{"id":9196,"date":"2023-06-22T22:00:26","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T21:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9196"},"modified":"2023-06-22T22:00:45","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T21:00:45","slug":"betsy-braddock-captain-britain-5-annotation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9196","title":{"rendered":"Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain #5 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 #5<\/strong>
\n“Thou Art More Near Thy Death”<\/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>\u00a0Betsy and an assortment of other Captain Britains in action.<\/p>\n

This is the final issue of the series, and this time round it doesn’t seem to be in line for a relaunch after the season break. While this book and Knights of X<\/em> were more or less insta-cancelled, it’s only fair to note that between those two titles and\u00a0Excalibur<\/em>, Tini Howard’s run comes to 36 issues, which is a more than respectable total.<\/p>\n

Taken together, this issue and the previous one show definite signs of racing to wrap up plots that were intended to play out over a much longer period, but that’s how these things tend to go.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-4.\u00a0<\/strong>Captain Britain, S.T.R.I.K.E. and Excalibur make plans.<\/em><\/p>\n

The pile of action figures and the doll’s house on the table belong to Maggie Braddock, who was using them to make plans for the attack on Morgan’s home at the end of the previous issue.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Faiza Hussain<\/strong> knows Pete Wisdom well – they were teammates in the\u00a0Captain Britain & MI-13<\/em> series from 2008-9. She hasn’t met any of the S.T.R.I.K.E. characters before (since they were dead until they got resurrected on Krakoa earlier in the series). I’m not sure I buy the “gosh, you’re asking me for help” angle here.<\/p>\n

Micromax<\/strong> was imprisoned by Coven Akkaba in issue #1, after appearing on a talk show with Betsy earlier in the issue. Pete Wisdom and Alison Double apparently found out about this in issue #2 while spying on the Coven, but for some reason didn’t mention it to Betsy in issue #3.<\/p>\n

Blightswill<\/strong> has indeed been used by Coven Akkaba to interfere with mutant powers, and they’ve made it available to Orchis for that purposes – see e.g. Bishop: War College<\/em>. That’s not how they captured Micromax in issue #1, though – on the contrary, he was using his powers to try and escape when they trapped him in a jar.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5. <\/strong>Data page, reminding us of the names of all the S.T.R.I.K.E. characters (though honestly, they’re basically interchangeable for the purposes of this story). The codenames come from a data page in Excalibur<\/em> #22.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6. <\/strong>Recap and credits. The title, “Thou Art More Near Thy Death”, is a line from Malory’s Morte D’Arthur<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-9.<\/strong> Askani stops Captain Avalon destroying the Fury.<\/em><\/p>\n

This picks up from the cliffhanger of the previous issue, which turns out to be basically a false start. Rachel was talking about the “Sacred Timeline” last issue, which seems to have been a scramble to get it into play in time for the finale. From the look of this issue, the idea was for Rachel to become increasingly dedicated to her Askani role of bringing about this destined (or at least desirable) timeline and for that to finally put her at odds with Betsy. There seems to be some echo also of the metafictional idea of things happening for no plot reason other than that story structure demands it, which was also nodded to in\u00a0Knights of X<\/em>. Obviously, in this truncated form, it does come across basically as “please drop this revenge angle which is about the only thing you’ve done on your own initiative all series – we only have half an issue left”.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-12.<\/strong>\u00a0S.T.R.I.K.E. infiltrate Mongibel.<\/em><\/p>\n

Presumably these “acolytes” are Coven Akkaba members.<\/p>\n

Pete wants revenge on the Coven for killing him in\u00a0Excalibur<\/em> #21.<\/p>\n

PAGES<\/strong>\u00a013-15. <\/strong>Betsy enters Mongibel.<\/em><\/p>\n

“…another five-hour episode about Dai Thomas.”<\/strong> Dai Thomas is a police officer and long-running\u00a0Captain Britain<\/em> supporting character.<\/p>\n

PAGES 16-17. <\/strong>Betsy confronts Morgan.<\/em><\/p>\n

Morgan apparently doesn’t understand the plot: Blightswill can affect Betsy’s mutant psychic powers but it has no effect on her Captain Britain powers, which are magical in nature.<\/p>\n

“You thought Captain Britain could be without a master…”<\/strong> That’s the set-up established at the end of\u00a0Knights of X<\/em>, when Betsy rejects Roma and Saturnyne as potential leaders.<\/p>\n

PAGE 18.\u00a0<\/strong>Askani, Captain Avalon and Meggan visit the Furies.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Morgan Le Fey reneged on our agreement.”<\/strong> Morgan did indeed promise the Furies a war at the end of issue #2 (or rather, she mentioned that she’d already done so). It’s not obvious when she reneged on that deal – she had a Fury with her as a guard when she approached Dr Doom at the end of issue #3, and never explicitly broke with them on panel. Perhaps the idea was that she kicked them to the kerb after forming her alliance with Doom. Most likely, this was intended to play out at greater length.<\/p>\n

At any rate, the idea is that the Furies take out the Doombots, which is nice of them.<\/p>\n

PAGES 19-21.\u00a0<\/strong>Morgan is defeated.<\/em><\/p>\n

Apparently, what Morgan really wants is simply to be reconnected to the land. The line about the “Britain of now” strongly suggests that this was all intended to be some sort of analogue for Morgan representing a backwards and conservative vision of Britain, and Betsy representing a contemporary one.<\/p>\n

I’ve said this before, but it’s the last issue, so one more time:<\/p>\n

One of the fundamental problems with the whole series – for me at least – is that this metaphor absolutely doesn’t work. Betsy’s side of it doesn’t work because the series has a tin ear for everything British. And Morgan’s side doesn’t work because… well, because of the tin ear thing too, but more specifically because the romanticised past of British reactionaries is mainly to do with lost glory, 19th century empire, and World War II. Maybe Magna Carta. Maybe some all-purpose regal tradition which probably only dates back to 1870 but feels like it might have been around indefinitely.<\/p>\n

King Arthur and the whole Arthurian mythology is just… not a central part of\u00a0anyone<\/em>‘s sense of British identity. It’s for tourists. I realise it’s baked into the Captain Britain origin story – which is unfortunate from the word go, since it’s an English and Welsh myth with absolutely zero relevance to Scotland and Ireland. But even the English don’t talk about it much. And if you want to foreground it as a metaphor for Brexiteers you really need to make a much better argument for that connection than this book ever managed, or even seemed to realise that it required.<\/p>\n

The whole concept is just… not recognisable as Britain to me.<\/p>\n

PAGES 22-23. <\/strong>The Braddock Academy interest fair.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Braddock Academy<\/strong> was a school for British superheroes, run by Brian and introduced in Avengers Arena<\/em> back in 2012. I’m not quite sure when it closed – it was operating in\u00a0Excalibur<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

Earth-10248<\/strong> is just a random number – it’s not been used before.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong> Data page – notionally a letter from Betsy to the other members of the Captain Britain Corps, but obviously a thinly disguised letter from Tini Howard to the fans. Unusually (but quite reasonably) there’s no trailer section, at least in the digital edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. BETSY BRADDOCK: CAPTAIN BRITAIN #5 “Thou Art More Near Thy Death” Writer: Tini Howard Artist: Vasco Georgiev Colourist: Erick Arciniega Letterer: Ariana Maher Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen Editor: Sarah Brunstad COVER \/ PAGE 1.\u00a0Betsy and an assortment of other […]<\/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-9196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9196","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=9196"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9199,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9196\/revisions\/9199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}