Betsy Braddock: Psylocke Appreciation 2018

[Izanami]

It's my least favorite Psylocke relationship. I've had enough and he needs to leave her alone!

I'm excited she gets a cover though. Hopefully, she has some good story beats aside from being around the guy with wings.

I see it less as it being Angel and more about Writers and Editors not knowing what to do with him besides cashing in on 90's nostalgia. This is why I want to see Angel outside the X-books for a bit while Betsy grows as a character in UXM or any other book she is present in. That way it would serve both characters right. They can explore different avenues without being tied down with relationship drama cashing in on things that no longer appeal.

[Psyknight]

Betsy Braddock is Psylocke.

I’m not understanding why SHE needs to give up the code name she’s had for 30 + years.

Psylocke not being Asian means she can’t have that code name?

I could’t agree more.

Lovely cover. LOL, what the frak happened to Warren? Poor boy.

Deep purple hair, lavender hair, don’t care. So long as it’s not that barely purpleish black mess, i’m fine with it.

[Psyknight]

Pretty cover,but otherwise,nothing really interesting.

I kind of agree. I’m still hopeful for Uncanny, but this is...not appetizing, to put it kindly.

[CGAR]

I can’t with some fans *eye roll*

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LoganAlpha should be happy about some Warren/Betsy panel time.

Here’s hoping ����

[Psyknight]

I wish people would let go of the lavender hair=White dark purple=Asian idea dichotomy. The shade of purple varied in both bodies.

[CGAR]

Xtreme Xmen is a great example

[Psyknight]

Xtreme Xmen is a great example

Yep and the mini is another. The Otherworld Arch too. When they released preview pics of that scene where she wakes up in Otherworld someone insisted she had to be in her old body because the color and style looked similar to how it looked in that flashback in X-treme X-men, but nope she was still Asian. In fact, the hair on the White body that Jamie created doesn’t really look lighter than Asian Psylocke’s did in those issues.

[Shadowcat]

I...don’t care for the cover. I loved the relationship when it first started, but the writers dropped the ball big time. Let Betsy re-acclimate herself to her new status. This has to have some affect on her psyche.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

I'm being cautious CGAR, there's nothing wrong with Warren/Betsy just as long as they don't have them go through the same storylines over and over again...unless this storyline leads to something for both...getting back to their old original selves or something, as Warren has the feathered wings and he has the metal ones at the moment so...

[Izanami]

I...don’t care for the cover. I loved the relationship when it first started, but the writers dropped the ball big time. Let Betsy re-acclimate herself to her new status. This has to have some affect on her psyche.

Same. It was a nice relationship but I would love for them to see other people, specifically characters who are not mutants. Not a fan of AngelxBetsy, I prefer other pairings. Is there anything relationship wise you would like to see for Betsy in the future Shadowcat?

[Shadowcat]

Same. It was a nice relationship but I would love for them to see other people, specifically characters who are not mutants. Not a fan of AngelxBetsy, I prefer other pairings. Is there anything relationship wise you would like to see for Betsy in the future Shadowcat?

Someone new, or someone like Alistaire Stewart. Someone who can take the focus on that co-dependent relationship.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

It's only been co-dependent lately because that's all that it's been allowed to be, with a good storyline it can be so much better...Betsy has seen other people over the last several years remember...none of those relationships worked out very well remember...

[MetalPsyc]

Nice cover. But I kinda miss the sash. In a sense, it gives her more dynamic IMO.

Honestly, I pretty much don't care if she's drawn like her previous-self. Most artist drew her ambiguous enough to be either Asian or White anyway. As long as the tone of her skin is white enough (like the picture above) I'm okay with the straight and dark purple hair (her hair should have more volume tho).

Plus, it will give more reason to give Kwannon much different look from Betsy (black hair, more slanty eyes, darker skin, etc).

[Drey]

Agreed. With the way marvel ages up and down characters now. I ignore the Stuff Claremont tried to retcon her being a badass from the start. So all the CB stuff, and New Mutants, then Uncanny up until 256 was the real her. No need for a swap if she was a badass lol.

Haha, I can understand that lol. I'm just going to chalk it up to basic self-defense she had to learn, but wasn't that proficient at it. During her fight with Sabretooth, she did hurl some hefty weights at him and even grabbed a knife to attack him while she was already weak from cracked ribs (Colossus fell on her the previous issue), falling through a sky glass window, and her powers were weakened due to the psychic overload from Cerebro.

And it was great to see that when she went up against him a second time while at 100%, she easily fried his brain.

Synne took her at 24, during one of the Red Skulls attacks on Britain.

But who knows now lol.

Thanks. And yeah nowadays ages don't really matter lol. They all get retconned.

I'm sick of her and Warren, and her and Fandumbex...

I hope they do get more consistent with her appeaarances.

Fantomex never did anything for me character-wise since his introduction in Morrison's New X-men. I'd take AoA Sabretooth over him and I wasn't a fan of that relationship either. As for Warren and Betsy, it's sad because I used to love them together. When I first started reading comic books, the Crimson Dawn LS #1 and #2 were a couple of my first comic books. They were 2nd to Scott and Jean, IMO. I was happy they reconciled in Remender's Uncanny X-Force and even loved the Dark Angel Saga. After killing Warren and bringing him back as a blank slate, I began losing interest and shortly after I took a hiatus from comics. I know snippets of Bunn's Uncanny X-men regarding The Apocalypse Wars and it sounds kinda meh and then Soule had a chance to do something with them in his Astonishing X-men run and nothing so I'm kinda over it now.

They feel stagnant right now. Or at least Warren does. Someone needs to do something with him that doesn't involve Apocalypse or transformations. Let him have his Angel and Archangel forms, without Archangel's personality (though it should be gone as X got rid of it) maybe some healing abilities I dunno, and be done with it. Move on to new stories. Maybe down the road they can reunite but they need to stand alone first because I'm on Warpocalypse overload right now and it's annoying.

As for Betsy's hair, I'm gonna pretend that she dyes her hair different shades of purple/lavender.

[Panic]

Thoughts on the Davis/Delano run on Captain Britain?

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.