Betsy Braddock: The Focused Totality of Appreciation 2024

[Mutant X]

I was reading X-treme X-men and how Betsy was treated really bothered me.
Not just because of her off-panel death, but how she was mentioned by other characters after this:

Screenshot 2024-01-04 122020.jpg

Screenshot 2024-01-04 122143.jpg

Do you guys think Claremont had some resentment over her because of Jim Lee?

Like, she was the most succeded representation of the changes Lee proposed for the franchise leading to CC removal.

Maybe CC was taking out his frustrations on Psylocke?

[JB]

I think that's correct. I thought it might have been issue #223 but that would have been odd because the artist was Kerry Gammil filling in...

Love those pages so much. Yeah I think that was the first time because she didn't have it in the Marvel UK books and there were only a handful of appearances before this one in the American books. I like the idea that it manifested while she was training herself to use cerebro.

I was reading X-treme X-men and how Betsy was treated really bothered me.
Not just because of her off-panel death, but how she was mentioned by other characters after this:

Screenshot 2024-01-04 122020.jpg

Screenshot 2024-01-04 122143.jpg

Do you guys think Claremont had some resentment over her because of Jim Lee?

Like, she was the most succeded representation of the changes Lee proposed for the franchise leading to CC removal.

Maybe CC was taking out his frustrations on Psylocke?

I don't know because his plan was to bring her back in her original body so he had more story of hers to tell, but wasn't allowed to resurrect her. Perhaps there would have been some insight on why Bishop said that. The others all had nice things to say about her.

As for Gambit, I always took that scene as him pretending to be aloof about it. In the panel just before he reacts in a genuine way when Vargas says she fought superbly. He frowns and is silent then talks like it's no big deal, poker face style. That's how I read it.

[Thirteen]

I was reading X-treme X-men and how Betsy was treated really bothered me.
Not just because of her off-panel death, but how she was mentioned by other characters after this:

Do you guys think Claremont had some resentment over her because of Jim Lee?

Like, she was the most succeded representation of the changes Lee proposed for the franchise leading to CC removal.

Maybe CC was taking out his frustrations on Psylocke?

Psylocke's death early on in X-TEME X-MEN was meant to be temporary - and result in the removal of the Crimson Dawn stuff (and possibly return her to her original body) but was derailed by editorial edict of the time that deaths have some "permanence".


He got back round to it years later when editorial changed...after the attempt to bring Betts back as Bogan's mystery Shadow Telepath switched to Rachel in that story.

[JB]

Psylocke's death early on in X-TEME X-MEN was meant to be temporary - and result in the removal of the Crimson Dawn stuff (and possibly return her to her original body) but was derailed by editorial edict of the time that deaths have some "permanence".


He got back round to it years later when editorial changed...

Thanks for posting the link and images. This remains a sore spot for me that I'll probably never get over, haha. The first X-Men issue I ever read was Uncanny #225 from Fall of the Mutants and that's where my journey started. That rolled into the Outback era so I fell in love with Betsy then. I was just a kid searching back issue bins at comic shops collecting all of her appearances before FotM so that's the Betsy I grew up on. When the body change happened I thought it was very cool but it always felt a little "incorrect" to me. Do we know if Claremont has ever given any insight on what his plans for her were before he was taken off X-Men?

[CGAR]

That Alan Davis spread is so fucking beautiful.

[Uncanny X-Man]

Thanks for posting the link and images. This remains a sore spot for me that I'll probably never get over, haha. The first X-Men issue I ever read was Uncanny #225 from Fall of the Mutants and that's where my journey started. That rolled into the Outback era so I fell in love with Betsy then. I was just a kid searching back issue bins at comic shops collecting all of her appearances before FotM so that's the Betsy I grew up on. When the body change happened I thought it was very cool but it always felt a little "incorrect" to me. Do we know if Claremont has ever given any insight on what his plans for her were before he was taken off X-Men?

Unfortunately Claremont never really shared his plans for Betsy beyond what's already been discussed ie making her Bogan's pet telepath. It's also been said he wanted to get rid of the Crimson Dawn tattoo (which he did eventually) and restore her to her original body.

Then there's Claremont's OTHER, more recent plans following his Nightcrawler book which included revealing Bloody Bess as the original Elizabeth, the one that "got away" following her emergence from the Siege Perilous. I would certainly be curious to hear more about that although it sounds like Claremont might be missing a few issues from Nicieza's run explaining the body swap incident... just like Nicieza missed an issue of Claremont's original run explaining what had actually happened to Betsy post-Siege in the first place

[Uncanny X-Man]

That Alan Davis spread is so fucking beautiful.

It's amazing how Alan Davis is the GOAT for both original recipe Betsy and Asian Betsy. His versions are what my mind defaults to for so many characters.

[Hakka84]

There's also yet another Claremont that, for as much as he claimed he wanted Betsy Caucasian back, the moment he gets to write her in X-Men: The End (a title in which he should be free from canon constraints) Betsy is given the most Oriental/generic-Japan+Chinese-mesh costume ever (second only to her House of M, which I'm not 100% sure if he had a say in).

[MentalManipulator]

That Alan Davis spread is so fucking beautiful.

Stunning! Always loves his rendition of the X-Treme costume.

