Spoilers: Excalibur escorts Beast to Blightspoke to scan some rare minerals. After a brief altercation between Excalibur and Sherriff Gia Whitechapel’s posse, both come to an understanding and Beast is able to complete his task. Captain Britain is then summoned to the Starlight Citadel, where Saturnyne is holding a parliament with representatives from all kingdoms. Merlyn takes the opportunity to challenge Saturnyne’s authority due to her meddling with mutant affairs. Hothive and Sevalith side with Merlyn, Avalon and Dryador side with Saturnyne. After the parliament, Saturnyne deduces Merlyn has something up his sleeves and enlists Captain Britain to find out what. Saturnyne promises Betsy she will reveal how she took the seat of Omniversal Guardian from Merlyn once Excalibur’s mission is finished, and they make amends. Later, Captain Britain, Gambit, Jubilee and Rictor head to Merlyn’s Tower in the Holy Republic of Fae, and free all of Merlyn’s prisoners on their way. Gambit charges a magic fortune card stolen from Saturnyne to open Merlyn’s chambers. Excalibur comes across a well, which holds the Waters of All Reality. Merlyn appears before them and unleashes his power. Rictor opens a crack in the floor all the way to the underground. Excalibur flees by boarding an old underground train, charged with Gambit’s powers. It is then revealed that Merlyn has been keeping King Arthur in a cage as a prisoner.
Meanwhile, in Krakoa, Pete Wisdom is resurrected by the Five. Meggan warns him that Coven Akkaba had all Krakoan gates in British soil destroyed. Wisdom takes his time to adjust living in Krakoa and coming to terms with the betrayal of his nation. Wisdom later makes a request to the Five to resurrect four specific mutants. Egg says no one knew those four were mutants before, but they were all backed up by Cerebro. Pete Wisdom welcomes back Tom Lennox, Alison Double, Vicki Reppion and Kevin Mulhearn and invites them to reform S.T.R.I.K.E. A data page reveals that while Lennox died during the Jaspers’ Warp, and Vicki and Kevin were murdered by Slaymaster, Alison Double, Betsy’s dear friend, was killed in a car accident off-panel.
“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.
22 comments:
The STRIKE agents Pete! I eat up my words against Howard. I hope them well and suffer less than Betsy. Alison is albino they have white hair and red eyes I love her she is like my cousin.
Ok Tini ... Ok ... I see you!
omg ALison Double and Tom Lennox :o :o :o
...Okay, we criticize Howard for her bad ideas, but we must commend her for her good ideas. And bringing back the STRIKE agents was an AWESOME idea! Not sure if retroactively declaring them all as mutants was the best way, but well, it worked for Moira, so maybe it'll work for them, too.
King Arthur being Merlyn's prisoner also seems interesting (plus the fact that he's still alive, being a human born centuries ago and all).
Such a pity that it took this book more than TWENTY issues for interesting things to happen. And judging from the description of these spoilers, it doesn't look like the Excalibur members themselves got much better in terms of characterization than they were getting before.
But it's a first step. Hopefully things will keep improving from now on.
I wonder if this is setting up a CB solo series
Oh, in another subject, it seems Romina Jones did another art of Betsy with a different uniform as Captain Britain... and I think this one looks EVEN BETTER than the one she did by recoloring the Disassembled uniform!!
https://twitter.com/StarlightSquire/status/1414001834302267392
Is it me or is this book getting better?
It is. Excalibur post X of Swords is way more enjoyable than the first 12 issues. Pity it might be too late given readers' bias against the book now.
@Unknown, to be fair, the post X of Swords issues still had their share of problems, like Betsy's inconsistent characterization (one issue shows her determined to return to her reality, then the following issue has her mind running away and cowering because she failed against Isca).
The book does seem to be improving, indeed. But it needs to improve more - and fast - if Marvel wants to get readers interested in it again; the damage done to it was quite big, and for quite a long time.
Saturyne, Clan Akkaba, Morgan all these plots being dealt with this arc seems like this is the end. I hope!
Does it matter ? Betsy's Psylocke and mutant days are officially over after this, if randybear's suspicions are correct.
Hard pass for me come what may, unless we go back to the way things were before 2018. This is not the character I fell in love with.
"Does it matter ? Betsy's Psylocke and mutant days are officially over after this, if randybear's suspicions are correct"
Not really; Wolverine and Cable got solo books and are still very involved with the X-Men. And Betsy's CB armor has more than one "X" badge, showing her affiliation to mutantkind (and she also wears Krakoan flowers in her hair).
