Recap 2023 • Betsy Braddock's journey in 2023 was led by Tini Howard in "Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain," running for just five issues before getting the axe. Senior Editor Jordan D. White expressed hope that it'd keep going but seemed disappointed by its abrupt end and poor sales, mentioning financial constraints. This year, Betsy only had five full appearances, marking a real low for the character. Some fans felt the series was a step up from "Knights of X," but unfortunately, it failed to resonate widely. The cancellation of "Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain" and its lukewarm reception left Betsy in comic book limbo for a frustrating seven months, much to the disappointment of her fans. Betsy is now set to make a comeback in 2024 under writer Steve Foxe in February's X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic, paving the way for her return in March's "Dead X-Men," also by Foxe, donning the beloved Disassembled costume. Fans are buzzing with excitement and hope for a fresh take on Betsy's journey. Take a trip down memory lane and share your favorite stories, writers, artists, quotes, and more. Wishing you all a Happy New Year!
JANUARY
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X-Terminators #5
• The Book is Ending :C
Captain Britain and Rachel guide rescued Otherworlders safely home after X-Terminators' rescue mission.
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FEBRUARY
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Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain #1
• Returns Home, Having Changed
Captain Britain faces public criticism, aids her Corps, suspects Coven Akkaba, battles Furies alongside Rachel, and confronts imminent threats. Alternate versions also appear.
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MARCH
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B
• Two Captains, One Country
Captain Britain thwarts Morgan Le Fey's ploy, rescues Lizzie, combats the sorceress, liberates possessed Captain Carter, and senses Morgan's deeper machinations.
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APRIL
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B
• The Captain We Deserve
Captain Britain protects civilians, deceives the Fury, seeks Pete Wisdom's aid, reconciles with Rachel, seeks counsel from Tony Stark against Morgan's plot.
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MAY
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B
• Earth's Most Furious
Captain Britain seeks the Avengers' aid, unveils relationship with Rachel to the media, defeats the Fury, plans covert ops against Morgan with S.T.R.I.K.E.'s help.
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JUNE
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B
• Thou Art More Near Thy Death
Captain Britain plans S.T.R.I.K.E.'s mission, confronts Morgan, defeats the sorceress with Faiza Hussain's help, and renews her commitment to the Corps with Rachel.
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JULY
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X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #97
• Control, Part 2
[Vision] Polaris senses visions of her loved ones, including Betsy, turning against her during Malice's possession of Dani Moonstar.
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X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #98
• Control, Part 3
[Flashback] Polaris recalls how Betsy, Kwannon, and Emma Frost's encounter influenced Malice's change of heart.
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OCTOBER
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X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #108
• The Redroot Saga, Part 3
[Flashback] Sheriff Gia Whitechapel tells Sunfire how Captain Britain and her Knights rescued her.
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“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.
18 comments:
2023 was the worst year for Betsy in a long time. I think since she was dead.
Someone had the nerve to suggest Foxe should finish THs plots.. My God how did she form a cult more devoted than Clan Akkaba!
It's 2024 and these die-hard defenders still tryng to push that Tini Howard's writing was top-notch and that she was some kinda misunderstood legend. Those Cerebrocast minions formed this weird cult around everything she touched. Thankfully, we're done with her and her literary agent, and can finally move on without their constant gaslighting. Honestly, 2023 was Betsy's worst since her X-Treme X-Men demise. She hit rock bottom. Hoping Steve Foxe brings something better to the table.
Agreed! I noticed also how the internet reacted in a huge positive way when the Dead XMen cover was revealed with Betsy in her Dissassembled costume compared to the reveal of an upcoming XMen Unlimited story where she's back in the ugly CB armor. Not a whimper about that. Obvious which Betsy people want and it's not CB.
lordy wait til cerebro fam see deez messages
braddock house what u think about these cause u always read them down when they come for miss tini howard
You still holding on like anyone gives a rats ass about Cerebro Cast opinion lol
Word!
Poor Betsy 2019 was the start of your worst nightmares the Captain Kettle travesty.
