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popculturebuffet · 5 years ago

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Excalibur #1: “The Accolade of Betsy Braddock”

As the magic of Krakoa seeps into Otherworld and puts Morgan Le Fay in a genocidal mood, Betsy Braddock tries to find her place in the new world while also dealing with her idiot brother.. but you know instead of Paul Rudd she has a reality warping man child with mental instablity. Meanwhile Apocalypse adopts an unprouncable name and a new misson statment as a wizard man, Gambit suppresses the urge to kill him and Goldballs tries a new somehow even worse name out.

Welcome back. Due to yesterday being kinda nuts, and the last review being more taxing than planned, this one is kinda late. But better late than never as dawn of X continues it’s win streak with Excalibur, back and better than ever. And thankfully this time, the exposition is all really easy to bake in as we go compared to my last few reviews, so without any delay, it’s time to forge the sword once again. This is Tini Howard and Marcus To’s Excalibur.

We open on a long info page revealing that when Xavier gave his big “While you Slept the world changed” or, to put it more acuratley “All I wanted was to love you , to help you to save your asses and all you did was either try to kill us, look away while others did, or make a token effort at best to help. Fuck you, we’re taking what’s ours bitches. “ speech, Apocalypse gave his own, in a sense telling Humankind “Magic is ours to take back now.... “

We cut to the present where Morgan Le Fay is in Otherworld, basically the court of king arthur, the source of Captain Britan’s power, and a realm created by the british public’s collective subconscious. I don’t get it either. But Morgan Le Fay, Arthur’s evil sister and long time pain in the ass of the Avengers in the 616, has taken over in his absence and nearly drowns one of her minons upon finding something in her well.. a weed affecting it.. and since the x-men have a plant motif and apocalypse made a big MINE NOW speech to the rest of the world.. it’s easy to see Krakoa’s involved. Nice work Apocalypse, your on Krakoa one week and you’ve already pissed off the neighbors.

After the opening titles, we cut to Braddock Academy, basically the british version of Xavier’s and Avengers Academy and unsurprisingly a pet project of Brian’s. Since the school is also the Braddock ancestral home, Betsy’s been crashing here while sorting things out after getting her original body back. Yeah for those of you not that familiar with Psylocke, which I am not but know at least this much, was body swapped with the Assian Kwannon. That was reversed shortly before Dawn of X, which in order to help smooth the transition has given each their own starring roll. And really it is an intresting thing to explore: Betsy spent 5 or 6 years in a body that was not her own, living her life, loving, and doing bloody awful things in the name of the greater good. So it’s no suprise being put back in her old body after all this time and the implications of having basically lived her life in someoen elses skin with the other person now having it back and being understandably pissed about it, having only not gotten it back sooner due to dying of the Legacy Virus. Thankfully this issue dives deep into it and we’ll explore it more as we go.

The child loudly complaning is Margaret, Brian and Meggan’s daughter. Margret is one of the few things Mark Guggenheim’s run on X-Men did that was all that intresting as, probably thanks to a combination of her dad’s magical man juice and her mom’s already shifting genetics, can already talk in full sentences and comprehend stuff at the tender age of 1. Betsy is of course heading to Krakoa but much like Kitty last week, she’s unsure. But it still works: Kitty was unsure because Krakoa, for whatever reason, basically rejected her and staying would just make her a ghost again. For Betsy, she’s gone from living in a stranger’s body and back again and is understandably frazzled and unsure of tommorow.

But as Brian escorts her to the portal on his property, a touch I like as Meggan is a mutant herself and Brian is a longtime ally so it makes perfect sense to put a portal down there both for his mutant students to depart and for Meggan to visit without having to leave her husband behind, he encourages her. This is something I love about the issue: most x-runs I see betsy in kinda forget she has a brother and Uncanny X-Force turned him into an asshole. Here, their close bond and past, she was a supporting character in his book first after all, is shown beautifully as Brian , while happy to have her back, wants her to move on with her life and knows she’ll do great.

