Newsarama: There are big changes coming to the X-Men line in 2024, as mutantkind heads toward a new era in the wake of the fall of Krakoa. Along the way, writer Steve Foxe and a whole host of artists are introducing the Dead X-Men, a group of mutants who were killed in the fall of Krakoa, but who are now resurrected and uniting as a team.
What's it like putting together an X-Men team that doesn't revolve around the main cast of core X-Men characters? What's your philosophy with this line-up?
Foxe: The fun thing about these five is that, with the exception of Prodigy, they've all served as main-team (or close enough) X-Men before, so we've seen how they fit into an established team dynamic. But there's no elder statesman X-Man here - no Cyclops or Jean or Logan to call the shots - so this is our chance to see them on an even playing field together. I'd say Frenzy naturally falls into a “leader” position more than the others, but no one's a slack-off on this squad.
Frenzy is the steady, level-headed, driven natural leader. Jubilee brings the spunk and fire. Prodigy is the team's heart as much as its brain. Cannonball is a hero to his core, selfless and courageous. And Dazzler is a bit of a wildcard - she surprised me at times.
The one member of the team not revealed on any covers yet is Rachel Summers, most recently known as Askani. I have to choose my words carefully here so as not to spoil Kieron Gillen's intricate plans in Rise of the Powers of X and X-Men Forever, but Rachel was tasked by Xavier with putting together a team to boldly go where no mutants have gone before, and she's guiding them from afar. She's a bit like M from James Bond, if M was psychic and her head was on fire.
And of course Rachel is dating Betsy Braddock, who makes a dramatic entrance on our just-revealed third cover, wearing a costume I know a lot of Betsy fans have been eager to see back in action. My lips are sealed beyond that, but hey, we aim to please when we can!
“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:
Interesting ideas; hopefully the execution will be good, too.
At first, I thought it was kinda weird that Foxe considers Frenzy as the "natural leader" in this group when it has Cannonball, someone who has led several X-teams. But hey, Frenzy is a great character, so no complaints here!
I also loved the part where Foxe acknowledges that Betsy is wearing a uniform that her fans like - it shows that he bothered to learn at least a little about what the readers who like Betsy would like to see. Hopefully this cover won't lead us to disappoint ourselves (for instance, in case she appears in the story with the Disassembled uniform for one panel and then switches back to the CB armor for the rest of the story or arc, or in case she appears only for two or three pages in this issue and is then absent for the rest of the book's run).
He did mention Betsy's role increased greatly from just a cameo so have faith her role won't be as minimal as you're expecting it to be. Especially if she's taking a cover.
The Gala massacre did the elected team dirty. The mini series about them is the least to do good by them. Sounds interesting a story. Even so if Betsy uses parts of the Captain Kettle suit as flinging material at enemies while dressed for success.
Finally a writer who respects fans unlike the previous one who made it her entire mission to antagonize every single Betsy fan left.
Sounds promising and hope it translates good on paper. The costume change is a breath of fresh air perchance it is permanent.
Since they mention reality is falling apart, maybe her CB mantle is in trouble and that's why she's back in her last uniform.
I really hope its a permanent thing and they stop with the CB nonsense.
Rachel dating Betsy is still a ship nobody asked for and makes 0 sense.
Its not a triangle between Rachel / Kitty / Peter or Rachel / Kitty / Illyana, that would had make more sense.
I really hope they broke, they are friends never relationship material.
@Kano For me she would be single, have her well developed first before with a romantic partner. But Rachel is a good match for her, finally a healthy relationship! And they have a long friendship, several stories together, so this relationship made sense!
While I am happy to see Betsy again, I am hearing that this takes place in the past, as in time travel. Also, I don't consider Steve Foxe to be a particularly good writer. He usually just re-purposes horrible writers ideas. So far he has recycled Vita Ayala's failed ideas, and now he is recycling Tini Howard's bad ideas. He is just selling the same old fish, but in a different wrapper.
This is not an upgrade, and I feel like as a Betsy fan, I will continue to be disappointed.
stevie fox close friend to tini howard so da book already lit
Here's my take. I'll give him a chance, just like I did with Tini & the others before her. I haven't seen enough to know if he's recycling ideas or not. Time will tell.
I personally don't particularly think it means anything if he's Tini's friend or not. I would hope he has his own original style and interpretation of who Betsy is and her personality.
One takeaway I definitely got from this though is that TPTB definitely are hearing vocal Betsy fans. Yes she has her fans on Twitter that loved the CB stuff with Howard, but she also has fans who weren't in love with how Howard represented her and its nice for that side to be heard and addressed as well.
Although technically I think we always have been heard low key. I honestly think it was the Betsy fans who got her to retain the butterfly and the knife.