Without controversy and lameness cerebrotwats got zero legs like their circle j#rk habitat Twitter
Here's my take. I think everyone is entitled to their opinions. For those that loved Tini's interpretation, that is great. But I think opposing opinions of her writing is also valid as long as they aren't personal attacks.
While I appreciated her vast knowledge of Betsy, I was ultimately disappointed in her version of Betsy. I thought she wrote Betsy very out of character. Her writing was disjointed to me, & I also found the magic and Otherworld obsession too much.
It'd be like making Cyclops permanently a space pirate just because Corsair is. He has connections to that, but i don't think it fits him.
Similarly, yes Betts has connections to magic and Otherworld (and CB), but I don't think that environment suits her, I also think she has proven she is more than enough as she is without needing CB (or even Psylocke).
I think that is Brian's world and hers is with the X-Men. The fact that the books didn't really sell well and TPTB noted some of the issues fans had (like the Butterfly for instance) shows that she has a very vocal fanbase who are ready to see her potentially not be constrained by the shackles the CB gig does to her and not be as isolated from the other X-Men.
I think it is definitely noteworthy that all this positive buzz about her wearing the Dissasembled uniform again is that a lot felt like that was the ultimate culimation of her character from classic & ninja, to back in her original body with skills from both those times and it wasn't solely from "Ninja Asian" Betsy like a lot liked to just dismiss saying that is all people wanted when we voiced our displeasure with CB Betsy.
Anyway, that is my take and I'm hoping to see a much stronger and edgier Betsy this year.
I believe that the point of Betsy being Captain Britain was really to give her something to do because Kannon had become Psylocke. It also helped that she once was a replacement for Brian back in the old days, but it was temporary and Howard really wanted to test if Betsy could be a more permanent Captain Britain currently. It's not a bad thing. The problem is the fact that Howard and many more people like her saw it from the perspective of branding and not the mutant metaphor. They saw Betsy as an Asian woman in the 90s as an entirely different character, thus reasoning that Psylocke is a "brand" which was a character wearing swimsuit and a "ninja assassin," and they saw it as Kannon and therefore Kannon must be Psylocke now because Betsy should not be a body thief anymore, which is very...strange. The original point of the original story was that Betsy had been abused and brainwashed by the Hand. She had been violated to the highest degree, and she had to learn to turn it into something empowering for her yet again. It's actually very redundant on Claremont's part considering that's what Betsy's been doing since she joined the X-Men while still was in her real white European form.
I like Kannon as Psylocke and the insistence from the writers and editors part to keep Psylocke going with Kannon. However, it's just not how the mutant metaphor works ever. At the same time, I get super annoyed with some people (even here) who keep calling Kannon "Revanche" just to spite her and calling her a thief. Like, did you guys not read the story? Sure, it was a retcon and it was horrible, but the character exists currently and they keep the retcon. Hate the misguided attempt at politically correcting the Psylocke brand by the company, but the character doesn't deserve the weird hostility that some of you have been doing. She's one of very few Asian X-Men, she's important to the stories of the X-Men.
I'm not sure i would say directly stole, but I do have a few issues with her this time around.
#1. You said they needed something for Betsy to do because Kwannon became Psylocke, but that is just it. Kwannon didn't need to become Psylocke. She could have become her own character or even Revanche again. They literally could have given her..her own identity & dropped the ball imho.
Most of the time they unfortunately drew Betsy looking like a white woman anyway (so I don't think her becoming Dissasembled Psylocke was as jarring as it could have been visually), the story imo should have just been about what is underneath still counts. Betsy should have always displayed and retained her abilities, martial arts, edgy demeanor. Instead it was a story of Betsy who apparently was suddenly having an identity crisis taking a role away from Brian (essentially stealing it), and Kwannon (who also had an identity crisis) deciding she's taking Betsy's codename and outfit saying cause Betsy had her body (when she also had Betsy's body too and took a portion of Betsy's powers as well ..which she hints at in Fallen Angels).