I think randybear's suspicions, if correct, could either help her or harm her. It could consolidate her as a major player in X-books (and maybe even in the Marvel universe as a whole)... or it could isolate her even more from the X-Men, fail to make her connect with the general audience and damage her popularity even more than Excalibur already did. I guess it all depends on whoever writes the book and what ideas this writer has for it.
A solo CB book would probably only last 6-10 issues before being cancelled, anyway, just like most current Marvel books. But if it helps making people CARE about her and makes US like her as Captain Britain, why not try it?
Tini Howard loves to undermine herself by creating obstacles that are not in order to test her limits. Her thought process is very complicated therefore few can get aboard her story ship. If and only if she is in a good mood she amazes.
It's a wonderful surprise slash gift to bring back Tom Lennox and his S.T.R.I.K.E. partners. Howard tricked me even though I knew she had the potential nevertheless held back for her own reasons.
It will be a big relief and peace for Betsy to meet her fiance Tom after he died his horrible death while Betsy was mind linked and felt what death is like for the first time. It was a crucial relationship of her past which ended in swift tragedy and created Betsy's obsession with death. I'm excited to see Betsy's reaction. Will it be happiness or terror?
Atop the unexpected news the past of Betsy pending to be explored is her as a concentration camp survivor and her magic apprenticeship under Victoria Bentley. Betsy is shaping up to be the mutant Elsa Bloodstone.
Not really PoetryInMotion, Betsy is a vital part of the X-Men. Betsy was in classic stories like the Mutant Massacre, the Fall of the Mutants, Inferno, the Siege Perilous, the X-tinction Agenda, Fatal Attractions, the X-cutioner's song, Onslaught, Revolution, the X-treme X-Men, the Exiles, the Age of X, X-Men Utopia and Necrosha, the Uncanny X-Force, X-Men Regenesis, Inhumans versus X-Men, X-Men Disassembled, Age of X-Man. Betsy can't be forgotten or dropped for becoming Caucasian again. The stories mentioned are purely Betsy not Kwannon. History is written once and can't be lost or retconned. Betsy had the above adventures and development with her fellow mutants and it is the one thing that can't be stolen from her for it is all her essence.
I just hope whomever writes Betsy next requested her or is a fan and didn't compromise so they could tell their Apocalypse story
@ Jamie,
I love Elsa so setting up Betsy in a similar action style would be interesting. So far Howards X-Corps issues have been good. I thought the early Excalibur issues ranged between good to ok, then it all seemed to go downhill due to Covid & a majority of the later issues being fodder for Apocalypse & X of Swords.
Maybe if this Strike plot goes well then Tini could bring in Dazzler for an issue or two. The last I remember them interacting was the Yost mini.
Let's pray it starts to happen with the current writer and possible future ones.
Absolutely Betsy with her good old boss mentality wielding swords. Guns aren't her style for she likes the intimacy in the brawl.
Betsy is loved for the psychic bruiser she is. Telepathy and telekinesis are considered range powers yet Betsy managed to turn them into weaponry.
Dazzler is welcome for a reunion in Excalibur. So far Kitty, Rachel, Kurt, Meggan, Pete made cameos except for Alison.
Yes, Dazzler would be a welcome addition to Excalibur, now that Rogue left - and she isn't being used in any X-book nowadays, is she?
Maybe the creative team won't pick her because her powers could feel redundant when compared to Jubilee's, but that shouldn't be a problem considering that the X-Men have had plenty of teams with multiple telepaths (Morrison's run had Xavier, Jean AND Emma and it's still regarded as one of the best runs the X-Men ever had), or multiple mutants with claws or knives (Kyle & Yost's X-Force) and so on. And in terms of personality, she'd bring some very needed brightness and good mood.
And as much as I like Meggan, I think Dazzler would actually fit much better with the other Excalibur members than she does.
Dazzler and Jubilee are very different. Artists neglect to show how.
Dazzler is a sound transducer to light energy. The artist to succeed draw Dazzler's powers was Marc Silvestri. He had Dazzler shoot laser beams from her fingertips like a light pistol and from her eyes like Cyclops. The light forms were starry twinkles. In rare occasions Dazzler's body glowed with colors like
Carolina Dean.
Jim Lee was the first to understand Jubilee's powers are nuclear and he drew her shoot plasmoids followed by explosive sounds. Jubilee's plasmoids were orbs and power surges with sparks, lightning and radiation waves.
Jubilee creates explosions and Dazzler absorbs their sounds to make light. They are complementary and would work best together if an artist kept the distinction.
Exactly. Once you get past their apparent similarity in powers, you see that their powers are actually quite different from each other.
A team with both Dazzler and Jubilee could be awesome.
@FSaker Jubilee by herself is Chernobyl dangerous. Acting as the constant noise supply for Dazzler to produce endless light is Omega level.
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