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In which Widget takes a heel turn; there is some confusion over sword identification; we appreciate Sir Benedict of the Falls; the Braddock family has a lot going on; and Otherworld changes hands.
X-PLAINED:
- Names for flying horses
- Excalibur (2001 miniseries) #1-4
- Captain Britain (Brian Braddock) (briefly) (again)
- The Black Knight (Dane Whitman)
- Darkmoor Research Facility
- Sword and amulet distribution
- Strider the Horse
- Why all the horses of Asgard have Tolkien names
- Sir Benedict of the Falls and his many axes
- One way to win a bridge fight
- Sword pops
- Several continuity errors
- Holographic James Braddock
- The Dad Cave
- Otherworld eugenecists
- A coronation
- A twist
- Some potential X-Factor lineups
- Life expectancies of mutants with healing factors
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On the one hand, more Excalibur adjacent characters! YAY!
On the other hand, Ben Raab trying to write British characters… yay?
The Raab “I’m going to reference a LOT of continuity but it’s a cointoss whether it’s right” approach strikes again.
Is that Shatterstar in the summation page? Did Brian even MEET Shatterstar? And I assume that that’s Kitty with the suddenly black hair and green costume in the middle of the Excalibur grouping?
I appreciate that the regionality and class focus of the English language can be confusing, but I think the last time I heard the word “Crikey!” used unironically in conversation in the UK was 1978 (It’s more prevalent in Australia these days I believe)
The Warpies showing up at all is… weird, since they’ve already been removed from the narrative chessboard. Twice in fact! The Davis Excalibur run had them all reverting to their original human forms as the Jaspers Warp energy which had changed them and maintained their mutated forms essentially ran out. Then an Ellis X-Force story mentions that the Warpies had all been captured and dissected, because Ellis HAD to put the boot in by adding the Government dissecting innocent children. At least this time they were restored (again)
For some reason I thought Widget had stayed in the Days of Future Past timeline when Excalibur went there to shut down the Sentinels, so slightly surprised to see them show up again, even if as an antagonist.
I might not be as accommodating of Crusader X as you both are. One “Crusader” is not a thing to be really name yourself after when you’re British, and he apparently helps run the British Empire on his Earth. I think one, now lapsed, British Empire was quite enough thank you very much.
Still, yes, nice to see some of these characters again!
A really fun episode as always.
I didn’t know anything about this mini til today, including the mass murder of the Captain Britain Corps. So this means that the CBC was killed down to two members here, was rebuilt over a period of years, and then all got slaughtered again during the “Time Runs Out” arc of Avengers (where Brian finds the corps slaughtered amidst the multiversal collapse) and Spider-Verse (where Spider-UK separately finds the same to tie back to the Secret Wars build), and the new mostly-Betsies version is established in X of Swords to replace THAT. I genuinely can’t remember any appearances of the 2001-15 Corps aside from their being killed off-panel.
The Captain Britain Corp probably have a groupchat with DC’s Amazons on Theyscira, so they can commiserate with the other over the number of times they’re casually wiped out when a new creator comes along.
Bahaha.
Also, didn’t mean to reply to your post in my initial comment, thanks for being a good sport.
Hello, look who’s back in your comments! I’ve been peeking in for awhile to look at the pictures and the episode summaries, but hadn’t yet gone back to listening til now. I’m sorry I’m not back on the Patreon; times are tighter so the only thing I’m supporting now is a single small animal rescue. If I’m gonna prioritize something, it’ll be critters, alas!
Speaking of critters, Maia and Sugar have passed on, but I now have two baby hairless rats, Jenga and Scrabble. . . along with the chinchillas, and four gerbils, and a mouse. Everything but the chinchillas is a rescue I never intended to take in, but they needed a home and the Rodent Distribution System has me marked.
Anyway, diving into the episode! Since it’s largely unrelated to X-men, it seemed a nice baby step for me back into the fandom without going all the way yet. Sorry I’m so weird about this, the fandom just got really hostile/unbearable for me.
I knew that Betsy had her own run-in with the Crimson Dawn, but I didn’t know Brian did as well!