They made it a story of these two woman taking someone else's identity/powers to be "important", rather then just a story of their shared victimization/bonding and standing on their own two feet. They didn't need anyone else's name. Even worse with Kwannon who kept claiming she wants her own identity but obviously would have people mistaken her for Betsy based on her choice of codename and attire people mostly associated with Betsy.
#2. Kwannon kinda does come off as a thief. Not intentionally but if we look at the story of her as Revanche its all about trying to take Betsy's identity from her, Kwannon is in Betsy's body thus thinks Betsy is Kwannon and is blaming her for all the victimization the real Betsy faced, yet when she comes back now as Kwannon she essentially is now blaming (as Kwannon) Betsy for taking her life again and once again thinks she was owed Betsy's identity (so in one story she's trying to take the name Betsy Braddock & in the 2nd she takes the name Psylocke and blaming Betsy in both stories for her problems, and this narrative never works for me because then she knows that Betsy was a victim because she was coming for revenge thinking she was Betsy and thinking Betsy was her (Kwannon).
She ironically was the biggest champion of saying Betsy was violated lol. So she kinda comes off at best crazy and at worst...a gaslighter.
#3. Even in this latest story where she kinda hinted she was somehow stuck in Betsy's mind (which never made sense because Betsy was dead for years and resurrected by Jamie in a completely new body that yes looked like Kwannon's but actually technically was Betsy's) the only person's word we have to go on that is Kwannon's (the same person who also claimed she was the real Betsy Braddock which turned out to be false). I checked with the writer of Fallen Angels to see if the body swap was retconned & he told me it wasn't. That everything that happened before was still canon.
I could kinda see Betsy having survivor's guilt (even though without her, Kwannon would have stayed braindead), but definitely not at fault for anything. The reason I said Kwannon at worst comes off as a gaslighter is because she essentially was angry at Betsy (although the Fallen Angels writer did also indicate to me it was irrational anger), then at the conclusion of the story in Excalibur was acting all confused as to why Betsy was almost having a breakdown and so upset saying "the things between us were done to us", that would have helped to have said that to Betsy a long time ago lady, instead of being cold to her lol.
As for Betsy as CB? I think it ultimately did not help her. With her mutant abilities and the outfit, she should have been a powerhouse, yet imho she seemed much weaker and almost incompetent at times, imo she seemed much more confident, powerful, edgy, intelligent, and bada$$ as Dissasembled Betsy (Psylocke) and I think that is why so many are excited to see that uniform.
Sorry comment above is so scrunched together. It kept saying comment was too long when I had spaces. I also had to delete a lot of it lol.
@Daud, I really enjoyed what Wells was doing with Kannon. Granted, I would have loved if he put her in her own uniform and had her take a new code name (Revanche no longer applies) and actually retconned her to being Chinese (Guanyin), but I dug how he humanized and fleshed her out beyond what the Fallen Angels writer did. Especially, her relationship with John. And I agree with you that she deserves respect as one of the few prominent East Asian women in superhero comics. I really wish that Office X creators would stop being so basic and just writing her as Ninjutsu Elizabeth, Part Two. Maybe if we readers drive this home to Brevoort, he will acknowledge that sophisticated readers need an organic evolution of Kannon that we have yet to get. I would argue that since Wells’ iteration of the character that she has gone into retrograde.
I definitely agree with everything you said above. However, we live in a reality where none of those things were considered or done. Instead we have Kannon as Psylocke now, and they're never taking it away from her much to my own dismay, especially with that ugly swimsuit. They could maybe retcon it someday, or just make a twist on Kannon making her very identity as not who we all thought she was. Or something, Idk. I heard that the author of Fallen Angels, Kannon mini series, was actually not satisfied with their own book? Idk the actual truth, though.
What Kannon really needs is a writer who really understands the core problem of the Betsy-Kannon shenanigans, that it's about shared trauma after being violated by really bad people. It would maybe helpful if the writer is Asian (not Asian-American, just Asian) but then, once again, it would be very easy for the writer to lean back into the victimization of each character before building an arc to strengthen each of them yet again. Which would be the same old stuff. It's...just dispiriting, honestly.
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