wanted her original appearance back, it also was probably easier to "revel" in her newfound physicality, because she still believed it to be her actual body.
She only found out she wasn't in her own body when Kwannon showed up in Betsy's original body (again as Revanche the ninja). Ever since then, she was taunted repeatedly and cruelly at the prospect of getting her original body back or just the fact she was trapped in another body, by Jamie, The Sisterhood story, The Revanche story, Proteus, Shadow King, Cassandra Nova to name a few off the top of my head lol.
It is true that during the Revanche saga it did turn out that Betsy and Kwannon were intermingled and that Kwannon possessed half of Betsy's telepathy.
However, when Kwannon died from the legacy virus, she returned Betsy's telepathy back to her (restoring Betsy's full telepathic strength), but in addition to that she removed any traits/essence/influence from Betsy by removing her psychic imprint via Matsuo. That means anything after that point was pure Betsy.
So it doesn't make sense to a lot of us that her personality seems so altered, especially when she was in her original body in Disassembled and was still a badass with a butterfly signature at that lol.
Betsy was a viable member of the X-Men for years in either body, I also agree with @psi-girl that this journey of self discovery should have been for Kwannon.
Its very hard not to compare the two as previously stated. Especially when she is taking on everything that made Betsy so popular and it was indeed Betsy and her deeds that became popular.
Kwannon honestly shouldn't even really be a valid psi (previously she had extremely very low level empathy/telepathy that she displayed...only at times) let alone wearing an outfit she was never seen wearing in any flashbacks that is associated with Betsy, a psychic signature that is associated with Betsy in both bodies, and a codename that Betsy held in both bodies. Yet Kwannon doesn't want to use any of Betsy's dresses because they aren't her style? Smh lol.
I still have hope this will all gel out, but I do feel like these writers are also insulting our intelligence.
Jmo!
"I still have hope this will all gel out, but I do feel like these writers are also insulting our intelligence"
Agreed.
I kinda want them to try to end up throwing Betsy under the bus by turning her into the new Revanche or something... only for the gimmick to end up sticking with the readers and giving her a popularity boost that these people at Marvel didn't even imagine (kinda like when Marvel tried to throw the X-Men under the bus in AvX, only for the readers to keep siding with the X-Men every time they tried to put the X-Men as the bad guys).
I can even imagine the dialogue:
Kwannon: "You do realize that 'Revanche' is only a small footnote in the history of the X-Men, right?"
Betsy: "Don't worry, darling, I'm about to change that very soon."
...yeah, I know that's almost impossible to happen. But I know I would laugh out loud if they tried to give her Kwannon's forgettable identity and Betsy's Revanche ended up overshadowing Kwannon's Psylocke.
Plus, if she became Revanche, at least that would be the perfect excuse to give Betsy her Disassembled uniform back (it does look "Revanche-y" in terms of colors and being a full bodysuit, only without the tackiness of Kwannon's 1990s uniform).
@FSaker,Psi-Girl Betsy eclipses Kwannon like she rocked when she was stuck in Kwannon's body. Kwannon rocked in Betsy's body because Betsy is great and after Betsy left the Psylocke name it sucks. Hellions failed to show it isn't Betsy who is Psylocke there. Kwannon in Hellions talks and acts like a clone of Betsy and she sometimes uses Betsy's butterfly and Betsy's powers that she hasn't. Kwannon's face is White Caucasian and she has purple eyes like Betsy and sometimes purple hair like Betsy. Kwannon exists to be the Asian Betsy of the 1990s.
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