Thursday, August 8, 2024

Geoffrey Thorne Teases Upcoming X-Force Issues

In a recent visit to the CBR forums, Geoffrey Thorne expressed his enthusiasm for how Betsy is shaping up in the upcoming X-Force issues. "Issue #4 will please [Braddock Family fans]. I just saw the unlettered line art pages—holy crap, Marcus To can cook," Thorne enthused, highlighting his excitement for the visual artistry that accompanies the story.

Thorne promised that Betsy's character is proving to be a lot of fun to write, comparing her enjoyment to his previous experience with Sage. He added, "I think (well, I hope) Betsy fans will enjoy her in this book. I'm trying to keep light on everyone so some issues will be of some characters and more of others but, overall, I'm hoping everybody gets to eat. But Betsy? Yeah. Fire."

As fans eagerly await, Thorne also hinted at more significant moments for Betsy, especially in X-Force Issue #7.

33 comments:

FSaker said...

"I'm trying to keep light on everyone so some issues will be of some characters and more of others but, overall, I'm hoping everybody gets to eat."

That's good to know. A good comic book featuring a team of characters should never give too much attention to some characters and too little attention to the others. Personally, as long as Betsy gets the highlight on some issues (and Thorne already said that she will), I don't mind if she takes a secondary role on other issues and let the other characters shine - in fact, it's great to know that Noriko will likely get the attention she deserves on at least one issue.

As for his comment about X-Force #7, well, issue #5 is the one where someone will *allegedly* die... so in theory, I guess we could consider that Betsy is safe. Then again, we should remember that when Claremont killed her in X-Treme X-Men, she still appeared for the two or three following issues during flashback scenes and in Bishop's lucid dream - still, somehow I think she's safe this time.

X-Man said...

Thanks for posting interview.

He also talked about Kwannon.

I think @Kiki & @Randybear might like his response lol.

The question was "But what about Kwannon in X-Force?"

And he responded : "I currently have no stories to tell about Kwannon. I have nothing against her but I have never been inspired to write anything about her".

I'm not sure why anyone would want her on the X-Force team in addition to her X-Men book & Solo, but that was his response regardless.

FSaker said...

Well, I can see why someone could want Kwannon on an eventual X-Force team: historically, the X-Men are perceived as the team of "mutant superheroes", while X-Force is the team of "mutant antiheroes/bad boys" - and Kwannon's style fits better with the latter description.
The thing is, due to Betsy already being part of the current X-Force, Kwannon would probably feel redundant there (just like Betsy could feel redundant if she were moved to Cyclops's current X-Men team while Kwannon is still there). I mean, I guess a good writer could have both women in the same team and make it work (kinda like Morrison did with Jean and Emma), and Thorne is a good writer, but he isn't interested, so there's no reason to have Kwannon in X-Force for now.

X-Man said...

Yeah I was just thinking why they are already asking for it @Fsaker.

Let Betsy have something for herself for a minute lol.

randybear said...

Kwannon fans are vile. I've never seen a Kwannon fan that didn't hate Betsy. There are fans of both characters that's fine but the ones that prefer Kwannon hate Betsy and push a racist narrative on others.

I literally never see fans of Betsy antagonize any Kwannon fans like they do Betsy fans.

X-Man said...

That only proves they don't know the true history of Betsy and Kwannon.

Which also proves they aren't real Kwannon fans @Randybear.

If they were, they'd learn her history.

At the end of the day

#1. the swap was done for Kwannon's benefit not Betsy's.

#2. The swap was orchastrated by people Kwannon knew, not Betsy.

#3. Kwannon would still be braindead and in a coma if not for the violation of Betsy's mind and body.

No amount of hating Betsy can change that, which is why it was always pretty easy to shut any of them down when I did go to Twitter to engage with them.

They had nothing to really counter that lol.

I also think a lot of those people have multiple accounts & don't think Kwannon has more of a fanbase than Betsy at all and I think TPTB know it.

In any case I hope both Kwannon and Betsy get more individualized charactizations in these new books.

I'm just cautiously optimistic that we have Thorne now.

Definitely liking his vibe so far.

Nate X said...

Kwannon "fans" really don't know much about her or her story arc. They just seem to like the Ninja Psylocke aesthetics. Even now, they still talk about her as a Hand ninja, when she was never part of the Hand. Her old mentor from Fallen Angels was never identified as a Hand operative. She was a Nyorin ninja, and the Hand was actually her rival clan. It's kind of strange that her new series is focused on her upbringing with the Hand, considering that's not part of her real backstory. They're just making a new book based on some pretty inaccurate Marvel wikia info.

randybear said...

Literally. They are so shallow and project that Betsy fans miss the sexy ninja look when that's all Kwannon has going for her. She's pure aesthetic and such a poor choice for Asian representation.

How many Japanese readers identify with Kwannon as far as being stereotypically stoic and being an assassin. I'll fucking wait

X-Man said...

That fine by me @Nate X. If they don't want to do their homework that's on them lol.