I appreciate the backstory provided on Dane, I know who he is but didn’t know about his history with Brian. Nor did I realize there was ever an era where Betsy got black hair. Or that almost all the old guard Captain Britains had died, let alone in this story. Or that one of the current ones is a swan, love that.
Darkmoor just feels like the name for some extremely Gothic setting—Darkmoor Manor or something.
I feel like, for a super-anyone in Marvel, figuring the other shoe will drop any second is a very rational concern.
OMG Widget!
I absolutely want a winged horse. There are so many practical reasons not to want one. But I do. I can’t deny it in the slightest. I guess in keeping with the theme I’d have to name it Pippin! It’s cute, it’s quick to say, it’s easy to pronounce, good barn name.
Honestly, love the Cherubim and the Warpies in general coming back! Even with incorrect continuity. I have a real soft spot for those kids as a whole. They were the OG “mutated children used as weapons by the shady government” trope in Marvel, as far as I can tell, but don’t get a lot of credit or focus. Which is probably because they’re UK characters, and also because there’s so many it’s hard to feel strongly about them like one might about an individual like Laura Kinney, but that just tends to make me like them more. I’m a sucker for the underused.
I’d really be really interested in how they integrate (if they even do) into human society now? Like these kids have nothing resembling a normal background, turning them into baseline humans isn’t going to change that, like how are they going to date, write a resume, get a job, understand how to order a coffee? I know this would be way too niche to ever get published but man I’d like a series—or just a single issue—based around this. Heck, it could even get into the politics of them becoming regular humans again, and since there’s so many of them it could spotlight multiple different takes/viewpoints/etc.
Also loved the Ghostbusters comic tangent, that was great.
So, a question that I’ve had for awhile, and perhaps you can answer: As I understand it, Sir James Braddock came from Otherworld to Earth, right? So, how did he end up an English lord (or some other kind of titled peerage?) on Earth with like, an ancestral manor? Which would imply having been landed gentry for generations. Is that ever explained? Or should we just go “ok maybe he got his title from the Queen and bought the manor in this generation, instead of inheriting both from generations of Braddocks before him”?
Anyway, hi!
Good question on the Braddock family heritage.
I had wondered if possibly Merlyn arranged for Otherworld James to come to 616 after the extant 616 Sir James died (of natural causes, or possibly supernatural if Merlyn got impatient), and simply replaced him before the body was found, hopefully prior to his wooing and marrying his wife because otherwise… ick. If you’re wealthy and connected enough, you can change your personality a bit and no one comments.
But then, casually looking up the name of Sir Jame’s wife, I found this on the Marvel fandom dot com which sent me down a bit of a rabbithole.
“After World War II, Sir James Braddock arrived on Earth-616. He chose Elizabeth Hartwood as his genetically compatible mate, though it is unclear if she knew of his Otherworld origins. The couple’s lack of official records prior to 1945 raised questions, but they repurchased Braddock Manor, which had been sold before his arrival”
Now, knighthoods in the UK are not hereditary (and are not Peers of the Realm) but are VERY well documented and not something you can bluff your way into. If he was known as “Sir” James on 616, it would be via a title he earned after arriving there. Presumably granted thanks to his work with the Government which the Ellis run mentions (even if some of that was VERY strange) or his business dealings. We have a lot of successful businessmen who are “Sirs” in the UK.
Why Elizabeth (nee Hartwood) wouldn’t be on public records seems slightly baffling if she’s from 616, but hey, post-WWII things things were a bit shaken up for some years due to records being destroyed in the war (and sliding timeline be darned).
(Technically, the Braddock title could be a hereditary baronetcy, which would also use the title “Sir” amd involve land, but since I don’t think Jamie was a “Sir” after James and Elizabeth died, so a knighthood seems more likely)
The fact there was a Braddock family estate and manor to repurchase in the first place (And the fact the family name has been around long enough to have an automatic seat on the Inner Circle of the London Hellfire Club) suggests there was a now-extinct Braddock family line on 616, and James and Elizabeth would probably say they were “the old family returning to the old ancestral manor” with a vaguely clear conscious.
Wow, thank you for taking the time to check this all out for me! And for the answer/conjecture, I appreciate it! And yeah that seems like a pretty solid guess.