Monday, September 21, 2020

Battle Of The Atom: X Of Swords Eve With Tini Howard


Betsy Braddock has changed bodies recently, and since becoming Captain Britain she has undergone even more changes.  Does her changing physicality affect where Betsy’s mindset is, or her sense of what she needs to be as a person right now?

Tini Howard: Totally. Betsy’s relationship with her physicality, her body and her past and Kwannon is something I’m really invested in. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it that it’s going to be approached in upcoming Excalibur stories. Her relationship with being Betsy who was a model, a psychic, then spent a lot of time in a body that was not her own. Leah Williams wrote a lot of interesting stuff about her relationship with her body in Age of X: The X-Tremists. Leah and I talked a lot about that. It’s something we believe is part of Betsy’s emotional journey.

What do you think about the Fury?

Tini Howard: You should ask me again in a couple of months. I’m not saying anyone is showing up or doing anything, but you might have more of an idea of what I think about the Fury.

21 comments:

Kevin said...

Pretty much confirms Betsy remains alive with Excalibur post-XoS. xD

Alex said...

I had a feeling they wouldn't kill her & even if they did they can get her another new body, this time from the 5. The only way I could see a character like her dying & having resurrection issues, a la Kate's phasing, is if a writer says something about her half Otherworld genes makes the process difficult.

Im guessing from what White, Howard & Hickman have planned is that this X of Swords event might be the fire to get Betsy to finally feel comfortable being Cap. Or at least point give her an idea of were she wants to go & do with her new powers/responsibilities.

Kevin said...

Judging by the cover, Excalibur and Meggan might go on a search for Betsy and Brian arc.

Unknown said...

I doubt that they kill her... but i really doubt her role in that saga... i think she´ll be a character that will appear in few pages with zero development...

Second. Interest development in age of x? Where?

Nate X said...

She's one of the 10 Swordbearers = aka the major players.

Alex said...

@Kevin,

I could see that sibling bonding quest thing happening. Since Betsy had the amulet thrust on her due to an emergency I can see her feeling unsure, perhaps unworthy of either the sword or shield. Even though it's something she always wanted.

Psi-Girl said...
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randybear said...

Why do they even have to explain anything? I wish after the body swap reversed itself theg could just move forward instead of villainizing Betsy to a new generation of fans as the white woman who stole kwannons body. I've seen that rhetoric SO often on Twitter because obviously these idiots haven't read the original story or ever followed the character.

I was hoping the Xtremist bs would be left in the past but apparently Leah planted some seeds in Tinis head *GROAN*

Kiki M. Ishola said...

People I don't want Betsy to be the second Captain Marvel. Period.

Ever since Carol Danvers replaced Mar Vell she's an OP joke. Her books get cancelled and relaunched every other month and the film was trash.

Betsy wanted to become a warrior of her personal credentials. She hated piggy backing cause she's proud. The first time she was asked to replace her brother and be Captain Britain she went b!tch please talk to my hand.

https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/matthew1.jpg

Psylocke attitude 4ever.

FSaker said...

@Psi-Girl, agreed. I thought Williams's take on Psylocke was acceptable because she was showing an ALTERNATE reality, so it was okay if Betsy had body dysmorphia there. But to bring this to the main reality makes no sense; she has never shown any signs of rejecting her own body - in fact, during the Utopia era she was visibly upset that Dazzler disfigured her original body (even if she was not inhabiting it at the time) and then even more upset when the Hand destroyed it.

I mean, if she had problems with her own appearance, wouldn't she have reconstructed her body with KWANNON's appearance in the Mystery in Madripoor story? Instead, she chose to make her body look like she originally did. And while Williams and Howard may argue that she was shown upset after that, it didn't feel like it had anything to do with body issues, but rather with her trying to grasp her own sense of identity, of self.

Insisting on the body issues is stupid.

randybear said...

Agreed! I also hate the fact that writers want to make up this narrative that Betsy CHOSE to stay as Kwannon. When IMO i never looked at it as Betsy wanting to BE Kwannon I think she ACCEPTED that the fact she was trapped and this was her new reality.

New woke writers wanna pretend like Betsy had a closet of flesh suits but chose to wear Kwannons while apparently according to Hill she was in hell screaming lmao Jesus christ

Some dude said...

For the love of God, please don't continue a single idea from William's Betsy or Age of X. The quicker we can forget about that the better.

randybear said...

^^^^ Agreed

Kiki M. Ishola said...

Talk about Age of X and I'm whaaa? Then read Williams and put the Man to the X.

Mike Carey wrote Betsy so good in Age of X and Clay Mann gave her a sweet costume that art commissions ignore. I wanted her dagger pashmina for me that's how good it was. The looks Mann gave Betsy carried her posh and deadly side.

Some dude said...

Haha yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to diss Carey's Age of X but rather the clusterf@#$ that was Age of X-man.

Kiki M. Ishola said...

@Some dude no worries. Age of X is the last age of good writing.

FSaker said...

To be fair, while Betsy was well-written in Age of X, it's not like she did much in that event. Don't get me wrong, it is a good event, but it's mostly a Rogue story with Gambit, Magneto and Legion with somewhat important roles and the other X-Men as secondary characters (even the New Mutants, whose book constituted half of the crossover, didn't have nearly as much importance as Rogue did).

I guess it was acceptable because the secondary characters still got more attention than other writers at the time (like Fraction) gave them. But it does annoy me a little.

The mystery behind Revenant's identity and the revelation of it was pretty cool, though.

FSaker said...

(then again, Revenant's identity was only revealed after Age of X... but it was still a clever move by Carey)

FSaker said...

But anyway, back to the body dysmorphia discussion, one thing Williams and Howard seem to ignore is that, if I remember correctly, Kwannon was actually the one who showed any signs of this. While Betsy said right after Acts of Vengeance that she questioned if she was still herself after the changes in her body and mind, Kwannon spent her first arc constantly trying to prove herself as the real Betsy Braddock - and after they found out who was who, I don't recall her ever expressing discomfort with her new body.

So yeah... Howard seems to be a talented writer and I believe she could do a great job with Betsy (and the other characters), but going back for the 100th time to the body swap plot and treating it like Betsy deliberately took another woman's body and felt good out of her own skin is definitely NOT the way to go.

Psi-Girl said...
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randybear said...

Exactly. Betsy was never vain about her looks. Wasn't she supposed to be a Tom boy? Also the modeling while fitting for her natural beauty was a front for her STRIKE involvement. She only ever lamented about not being physically powerful.

I hate this new narrative theyre creating for betsy about the body swap. Its even grosser now that their making these changes canon.