I'm just happy we finally have a writer who im cautiously optimistic on focusing on and presenting to us real Betsy.

I hope he truly delivers, haven't been this excited for Betsy in a long time.

Unknown said...

What i find more shallow of fans of kwanon it's The character wasn't even to be japanise to start with. If the gangs of mandarim (chineses) wouldn't obey a caucasian is easily to say they Will much more follow a caucasian then a japanise...

Daud Rotama said...

At this point, they should just try to write a Psylocke book featuring both women. Clarify what had actually happened in the past decades of stories. Show every readers that Kannon was never Psylocke to begin with; she was dead until her ex-bf "resurrected" her through Elizabeth's body and psyche. Betsy's psyche and most of her traits were put into Kannon's body while still having a bit of Kannon's own personality left in it, whereas Kannon's psyche was mixed into Betsy's body and that's how she got in touch with telepathy in the first place. Clarify that the "psychic knife" was actually never telepathic, it was emphatic by nature of Kannon's latent mutation gene (body) but Betsy's psyche was able to turn it into a telepathic weapon because, well, Betsy's the psychic one!

randybear said...

Agreed. We need a one shot with an awesome creative team to clear the air because it's crazy to me how Marvel themselves pitted the fan base against one another. Jordan White fumbled it so bad and he was a self proclaimed big fan of Betsy 🙄

Daud Rotama said...

Whenever I think of empathy as a mutation, I always remember what the Genegineer and his. goons were talking about Jenny Ransom in the og Genosha storyline. They're talking about how they would turn Jenny's empathic abilities to crack stones and alloys in the mines rather than affecting/manipulating feelings of human beings. So that would be a pretty cool thing for Kannon to have, especially to separate her further from Betsy. Say that Kannon's telepathic abilities are running out all of a sudden and she has to rely on her actual mutation. There's no Sinister to give her a "juice", no X-Men around to even take care of her problems, and Betsy's basically busy anywhere else so she's not really seeing her that often either. How would she fare with only herself this time? Would be cool to see Kannon traveling around the world, a lone fighter similar to Japanese samurais (instead of ninjas) left to her core trait: dignity. Always dignity.

Daud Rotama said...

It's probably because of the racist implications. I mean, even I had been deluded into thinking that Betsy was a racist character when in truth she was not. Maybe we could say that Chris Claremont was, but I seriously doubt it. Maybe Fabian Nicieza was, but looking back I also doubt that it had been his intention either. It's beyond the simple casing of racism, honestly, when it comes to what had happened to both women. Is it racist to have a European woman wearing an Asian woman body? Yes. Is it racist to killing said Asian woman while she was essentially trapped in the white European woman's body? Also yes. Did Betsy Braddock even like being turned into Asian in the first place? No! She always found it deeply disturbing, especially once Kannon entered the picture, but even when the intention had been plastic surgery done by the Hand unto her she already hated it. She's not Ollie London trying to look like Jimin of BTS ffs!

X-Man said...

I'm good with Betsy and Kwannon having separate stories and lives for awhile.

Maybe something together later on down the road, but I don't think we need a story explaining anything.

I think a lot of Kwannon's fans are willfully ignorant and committed to just disliking Betsy.

None of the story the Fallen Angel writer did made sense.

I think that's why it was kinda vague & Kwannon never gave specifics and it was virtually dropped.

Betsy herself died for awhile, and Betsy had a brand new body created by Jamie, he made it look like Kwannon, but it was technically a brand new body.

So it never made sense that Kwannon would even have a connection to that body, it technically was Betsy's body (in Kwannon's likeness) after Betsy died by Vargas's hands.

I don't hate Kwannon but definitely more interested in Betsy and her journey.

Daud Rotama said...

Absolutely agree with you. I think plenty of readers choose to ignore that both Betsy's and Kannon's original bodies had perished a long time ago and both of their current bodies are new. Betsy has always been the more interesting character by virtue of existing first and having had rich history on her own, but writers confusingly have made Kannon into a Betsy 2.0 simply because they don't have anything to tell through Kannon. She's stuck with the the same damn swimsuit Betsy's been wearing for awhile, and even her outfit now is reminiscent of Betsy's previous different costumes.

It's sad that the Psylocke brand is so "uniquely" Asian for so many people, yet no writers could tell anything genuinely Asian with the Asian female character that they keep screwing up.

X-Man said...

Exactly @Daud.

That is why her "story" or rather her insinuation that she was possibly stuck with Betsy made no sense.

How could she be?

Betsy was also dead for years lol.

Kwannon was also in Betsy's body and when she died, she removed her traits from Betsy and returned Betsy's powers back to Betsy (giving Betsy full telepathic strength..until AOA Jean increased it even more).

Thats the most annoying thing. She decided to grant Betsy peace already and while they weren't best friends, they had a respect for each other (in fact I think Betsy hugged her when Kwannon revealed she had the Legacy Virus).

They didn't hate each other.

So this sudden drama between them made zero sense.

