The Braddock Family Appreciation 2023

[JB]

[JB]

[JB]

Stay tuned...

[JB]

The ad in the back of today's Scarlet Witch #1 physical book.

"Captain Britain is back on earth and back on the front lines with her two closest allies by her side!"



I love that it screams "family" with the inclusion of Brian and Rachel's names, and I'm over the moon that Rachel is now being called "Askani" in official marketing.

[Frontier]

Still not digging Captain Avalon.

[JB]

Still not digging Captain Avalon.

I'm thinking the name/position might be temporary. I have a few theories about what's in store for Mr. Brian Braddock.

[JB]

[JB]

[JB]

Stay tuned next week for the final issue of Marvel UK's Captain Britain...

The long feud between Brian and Taskmaster finally came to an end as Brian couldn't allow him to live after he brutally maimed Betsy. As we see this inspires him to pick up the mantle of Captain Britain once again.

Betsy's short stint as Captain Britain ends in disaster and her road to recovery is a long one. This is the beginning of a very long story arc for her, one that in many ways took a very long detour with the body-swap years (which included many excellent stories), that is finally culminating now as she is once again Captain Britain.

[Odd Rödney]

Happy New Year to the most magical mutant family! I think it'll be a stellar year for them, with that Captain Britain book on the horizon.

[Panic]

A few years ago I gave a brief review of the Davis/Delano run in the Betsy thread:

It's good, great even, but Alan Davis is just starting out as a writer and it's not as smooth as it could be (not helped by Delano and Davis not meshing). I really like the character interactions, Brian and Betsy in particular - they're both stubborn and prone to arguing with one another like family has a tend to, and I think that works really well. The art is very good, and it is still very much in the British tradition of comics like Judge Dredd where not everyone is idealised to the point of physical perfection; when Alan moved to US Marvel he adopted the standard good=pretty housestyle, which I do like but which is less interesting.

It's not as epic as Moore's run, nor as well plotted, but I think it is warmer in tone - the relationships between the characters get more focus, and they feel... sweeter? Maybe that's not the right word, but I think they are a little more positive in nature. Betsy's relationship with Gabriel has more nice moments in it than Moore showed in her relationship with Tom Lennox, for example. I kind of think of Alan Moore and Alan Davis being like the Lennon and McCartney of British comics, with Moore being a little more cynical and having a strong line of black humour running through his work, whilst Davis was more optimistic and light-hearted. One theme that carries on through both runs is that whenever a character gets cocky or overconfident the narrative slaps them down for their hubris - from Saturnyne labeling CB' as an amateur for his lack of effectiveness against the Fury, only to watch as the cybiote totally ignores her Avante Guard's attack ("welcome to the amateur hour Your Whyness") to Brian being unceremoniously flushed out into the sewers in the middle of his big, threatening speech to the Vixen, the CB strip really enjoys pulling the rug out from under characters' feet just when they feel they're on top. As I hate posturing and speech-making I love this aspect of the strip.

There are some awkward bits, imo: Davis seems to be all over the place when it comes to continuity involving Brian's powers. Moore moved Brian's powers from the costume to being innate, and whilst I think that itself was wrong as only the powers of the staff were transferred to the costume (I think - it's all very confusing!), it does mean that the amplifier costume shouldn't do anything for Slaymaster, not even amplify his strength. Then we have the revelation that Brian and Betsy are of Otherworld descent and that the power lies within them... but that doesn't jibe with CB's continuity at all. You can come up with ways to make that work, but it requires a lot of mental gymnastics and adding scenes and motivations that were not shown.

And that leads us to Betsy and her powers. Alan has her grow from tactical support like she was in the Moore run, to having an aggressive power in her own right - the psycho-blast. This pretty much replaces her precog ability for the rest of the run as her ability to see the future just isn't used. She never says she has lost the ability, but effectively it is gone until Claremont moves her to the X-Men.

As for the psycho-blast, it's cool to see her take out a room full of soldiers, and it's a great moment to show how she's grown, but it's also problematic due to limitations of the comic. Alan's given her an attack that can't be blocked or evaded by most enemies - it's essentially a one shot, one kill kind of deal; this is true of most telepaths in comics, and comic-book audiences want fights to be long, drawn out, and visually exciting. Consequently the next time there is trouble at the manor house Betsy has her powers dampened, because it's a Captain Britain book and you don't want Betsy one-shotting every threat that walks through the door. Even in a Betsy-centric book you don't want that, because it is boring. That's why I think the psychic knife/martial arts change was smart, because it is visual and allows for big fight sequences.

She gets a great sequence where she destroys Kaptain Briton, and it's amazing that Alan fits that in as essentially a b-story in a comic that is only 11 pages in length. I'm not sure what's going on with her powers at that point as they seem to have shifted from telepathic attack to psychokinetic, with KB's body seeming to rot at an exaggerated rate after death, and I'm not sure Alan gave it much thought.



As I said, it's a great sequence, but it's one of those scenes where a character displays a level of power needed for a very cool moment, but then has to backslide a little in future storylines. It's like the Neo at the end of the first Matrix film - he's totally unbeatable and can do anything, but when they decided they were going to do sequels he suddenly became a lot less impressive in order for them to have interesting fights. Alan does the same thing with Meggan, giving her undefined powers presumably greater than those of the title character, but then having to keep her in the background. For a lot of the characters it's one step forward, two steps back, which is what happens when a writer wants big victories and cool scenes but ends up painting himself into a corner. By the end of the book Captain Britain himself seems to have quietly lost his force-field (his costume gets shredded and he's shown bleeding after the warpie attack), presumably because it makes him too invulnerable and is difficult to write around, and I think if you're finding the main character has more powers than you can deal with, adding extra power to his supporting cast is... ambitious? I think this is a big danger when writing about super-powered characters and nearly all characters suffer from it at one time or another. I think the run works really well, but I don't know how successfully Alan would have juggled the characters in a strip with only 11 pages to play with a month. It must have been very challenging to write.

Anyway, it's one of my favourite books, and it really managed to give Betsy some time to shine. It's pretty amazing what was done with Betsy considering her pre-Moore appearances were not very interesting.

[JB]

Happy New Year to the most magical mutant family! I think it'll be a stellar year for them, with that Captain Britain book on the horizon.

Happy New Year OR! May you have a blessed and stellar year yourself.

A few years ago I gave a brief review of the Davis/Delano run in the Betsy thread:

Excellent review and frankly I somewhat envy your ability to put into words what it is you're feeling and thinking. I agree with everything you said above and it helps me further define and pinpoint the things I'm feeling as well. I appreciate that and you. It's been a revelation for me, going through this early journey with the Braddocks and then revisiting it half a dozen times already. These stories are like pieces to a puzzle that I didn't even know I was missing.

[JB]

All grown up Miss Margaret Braddock by pychopat2.



Excalibur tribute by "stkosen", Aurora García & Diana Fernández

[CGAR]

I kind of wish they would just go with both of them as Captain Britain and Betsy can drop off whenever she wants; Hickman always wrote the twins into alternate reality Illuminati groups.

They should try it in 616.

[JB]

I kind of wish they would just go with both of them as Captain Britain and Betsy can drop off whenever she wants; Hickman always wrote the twins into alternate reality Illuminati groups.

They should try it in 616.

It's a great idea and I support it completely. Someone made an image on twitter I think showing them as co-captains and I loved it. She and Linda did it together and Betsy is all about changing the usual status quo (removing the need for an ominversal maj. etc.). That could also lead to a mix of Brian and Betsy Corps.