{"id":8877,"date":"2023-03-29T22:23:31","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T21:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8877"},"modified":"2023-03-29T22:23:31","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T21:23:31","slug":"betsy-braddock-captain-britain-2-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8877","title":{"rendered":"Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain #2 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>BETSY BRADDOCK: CAPTAIN BRITAIN #2<\/strong>
\n“Two Captains, One Country”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Tini Howard<\/strong>
\nArtist: Vasco Georgiev<\/strong>
\nColourist: Erick Arciniega<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Ariana Maher<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Sarah Brunstad<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Captain Britain and Captain Carter fight the Furies.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-4.\u00a0<\/strong>The Captain Britain Corps repel Morgan Le Fey and her Furies.<\/em><\/p>\n

This continues directly from the end of issue #1. Basically, Morgan’s plan is to find her own, more pliable Captain Britain and use her as a vehicle to promote her own vision of Britain. Last issue, she tried recruiting Captain Pretani of Earth-5411 who, being a member of the Captain Britain Corps, had no interest whatsoever.<\/p>\n

Morgan presumably retreats, not because the Furies aren’t capable of doing serious damage to the Corps – they evidently are – but because this fight isn’t achieving her wider goal, which is to find a stooge. We’ll see later that the Furies are unimpressed by her priorities.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lizzie Braddock of Earth-76.<\/strong> Earth-76 gets a number here for the first time. It’s the setting of the 2022 miniseries\u00a0Captain Carter\u00a0<\/em>by Jamie McKelvie, Marika Cresta and Erick Arciniega. For present purposes, suffice to say that it’s the Steve Rogers story of a World War II national hero being revived from suspended animation in the present day, but with Peggy Carter in the Steve Rogers role, and with Britain rather than America.<\/p>\n

Lizzie Braddock is a major supporting character in\u00a0Captain Britain<\/em>. As stated here, she does indeed work for S.T.R.I.K.E., and she is telekinetic. In the original series, she expresses doubts about whether she got her job by family connections, rather than it being stated outright, and other characters certainly express that view.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. Thoughtfully, for anyone who might be motivated to go and read the original on Marvel Unlimited, this is a largely spoiler-free recap of\u00a0Captain Carter<\/em>, to the point where Mothermind is apparently unaware of plot developments past issue #2 (somewhat undermined by the decision to use the cover art from\u00a0Captain Carter<\/em> #4, which shows her on a wanted poster). The image of Lizzie comes from the cover of\u00a0Captain Carter<\/em> #2.<\/p>\n

It’s not entirely clear why this particular Betsy Braddock isn’t a Captain Britain. Perhaps it would screw up the Multiverse too much if\u00a0every<\/em> Betsy had to be a Captain Britain and none of them were available to be just plain old regular Psylockes – but it seems to follow that there are plenty of worlds without a Captain Britain.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-8.\u00a0<\/strong>Morgan Le Fey approaches Lizzie Braddock.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Rather tired of getting snuck up on in my own home.”<\/strong> Referencing\u00a0Captain Carter<\/em> #3.<\/p>\n

“Brian had been saying mad things for years…”<\/strong> The\u00a0Captain Carter<\/em> miniseries is vague about the wider Braddock family, but does make clear that they’re dead, and strongly implies that they were murdered. According to Lizzie in issue #2, “I lost my family a decade ago. My parents were killed. My brother Brian has been missing ever since. Explosion at our old house. Cause unknown.”<\/p>\n

I’m fairly sure that the stuff about Brian talking about his encounters with mystical Otherworld types, and Lizzie dismissing him as mad, is all new. Lizzie’s dialogue here seems to imply that her parents were still around after Brian disappeared, which would contradict\u00a0CC\u00a0<\/em>#2.<\/p>\n

PAGES 9-12.\u00a0<\/strong>Captain Britain, Rachel and Captain Carter defeat Morgan Le Fey.<\/em><\/p>\n

Morgan escapes back to Earth through the magic ritual explained in the following data page.<\/p>\n

PAGE 13.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page: S.T.R.I.K.E. members Alison Double and Pete Wisdom report to Betsy on their infiltration of Coven Akkaba (which we see later in the issue). This is a little confusing since it’s a different S.T.R.I.K.E. from the one in the A-plot – the mainstream, Earth-616 version.<\/p>\n

The Hanes Taliesin<\/em>.<\/strong> This is a 16th century account of the life of Taliesin, who was a (genuine) 6th century Brittonic poet. The title just means “The Tale of Taliesin”. It\u00a0was written by Elis Gruffydd, and forms part of his\u00a0Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd<\/em>, which covers the history of the world from the Garden of Eden right up to 1552.<\/p>\n

The Hanes Telisin<\/em> does indeed tell a story about Taliesin starting as a boy named Gwion Bach, who stole the gift of magic – or wisdom, in the original – from his sorceress employer Ceridwen. Taliesin is not traditionally identified with Merlin but there are certainly parallels in the story – the idea of him actually being Merlin seems to originate from Gillian Bradshaw novels, though other modern fantasy writers had presented him and Merlin as related.<\/p>\n

“The Micro-Man.”<\/strong> Micromax, who was captured by Morgan last issue. The basic point here is that these magic rituals need mutant blood and Coven Akkaba don’t presently have enough of it.<\/p>\n

PAGES 14-15.\u00a0<\/strong>Morgan returns home.<\/em><\/p>\n

Morgan has decided to try her luck with Captain Carter, perhaps because she doesn’t have the psychic defences and the direct experience of Morgan.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Reuben warns Morgan that the Furies are warmongers who really don’t like being told to pull back. Morgan doesn’t seem especially interested in their views, but at least says she’ll keep it in mind.<\/p>\n

Coven Akkaba killed Pete Wisdom in\u00a0Excalibur<\/em> #21, and he was promptly resurrected.<\/p>\n

PAGES 16-17.\u00a0<\/strong>Captain Britain and Captain Carter talk.<\/em><\/p>\n

Betsy disavows any idea of representing the governmental institutions of the UK, but to the extent that she has any vision of Britishness, it seems to be a rather tourist-friendly olde worlde magicke one.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-23.\u00a0<\/strong>Morgan makes Captain Carter fight Captain Britain.<\/em><\/p>\n

Straightforward mind control angle. Betsy frees her with the good old psychic knife, a staple of the late 80s and 90s.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong>\u00a0Morgan unveils her Union Jack Furies.<\/em><\/p>\n

Okay, these things are cool.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. BETSY BRADDOCK: CAPTAIN BRITAIN #2 “Two Captains, One Country” Writer: Tini Howard Artist: Vasco Georgiev Colourist: Erick Arciniega Letterer: Ariana Maher Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen Editor: Sarah Brunstad COVER \/ PAGE 1. Captain Britain and Captain Carter fight the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8879,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8877\/revisions\/8879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}