And like I said both bodies technically were Betsy's at the time she recreated her original body because the one that looked like Kwannon was also made from scratch by Jamie to be resistant to magic & telepathy etc etc.
(hell she may have gotten the idea from Jamie when she remade her original body).

It Looked like Kwannon yes, but not her actual original body.

For all we know Kwannon was confused and was talking about the time she was braindead in a coma

(the time Betsy was used to bring Kwannon back to life).

Its not like Kwannon hasn't been insistent on something before and was completely wrong, like when she claimed to be Betsy when she arrived as Revanche lol.

The writers honestly should have just left it alone with the ladies making peace in the original story.

They could have just had Kwannon come back without all the drama as Revanche and kept Betsy as Dissasembled Psylocke.

In fact I think it have been pretty easy too, because the other thing the artist and TPTB aren't admitting is that Betsy's Psylocke was drawn looking white 98 percent of the time anyway.

Kinda hard to miss an Asian ninja when she didn't even look Asian most of the time.

Kwannon could have just come back as an Asian ninja (and actually drawn that way) with Empathic abilities and I think it'd have been fine smh lol.

In any case, I'm looking forward to what Thorne has in store for our girl :)

Rahsaan said...

Unrelated to this specific topic, but have any of you seen Deadpool & Wolverine? I don’t want to spoil anything. If you have seen, I want to know your thoughts on the outcome of the 20th Century Fox characters.

X-Man said...

I saw it @Rahsaan. I think most they might use for cameos from alternate Universes from time to time, but overall I think they will probably recast most of them.

I do think Michael Fassbender (sp?) Made a great Magneto.

I do kinda wish he was kept him and just gave him like white hair etcetera. Lol.

Rahsaan said...

@X-Man, oh, I'm sure of them recasting. Dd you notice the recast choice of one of the cameos? It was solely for this film I'm pretty sure, but one I'm suprised no one here has mentioned.

X-Man said...

@Rahsaan I did notice lol, but wasn't sure if it was really the character or not, but then looked it up and saw it was lol. Still doing Green Lantern stuff lol.

Rahsaan said...

And still being body-swapped into bodies of different geographic origins. LMAO.

X-Man said...

Lmao i didn't even consider that lol.

Rahsaan said...

The person who played her this time is English in real life. And English person of South Asian ancestry, I think, so she may've nailed the accent if they'd given her lines.

https://www.instagram.com/ayeshahofficial/reel/CP37M1AnKyl/

Kiki M. Ishola said...

X-Man Thorne is a sensible man. He tells the truth unfiltered and love him for that. Revanche is a Betsy wannabe she got no substance to her and is a complicated mess of retcons of how she popped up in the lives of Betsy and the X-Men.

Kiki M. Ishola said...

Ayesha Hussain all the way. She acted in few minutes more than Munn did. Vibe with her energy and choreography. Helps she isn't a wooden stick model and can act with only her facial expressions and body language.

FSaker said...

I haven't watched it yet (but I don't mind reading spoilers), but anyway: I actually liked Olivia Munn as Psylocke, but if Kiki approves the new actress, I have faith in her.
Then again, from what I read about Psylocke's fate in this film, I guess it doesn't make much difference who plays the character (plus, it's interesting that Fox has casted three actresses of different ethnicities to play her in each movie, yet never bothered portraying her as one of the HEROES in any of them).

X-Man said...

Thanks for sharing that.

I honestly wasn't sure what her background was, in some pics I had previously thought she may have been a black actress.

Rahsaan said...

@Kiki, you saw way more than I did. The only things I recall are her one facial expression in one scene, her lassoing Laura, and her fighting Elektra. She was good in her stunts.

Rahsaan said...

@X-Man I thought she was Black at first too. In some photos, she does look Black to me, but I think she is South Asian based on some photos I saw online of her with her family. Her family appears to be Islamic. I don't know with certainty though. I do know that she is from the UK.

Kuno said...

Ayesha is cool as a stunt actress, but in the movie? The hair sucked, the costume sucked, she could have been Psylocke or any other random NPC villian cameo (there were cameos by Lady Deathstrike, Callisto, Arclight too). She only used the tk whip / lasso, that is not the most recognisable psionic weapon from Psylocke. She was only in the background. I think Olivia Munn had a bigger part, even though she didn't had a lot of lines but had a more impacful presence. What a waisted opportunity. I think Olivia should have been Psylocke in Deadpool 3 and be part of the resistance team instead of Blade (Wesley Snipes is a wife beater) and play actual lines and have a bigger part as a hero this time. She really looked like Psylocke in Apocalypse, physically and with body language, and she trained a lot, she is a karate black belt. God I hate Bryan Singer so much lol. Waisted opportunity. Twice. I hope our girl has a spot as a hero in the MCU.

Kiki M. Ishola said...

@Rahsaan the big acting plus is the scene with Nova having banter with Deadpool, Wolverine and Evans Torch. Ayesha participated in the background with her expressions cause she wasn't given any other way.

X-Man said...

Ok thanks @Rahsaan thought it was just me lol.