{"id":8997,"date":"2023-04-29T19:43:27","date_gmt":"2023-04-29T18:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8997"},"modified":"2023-04-29T19:43:27","modified_gmt":"2023-04-29T18:43:27","slug":"betsy-braddock-captain-britain-3-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8997","title":{"rendered":"Betsy Braddock, Captain Britain #3 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 #3<\/strong>
\n“The Captain We Deserve”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Tini Howard<\/strong>
\nArtist: Vasco Georgiev<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Erick Arciniega<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Ariana Maher<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Sarah Brunstad<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1<\/strong>. The Fury as “Captain Britain”, with Morgan Le Fey behind him, and Betsy in chains, in front of a cheering crowd. Nothing very much like this happens in the issue, but it’s kind of the result that Morgan is hoping for.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong>\u00a0Brian and Meggan leave Betsy to babysit Maggie.<\/em><\/p>\n

Considering that the Manor was moved to Cornwall in issue #1 and they’re going to see a show in London, they’re either planning to fly there in theatre clothes, or they’ve got a portal somewhere. Maybe there’s still a Krakoan gate they’re allowed to use, or maybe Brian just has something connected with Otherworld.<\/p>\n

Brian seems to be hinting that he agrees with the criticisms that Betsy doesn’t spend enough time among actual British people instead of dealing with Otherworld stuff.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-4.<\/strong> Betsy asks her counterparts about Morgan Le Fey.<\/em><\/p>\n

The first alt-Captain Britain to speak is\u00a0Elspeth Braddock<\/strong> of Earth-13059. She’s the vaguely sorcery-themed one. The other is Queen Elizabeth III<\/strong>, the monarch of the world that Betsy visited in\u00a0Excalibur<\/em> vol 4 #17.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong>\u00a0Brian calls for help.<\/em><\/p>\n

Brian seems to assume that the attacking Fury\u00a0is<\/em> an alternate Captain Britain, and wants Betsy to rein it in. Considering that the Corps includes swans and dinosaurs, this isn’t an unreasonable assumption.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-11.<\/strong> Betsy, Brian and Meggan fight the Fury “Captain Britain”.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Created by the notorious Mad Jim Jaspers…”<\/strong> The original Fury debuted in\u00a0the Captain Britain story in\u00a0Marvel Super-Heroes<\/em> #387. “Mad Jim Jaspers” is specifically the Jim Jaspers variant from that particular Earth (Earth-238, if you care), and not the version of Jaspers that we’ve seen in Otherworld in recent years, who’s apparently some sort of amalgam or hybrid of other versions of the character.<\/p>\n

“They have two traits. They kill super heroes. They never stop.”<\/strong> This is indeed the Fury’s schtick in his early appearances.<\/p>\n

“They established … three laws…”<\/strong> This is another echo of the three laws of Krakoa<\/p>\n

This, of course, is one of the Furies that Morgan Le Fey had painted in the British flag at the end of the previous issue. For some reason it seems determined to “apprehend” Brian, even though Morgan’s plan last issue was mainly about replacing Betsy as Captain Britain. Presumably there’s a reason for this plan, but it’s not terribly clear what it is. Another possibility is that the Fury is simply distracted by its outstanding original mission to kill him, since it shifts to trying to kill him.<\/p>\n

Rather oddly, it’s Brian as Captain Avalon who seems to be doing the public superheroing here, rather than Betsy as Captain Britain. One might reasonably ask quite why they’re in these respective roles when Betsy’s main interest seems to be in Otherworld affairs.<\/p>\n

Betsy’s parting comment to Brian seems inexplicably bitchy.<\/p>\n

PAGE 12.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. Another extract from “The Reflector”, previously seen in issue #1. It’s hard to tell whether we’re supposed to understand this as a right-wing mainstream news source (the name seems to be intended to echo the centre-left Mirror<\/em> newspaper) or as some sort of hard-right crackpot outlet along the lines of GB News (as the complaint about “the media’s pro-mutant spin” might suggest).<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-16.<\/strong>\u00a0Betsy and Rachel meet with Pete Wisdom and Faiza Hussain<\/em><\/p>\n

News UK.<\/strong> Presumably meant to be some sort of cable news channel, but it’s actually the current trading name of the publisher of The Times <\/em>and\u00a0The Sun<\/em> (the business formerly known as News International). I’m sure Marvel used to be a lot more cautious than this about using real business names.<\/p>\n