I don't believe for a second the plan was to give those back to Betsy especially based on Jordan's interviews indicating she moved on from that.
I think the plan was to give Kwannon Betsy's codename, powers, and outfit and they thought the fans were braindead enough to just be happy we had "ninja Psylocke" not realizing it did a disservice to both women to not give them individuality.
It could have literally been a story about its not about what you look like, but what is on the inside that counts, but alas no lol.
But anyway, I think the reason we saw Betsy get her butterfly back and knife was due to a vocal fanbase, and the fact we see a return (however brief), to the Dissasembled uniform is also due to a vocal fanbase. I always saw an indication of that because Tini or Jordan would address things we talked about in interviews, which could only mean they had to have heard us lol.
I'm hoping we get a return of the more stealthy psi that Betsy is and less "dadadumm" Superman esque CB. I wish the overall lesson they could tell is Betsy realizes she doesn't need to be CB, she's always been enough.
Lastly I agree with the poster above on Rachel/Betsy not making sense. I personally liked her with Warren. We actually saw their romance develop. He stood by her during the Kwannon as Revanche in Betsy's body story and they slowly developed a romance from friendship. In contrast Rachel wasn't even with Betsy much.
She had big moments like she showed up in Betsy's mind, she watched the creature for Betsy, and danced with her at the gala, but overall imho we never saw a romance develop. It was more Betsy looking ackward at Rachel most of the time lol.
I personally rather see Betsy with Jean if anything lol. I prefer Rachel and Betts as friends.
Anyway time will tell how this all goes, but definitely excited to see Betsy again and in an outfit I never thought we'd see again.
Jmho.
X-Man Tini got the dung touch all her hands get to turns crapola. Catwoman, Harley Quinn, the Bat family, Betsy, Rachel, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee, Merlyn, Brian are some victims off the top of my attic.
I haven't seen her work on other books @Kiki, but I definitely wasn't a fan of her run with Betsy and crew. I was hopeful, but my hopes never came to fruition.
It was pretty sad considering how much knowledge she had of Betsy.
I'm glad she found her crowd, but I personally was not a fan of what seemed to me being disjointed writing style, the cast personalities being vastly out of character, & too much obsession with D&D style storylines and magic/Otherworld.
I wish her well, but it would appear by book sales that I am not alone in wanting to see another take of Betsy and others at this point.
Seeing Betsy in this costume again (however short), was a needed breath of fresh air for me.
If seeing again Betsy like herself is a one time thing I take it over nothing.
Marvel fans reaction to Tini is very tame to the DC fans. DC fans take pitchforks and torches and Tini catches flack to this day. Marvelites give slack way more than we should've. She can write whatever fiction she likes but it's bouncing off the super hero gig. Three times her spaghetti didn't stick on the wall. Fans have spoken with words and wallets.
I for one hate she doing Betsy so bad and so small and insecure. She erased years of evolution Betsy had as Psylocke
Hi. So, I remember very recently leaving off comments on a few posts on this blog regarding Betsy Braddock's role in the current world of X-Men. I want to say this, I didn't enjoy her solo series (Betsy Braddock Captain Britain) but I really liked the X of Swords (wasn't it?) event. I'm not here to criticize or praise comic book writing and its writer(s) because, well, I simply lack the talent myself.
However, I do see a problem with Betsy taking the role of Captain Britain and Kanon (I refuse writing her name with a "w" because she's not Korean) taking the Psylocke mantle. It comes down to the basic premise of mutation as a metaphor/allegory for prejudice and discrimination in the real world. Consider this, if "PSYLOCKE" was a name that Mojo had given Betsy as a way to mock and abuse her because of her telepathic ability (a result of her mutation) then it could reasonably be seen as an allegory or metaphor for being mocked and disenfranchised for simply being who you are. Whether it's racially, religiously, sexually, economically, etc. Say that "PSYLOCKE" was similar to a slur, then what Betsy had been doing ever since she got out of Mojoworld was to turn that slur into something empowering for her. And that's what she had done!
Her being Captain Britain, on the other hand, is merely taking up the mantle from her brother. It's family business. It's a job. Nothing's wrong with having a job, but that would explain why even I, someone who does truly enjoy her being Captain Britain, left feeling a bit disconnected from her. Because I am an X-Men reader/fan. Not a Captain Britain one.
Kanon being Psylocke, makes no sense whatsoever aside from out of universe, real world branding for toys and figurines stuff. In universe, it never made sense why Kanon would want to even live in Krakoa. She had died so many years ago while being in Betsy's original body! If anything, being a mutant should've been a great curse for her! That was the pain that she had to endure for quite some time as Revanche, and she wasn't even in her own body! Not to mention that Betsy's body was dying of the Legacy Virus! She should've been back in Japan and stayed in the shadows avoiding Betsy AND the X-Men like they're a plague.