[CGAR]

Oh Betsy definitely did NOT need another body in Bloody Bess. IDK why CC keeps trying to make that trope happen.

[Rnap22]

I still think this costume would work for Betsy if the colors were similar to her disassembled costume. It’s simple, sexy and bad ass… I’m trying to recolor it now.

IMG_2814.jpg

[JB]

I was watching What If? season 2 yesterday and noted how Captain Carter basically took over the whole show... she's not exactly Captain Britain but I guess the writers were able to show how much you can do and how many different stories you can tell even with the patriotic, flag-wearing angle... and Peggy doesn't even have the magical/Otherworld add-ons in addition to the spy stuff Betsy has going on for her.

I ended up watching it yesterday and I totally agree with you. I was pleasantly surprised by how Carter was utilized. She elevated into more than an agent for the government. It reminded me of what Brevoort recently said, that he doesn't think "there's any particular drag on patriotic-themed characters." With the right creative team anything can be made to work. I'd love to see a new costume either way.

I was also thinking about what he said regarding the number of titles in the line, that it's "somewhat decided by the needs of the publishing division as a whole... we need to put out a certain overall number of titles, each one generating a needed profit margin..." If Marvel says we need 10+ X-titles it seems like a no-brainer for Betsy and everything that's been built around her to have a book. Theoretically her corner of the X-world could have 3 books imo. A classic superhero Excalibur team book grounded in England with spy stories and such. A high fantasy Otherworld book and even a Braddock Academy/young mutant book. It's like Deva has said in the past, they could a build a mini division of books with Betsy and Brian as the core.

I still think this costume would work for Betsy if the colors were similar to her disassembled costume. It’s simple, sexy and bad ass… I’m trying to recolor it now.

IMG_2814.jpg

I like it with the these colors a lot!

[Thirteen]

It's amazing how Alan Davis is the GOAT for both original recipe Betsy and Asian Betsy. His versions are what my mind defaults to for so many characters.

I śee that Alan Davis has done a version of the most recent Betsy as Captain Britain, but has he ever done the Disassembled era costume?



Sketch of Betts original run at Captain Britain that I haven't seen before. Interesting how toning down the wig changes the look a bit. Looks a bit too similar to Captain UK/Linda McQuillan at the time.

[JB]

I śee that Alan Davis has done a version of the most recent Betsy as Captain Britain, but has he ever done the Disassembled era costume?



Sketch of Betts original run at Captain Britain that I haven't seen before. Interesting how toning down the wig changes the look a bit. Looks a bit too similar to Captain UK/Linda McQuillan at the time.

I'm aching for an official Alan Davis cover of her. I love that they released that retro design sheet in the Captain Britain omnibus.

[Luckystar.]

Foxe talking a bit about Dead X-Men. A fun read while we wait:

Let’s see, that covers all the D-words in the headline except…oh yeah, Dead X-Men. This bad boy won’t debut until the end of the month, but I’m writing a four-issue mini-series spinning out of Kieron Gillen and RB Silva’s Rise of the Powers Of X, one of the epic bookends to the long-running Krakoan saga. The cast was briefly a bit of a secret, but a poorly kept one: Dazzler, Prodigy, Frenzy, Jubilee, and Cannonball, the newly elected X-Men who died at this summer’s Hellfire Gala, are back in a time-and-space-spanning adventure.

There’s very little I can reveal about this book just yet, but I take writing these five (along with our other two primary cast members, Rachel Summers and [redacted]) as a serious responsibility. Besides being some of my personal favorite mutants (DAZZLER), this is the team-that-almost-wasn’t. While the book was already planned and started before readers reacted to their shocking deaths, seeing the passion and interest X-fans had in seeing these five as X-Men lit a fire under all of us. I got a taste of writing them all alongside Steph Williams and Noemi Vittori in their X-Men Unlimited shorts, but the tone is vastly different—and the stakes much higher—in Dead X-Men. I’ve described the book as my chance to channel Claremont and Cockrum and I’m sticking to that vague-yet-accurate statement for now.

What I can say, though, is that the art team on the book is BONKERS. In addition to main covers and stunning new costumes designed by Lucas Werneck, we’ve got eight (!) artists contributing to our four issues. It’s an ambitious plan and I didn’t think our editor superstars Jordan White and Lauren Amaro would want to wrangle all of these moving pieces, but it’s worked out, knock on wood, exactly as I hoped.

My Dark X-Men collaborator Jonas Scharf kicks us off, with Jean Grey’s Bernard Chang appearing in every issue and Astonishing Iceman’s Vincenzo Carratù doing the bulk of #1. Fan-favorite Peter V. Nguyen (who contributed a Wolverine backup) and my X-Men Unlimited partner Guillermo Sanna join us for #2, before Lynne Yoshii (also X-Men Unlimited), Javier Pina (X-Men), and David Baldeon (X-Factor) loop in for #3. Bringing us home on #4 are David, Vincenzo, and Bernard. Frank Martin colors the whole thing, and it’s been a huge thrill seeing his unifying take on these very different artists. This was an extremely rad instance of everyone we asked and hoped for lining up, and it’s making for a really heartfelt tribute to the Krakoan era as a whole.
https://buttondown.email/Steve_Foxe/...ew-andspiders/