As also seen above Betsy wishes their brother could join them though Brian isn’t so sure. I didn’t really get into Jamie in the other review, and i’m pleased as punch to get here there. Jamie is their older brother.. and also has schizophrenia and the power of god, two tastes that instead create a rancid punch that threatns all life as Jamie dosen’t think anything else is real. Despite this, Betsy wishes he’d be there to see it and hopes it’d make him better. After all if Apocalypse can find a new start here why not him? They literally have worse people on the island.

Speaking of the devil, after Betsy makes her awkward entrance, we cut to Apocalypse who’s of course standing out a window watching everything meancingly, because even when he’s on the good guy side and no longer plotting horribly Darwinian crimes.. he’s still a super villian deep down and old habits die hard. He’s visited by Trinary, a fairly new x-character introduced in X-Men Red, she’s a technopath, as well as one of the brain trust running Krakoa’s computer network. Also as you can see apocapse want’s to be called by his weird Krakoan name.. i’m just going to stick with Apocalypse as I assume it’s the same thing and even Tini Howard herself has flat out admitted she dosen’t have a translation for it and just scripts him as Apocalypse still. He also gets dagger eyes from everyone’s faviorite Cajun as he makes his villianous rant.

Remy does however have more reason than most to hate the man: He was one of Apocalypse’s horseman once: he attempted to go under cover, but underestimated how good the horseman process was and would up having to go to Mr.Sinister of all people to get himself back to normal. So yeah, having the guy who turned you into a monster that tried to kill your future wife, KINDA makes you not willing to have a ham sammich with the guy. Trinary came to fetch Apocalypse to check out a new gate that opened.. to otherworld.. the problem is Morgan sealed it, and thus Apocalypse , not being a moron, decides they need “a champion” to break it. And since Hercules is on a three month no pants cruise of the bahamas right now, he’s going to have to be less literal about it. Meanwhile MOrrigan is an asshole to a coven of sorcerers decreeing that they failed her by.. letting mutants exist. Yeah the one weakspot I have with the book thus far is the opening villianess: Morgan Le Fay simply isn’t that intresting and while she’s had a good storyline or too here she’s pissy because.. mutants found magic again. It isn’ t a terrible motive but her steroptical villaness “take my anger out out my minons” stuff is just tiresome and not at all entertaining. She’s the right level of threat for this book, just not fleshed out about enough and is the one real dry spot in this issue.

Back on Krakoa, Betsy runs into Kwannon and it’s.. about as awkard as you’d expect as you can see.. and really isn’t helping Betsy’s unease. And I actually, despite not having read a ton of comics with Betsy in them get why she’s so uneasy besides the obvious problems of having the woman whose face you stole around all the time: she has no idea what to do. Everyone else on Krakoa, for the most part at least, is fully on board with the new plan, rairing to go. Sure some understandably object to their old foes being there… but theirs a sense of optimism and wonder and happy.. that just dosen’t go with someone who has so much blood on her hands she looks like she took a guys heart out with her bear hands, is in a body that hasn’t been home in years, and has to look the person who’s body she stole, intentional or not, and didn’t put any effort into bringing back from the dead or once she was back giving her her body back in the face. She’s just not in a great place. Thankfully even if her old pal Jubilee dosen’t pick up on this she does get Betsy could probably use some booze. Unfortunatley pressing matters keep her from finding out if krakoa can pour mimosa’s directily into her mouth via some kind of hose bush:

It’s your pal and mine goldballs, one of the five mutants able to raise the dead (but the car is fine). Or Egg I guess but I’m not calling him that. For one goldballs is a far better name just for the ridiculous factor. For another, just call yourself goldeggs. It’s still dumb but egg is somehow dumber. Even add a Z if you want no one cares. Your one of Krakoa’s own personal jesus’. You could rip a person’s throat out and no one would care… though granted that’s also because death is now meaningless for mutants. But yeah as you can see he has a problem and it’s Jamie.