Final thought, I think Kanon should've just been rewritten as, well, Kanon. Use her own name because the conflict she had to resolve with Betsy in the first place was that. The accusation that she was a spy named Kanon who infiltrated the X-Men! She had to realize in the worst way that she herself is Kanon and that she was this ex-ninja assassin spy whatever who was cruelly abused by her own lover AND HER OWN BOSS! Like, what the hell! "KANON"...I guess with a "w" put that in there...is Kanon's own "PSYLOCKE" if you know what I mean. It's not necessarily a metaphorical slur or anything, but it was her real identity that she never had the chance to clear or fix. So give her that chance now! Not as Psylocke, but as Kanon! Make a Kanon manga series, relocate her to Japan and build a localized fandom there because she's a Japanese from JAPAN!!!
You are right friend. In China we call the Goddess she takes her name from Guān shì Yīn 觀世音.
The Japanese Buddhists call her Kanzeon formally and for short Kannon. The White Lotus is her symbol for mercy and rejuvenation. Kannon taking the Western British symbols from Betsy don't add up.
@Daud, thank you for that profound comment, touching upon so many valuable insights. Would you consider sending this to the new head of Office X, Tom Brevoort? I think there is a lot he could take from it to do better than previous persons in his role did regarding character representation and sensical writing.
I forgot that Kannon has two "n"s, thanks for the correction. Anyway, yes. It doesn't make sense for Kannon to take anything from Betsy, especially not that swimsuit. Suppose that the tale of Lady Mandarin, paired with the revelation that Kannon was another woman whose mind and soul got intertwined with Betsy because of the Hand and Matsuo, was that of a betrayal and subjugation of women under the patriarchy...then that swimsuit must've been understood as an artifact of proof that Betsy while in Kannon's body was sexualized by all of those men. Kannon had never worn anything like that in the flashback scenes, she always wore proper ninja outfits which revealed literally nothing! The only time she wore something revealing was that gorgeous purple gown when she went out on a date with Matsuo in an evening. That's it!
They could've told a story about this woman who whose body got stolen by this criminal organization which involved everyone she knew and how she makes efforts to handle that and many other issues involving Betsy, Mojo and Spiral, and how to restart in a world so much different than the world she used to live in. But they didn't! They wanted her to be the swimsuit-wearing Psylocke.
Why?! It's just so strange to me!
I'd love to do that but I don't know how. What's his social media account or maybe an email address? I live outside America. You know, I don't know if Marvel is ever gonna retire the Psylocke codename, but I think that's what they should consider to do. Psylocke is Betsy Braddock and it's more than just branding, cool toys reasoning. It's her identity; she went through all of that mess, including the body swap, to be an empowered/powerful person who'll never be victimized again. Again, to me the name Psylocke functions more like the n-word to many black people than it just being a cool superhero name a la Marvel Girl or Cyclops or Angel. Psylocke is much more similar to Polaris/Malice to Lorna, something that other people gave to them as a way to mock and use them for their powers to do evil stuff initially, but then those names became source of empowerment for each character.
If Lorna can still be Polaris (because she is!) then Betsy should still be able to be Psylocke. Even if she's not currently using it because of Captain Britain stuff.
@Daud, here are Tom Brevoort’s social media accounts:
https://twitter.com/TomBrevoort
https://www.instagram.com/tmb11779?igsh=YmsyZjNldDFscHI=
Also, I’d love for you to submit your feedback to the next time AIPT asks for questions submissions to Tom Brevoort or Steve Foxe:
https://aiptcomics.com/tag/x-men-monday/
@Daud I agree with a lot you said.
I myself said it never made much sense for Kwannon to be upset with Betsy when Betsy essentially was violated to resurrect Kwannon from a brain dead status & Kwannon knew Betsy was victimized because she came seeking revenge for the brutalities Betsy suffered thinking she (Kwannon) was the real Betsy Braddock (due to her being in Betsy's body.)
I'm glad their drama is over. I hope it is never revisited.
I do however recall when Kwannon first came on the scene in Betsy's body (after unnecessarily killing a group of men as her mentor stated), she had an outfit that was pretty skimpy, so maybe she developed that taste later on lol.
All jokes aside, I also agree it makes no sense she would want the Psylocke name or wear that outfit and still say she wants her own identity smh.
I hope these next round of writers do Betsy justice.
https://www.therealgentlemenofleisure.com/2017/06/x-amining-x-men-vol-2-18.html?m=1
https://www.therealgentlemenofleisure.com/2017/05/x-amining-x-men-vol-2-17.html?m=1
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