“Attempts at a new Captain Britain project…”<\/strong> This is odd. The News UK reporter – who seems to be giving a fairly straight account of matters – assumes the Fury to be part of a project promoted by Reuben Brousseau. I don’t think we’ve heard anything about this before, but it would make sense for him to be pushing the idea that somebody else should be recognised by the state as its Captain Britain.<\/p>\n

“I’m worried I made a mistake in cutting myself off from [Saturnyne].”<\/strong> At the end of\u00a0Knights of X<\/em>, when Betsy decided that she could operate independently and use Rachel’s powers to monitor the multiverse. Betsy does seem to have a point that, with hindsight, this is asking an awful lot of Rachel’s powers, while the Starlight Citadel had the resources to do the job more effectively. Of course, Rachel is also right that Saturnyne would love to bring about a situation where Betsy was forced to acknowledge her authority again.<\/p>\n

“I noticed that in all this ‘who is the real Captain Britain’ bandying, not one of them reached for Miss Excalibur here.”<\/strong> This is a bit clunky – I have no real difficulty with the idea that Coven Akkaba would want someone white in the role, but we haven’t actually seen them propose\u00a0anyone<\/em> in particular as the “real” Captain Britain. Also, surely their issue with Betsy isn’t that she “doesn’t fit into their idea of what Captain Britain should look like” – it’s that she’s a mutant. Maybe they don’t like the idea of a woman in the role, but it’s not been presented as their major concern.<\/p>\n

PAGES 17-20.<\/strong>\u00a0Morgan and Reuben.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the previous issue, Reuben seemed to be vaguely annoying Morgan, but he appeared basically loyal and competent, and simply to be passing on unwelcome but relevant feedback. And she was relying on him and his followers for magical transportation, too. For no readily apparent reason, Morgan seems to have decided that he’s no use to her at all. Are we perhaps skipping early to the conclusion… again? After all, this book hasn’t been solicited past June.<\/p>\n

“I’d just put him in a jar with the other one and have two witchbreed to bleed like pigs.”<\/strong> Micromax, who was imprisoned in issue #1 and is being used as a source of mutant blood.<\/p>\n

“Saturnyne put all the power of the Starlight Citadel into that Starlight Sword Betsy carries…”<\/strong> In\u00a0Excalibur<\/em> vol 4 #13. I’m not sure we were told that it had the entire power of the Citadel, but it was<\/em> described as being “forged from its very walls”. (And if the power of the Citadel was already entirely in the sword, why were we bothered about Merlyn having control of the Citadel in\u00a0Knights of X<\/em>?)<\/p>\n

“She was trying to save her own hide while she retreated from a losing war.”<\/strong> Er… no she wasn’t? She created it in an attempt to get Brian Braddock to be Captain Britain again. It was during the “X of Swords” crossover, but they hadn’t reached the crisis yet.<\/p>\n

PAGES 21-23.<\/strong>\u00a0Betsy visits Iron Man, and Morgan visits Dr Doom.<\/em><\/p>\n

Iron Man\u00a0<\/strong>fought Morgan Le Fey in\u00a0Iron Man<\/em> #150, a time travel story – which is probably why Betsy is approaching him. The Jersey City warehouse is Iron Man’s current status quo, having spent most of his fortune on buying up dangerous technology in the course of Christopher Cantwell’s run.<\/p>\n

As for Morgan and Doom…<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong> Data page on Mongibel. This is basically a recap of how Doom acquired Morgan’s shrunken castle in Excalibur<\/em> #23. The name “Mongibel” is new for Marvel, I think, but it has been applied to Morgan’s castle (or realm) in Arthurian Romance. It’s actually an alternate name for Mount Etna, which somehow managed to get worked into the mythology for a time, due to being fascinatingly exotic.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.<\/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 #3 “The Captain We Deserve” Writer: Tini Howard Artist: Vasco Georgiev Colour artist: Erick Arciniega Letterer: Ariana Maher Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen Editor: Sarah Brunstad COVER \/ PAGE 1. The Fury as “Captain Britain”, with […]<\/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-8997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8997","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=8997"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9000,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8997\/revisions\/9000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}