And yup Jamie is back, alive and while not trying to kill everyone, is still kind of a weird asshole. Also I do not want to know what he did in there but I presume he fucked at least one person. Maybe he made them out of thin air, maybe they just came in. Maybe Sinister decided why not. Either way he’s fouling up the pods, and soon puts his foot in his mouth by saying Betsy’s classic look reminds him of better times right after their parents died. However in a nice little character bit he quickly apologizes, showing he has genuinely changed thanks to his resurrection on some level, and admits that the real reason is because they were all together then and all happy. As for why he’s a nusiance, it’s simple: while ressurectees DO need time to recover from you know, the whole being dead thing, it usually takes about ten minutes for the shock to wear off. And while there’s clearly no shock left Jamie is just farting around. Betsy’s response is to treat him like a ten year old.

It..actually works.. but unfortunately Jamie has about as much intrest in seeing Brian as Brian does in seeing him. And I see why: before he went insane, Jamie was still a supervillian and still hunted brian out of jealousy, while Jamie.. is just kind of a dick. He’s like Krakoa’s own discord: he’s not an apocalyptic godlike threat to the world any more but he will fuck with you just for cheap laughs. Betsy tries using her telepathy to force him to go but Fabio stops her, as it upsets the eggs apparently and decides to drag Brian here, something even Jamie can see as a bad idea. And when the naked man whose been back for all of 5 minutes can see the holes in your plan, maybe you rethink things. But I also get why Betsy is trying so hard at this: She has almost no stablity left and Brian has been her rock, past and present. But Jamie is still her brother and now has the potetinal to do good and while still a loon, is no longer a genocidal madman and is stubbornly refusing to reconcile because he’s decided to swear off humanity. She just wants her family whole and her brothers not trying to kill each other, but is in too bad a state to recognize they need time and may NEVER get along. it’s how it is with family. Dosen’t mean she has to choose one or the other. Brian wouldn’t make her and frankly Jamie isn’t dumb enough to try that. Thankfully apocalypse interupts Betsy’s extrodinarly bad plan to ask her about the gate.. and point out that Brian himself would be the best way and that, even as a half human, he’d be welcome here in this crisis. He probably get some leeway since apparently the captain britan thing makes him half otherworlder and he is a cosmic champion versus just some joe who wants to enjoy a paradise he hasn’t earned thorugh hard work or nearly dying a bunch.

Betsy heads to Braddock Manor where Brian is already planning on going to Otherworld to fix this and is naturally not all that inclined to listen to Apocalypse. So as seen above Betsy goes with plan B: She’s going with him even if it’s a trap because fighting alongside her brother doing the right thing is better than moping around an island trying to dodge Kwannon. This also gives me a nice opprotunity to bring up Betsy’s approach to their former enemies. She’s far more accepting than the rest, even Logan outright objected, but I also easily get why: She’s former black ops, having served on one version of X-Force and lead the one right after it. She understands the need for pragmatism and is a pragmatic person. It’s probably why she’s so willing to forgive Jamie: yeah he did terrible things, but at his worst he was mentally ill, and as established by X-Men #1, Krakoa has terrific healthcare and telepaths and empaths to help him work through his issues. He may not WANT to of course, but he’s more likely to and him slowly improving in paradise is better than her brother just being dead to her as a genocidal mad man. They encounter Morgan who, being basically a 50′s disney villian, expects Brian as otherworld’s champion to start drowning his own sister.. because fuck subtley.

Back on Krakoa we meet up with Rouge and Gambit. As a tiny bit of exposition for you lapsed ex fans the two are now married. The two reconciled in the excellent Rouge and Gambit mini series, hashing out their long and messy history. Then X-Men gold happened.. see there was SUPPOSED to be a wedding of Colosus and Kitty.. but their reconcilation was so terribly forced no one wanted the wedding and editoral had gambit, of course, steal The Wedding. So the two are in a happy place, though Rouge dosen’t want to use her power dampener on paradise, understandable as said dampener is a repurposed anti-mutant thing and it’d be like brining a pile of nazi gold as your present to a jewish wedding. Rouge then decides , as shown above ot bring up the idea of having kids but before Gambit can say “of course”, Trinary summons them for apocalypse. Apocalypse needs Rouge as he figures her absoprtion power might allow her to serve as a gateway, and a way to retrieve Betsy. Remy, Understandably, dosen’t want her to do this But Rogue is willing to take the risk to save her friend. Remy , now tenativley on board, suggestings bringing in Jubes since she was the last one to talk to Betsy, but A-Train is way ahead of them.

Naturally, having talked to her all of one sentence, she has nothing. Also curiously apparently Apocalypse wanted Jubes to bring her son, adopted if you didn’t knokw about him, Shogo with her but shockingly she didn’t want to bring her son to see the scary blue man who had no trouble trying to do a murder on a child when she was younger. However Apocalypse really needs her as a bridge between minds: Rouge will touch the portal to break through it and Gambit will keep watch and is all too happy to. As a side note i’d lvoe to see apocalypse babysit “So you see small infant, after that I cleaved the flesh off his skull and put said skull on a pile as a warning to my enimies. You always want to get the flesh nice and clean off.. .the bits create more of a smell and you need to think of the smell. Speaking of the smell I think someone needs a changie!”

I would too, but i’m pretty sure Remy would be a ground smear, but I think Apocaypse does respect his willingess to try anyway even if he dosen’t take gambit serious as a threat.

Back in crazy magic lady town Morgan is slowly corrupting Brian, and despite Betsy’s best attempts to stop it, is quickly turned into a warped dark knight who’s trying to shove the amulet of right in her face for some reason.

But with Apocalypse plan in motion, she figures out what’s going on and destroys the portal.. unfortuantley for Rogue this causes to feel weird and then well.. this is the end result.

What exactly the fuck dosen’t even begin to describe this.

Back in King Arthur’s House, Trinary’s words not mine, Betsy tries to kick Morgan’s ass but Dark Brian blocks her… before the above happens.. and it’s clear WHY he was cramming the amulet down her throat... Morrigan has full control of him, he can’t do anything to stop her.. but he can pass it on so she can hopefully stop her or , if he can’t be freed, destroy him before he harms anyone else. He sends her back to the real world as Betsy wails> This scene is damn powerful, as we’ve seen before Brian was one of the few people who understood she was going through some shit and offered her his full support... and now he’s gone, no idea how to rescue him, leaving a wife and daughter behind.

Back on Krakoa things arne’t much better wirth Rouge int he flower cocoon I showed earlier and Gambit ready to blow Apocalypse’s head off.. and as you can see Apocalypse is like “Fine i’ll come back from it stronger, but can you please wait? We’ve got a lot of shit going down. But before Apocalypse can pound Remy into a Cajun Corpse, the assembled group is distracted by a returning Betsy.

And so we end on Betsy, now fully crowned once again as Captain Britain, wondering what the fuck is up with Rogue. We get a quick Epilogue where one of the covern from earlier joins a cult based on the same one related to apocayplypse and we’re out. ‘Final Thoughts: Excalibur #1 is a good start. While some things don’t quite gel, Otherworld isn’t explained at all for those who have never heard of it (raises hand), it feels fresh and makes me invested in Betsy’s struggle, the tragedy Brian goes through, Remy’s fury and Apocalypse, who for once gets to serve as a wise sage instead of a warrior and it’s an intresting role for him, as well as him clearly being set up to mentor Betsy as she rises higher than ever before with her new role. It makes you want to see what comes next and the only real drawback is that Jubilee is basically a tagalong while Rictor is entirely absent, but both I suspect will be fixed with time. As fhte first part of a story, and the first Dawn of X Comic to be part of an arc since the two mini series that launched it, it works well setting things up. As I said the comic suffers from a lack of exposition on Otherworld and from a weak villain, but it’s not enough to distract from this fun, well crafted fantasy and I can’t wait to see what comes next. Until next time, hail to the queen baby.

#excalibur #dawn of x #captain britain #psylocke #betsy braddock #rogue #gambit #jubilee #trinary #goldballs #jamiebraddock #otherworld #analysis of x

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