Marvel Comics blabbery

I'm pretty sure Claremont created her as a character, though maybe not the name? Betsy Braddock has been around since the old Cap Britain comics of the 70s that Claremont wrote, but I'm not sure when they started calling her Psylocke... Maybe that was Delano?

Seems it was Claremont who chose the name too:

In New Mutants Annual #2 (1986), Claremont integrated Braddock into the X-Men franchise. The story sees her abducted to the Mojoverse, where she is subjected to brainwashing, fitted with bionic eyes, and referred to as "the Psylocke" for the first time.

That's totally a Claremontian pun, though IIRC that New Mutants Annual (or any other comic by Claremont) doesn't actually explain it as a pun, you're supposed to figure it out yourself.

Yeah, I never read or heard that before. And you are correct, she was in the old Captain Britain comics, but she was just Brian's normal human sister and I think Delano was the one who made her a mutant.

yeah, that sounds correct to me. delano and alan davis also scarred me for life when i was like eight and read the captain britain story where she's blinded by slaymaster:

http://www.littlestuffedbull.com/images/2013/psylocke/capbritain2-13c.jpg

that final panel is indelible in my mind

This conversation has made me go back through Betsy's history and MAN did a lot of bizarre, terrible things happen to her

yeah, even by x-men standards she's been through some shit

Was it Slaymaster who possessed or posed as Brian and (at least) attempted to rape Betsy?

no, i think that was a brian from an alternate reality - that panel of the assault is another that fucked me up as a kid

That was Kaptain Briton: http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Byron_Bra-Dhok_(Earth-794)

Gah, can't even imagine reading that as a kid. That was some fucked up shit to see as an adult.

YUP. That's one of the things where I was reading the history and went "wait WHAT THE FUCK"

"hey guys, Betsy had to kill somebody again"

Every now and then the thought pops into my head that Psylocke isn't as murderous as the other X-Force characters and I wonder about her inclusion until I remember her actual backstory as opposed to only remembering how she was drawn pre-Siege Perilous

I was thinking the other day about Rick Remender's additions to the mutant/Avengers stories and all told, I think it worked pretty well? He grabbed The World from Morrison's run, added the character of Father, and then managed to spin it into at least two different stories -- the accelerated time X-Force/Apocalypse thing, and the android ascension, tied to the original Human Torch, story in the Secret Avengers plot. And then he kind of merged the two -- with Deathloks!

for all the (deserved IMO) press Hickman gets, Remender did some stuff that was equally impressive in that same time frame IMO

i'm way behind on avengers / x-men but that sounds agreeably batshit

I really liked remender's 'captain America gains a son in another dimension' arc

Yes. The first stretch of his Marvel Now! Cap and Uncanny Avengers runs are all the Remender I've read, somehow. Oh, and his brief Secret Avengers run! That was good, too. I guess he's done with Marvel for the time being?

I think Hickman is a bit better at that thing, at creating his own little fiefdom over several titles with Manifolds, Doctor Dooms, Sols Hammers, and all that. But yeah, Remender definitely was good at it as well. I did not read anything he did after AvX, though, is it good?

Gillen's work with Loki is up there as well.

I'm still very impressed with the worldbuilding in Pak's Planet Hulk et al. When I first saw the attendant handbook, it seemed clear that the dude had spent like the five previous years prepping his Hulk pitch.

And Abnett and Lanning's cosmic stuff! It's been a good era for big stories.

Axis was ehhh, but I can let that go

The big problem with Axis was that it went on for waaaay too long (and I think everyone forgot that Havok was still inverted before the universe blew up)

the inversion thing was pretty half-assed, I have the feeling it was pitched and a few projects (Iron Man, Carnage) were spun off, a few characters were conveniently changed for use in different titles (Sabretooth) and the rest of it was just kind of hand-wavey

I also thought it was incredibly poor timing to have the mantle of Captain America pass over to Sam Wilson just in time to turn him into an honorless, murdering bastard as part of a widely-hyped company-wide crossover.

very bad

I mean, between that and launching a limited series by Jeph Loeb titled "CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE" it was an amazing time for ill-advised editorial direction

I stared at that solicitation for so long, trying to convince myself it was a joke

Remender's X-FORCE was great but I can't believe you guys liked anything else he touched. Total blind squirrel finding a nut situation.

His Uncanny Avengers didn't end well but I enjoyed most of it. It was also MILES BETTER than the current incarnation, which appears to assume that everyone involved has had serious head trauma that has left them unable to not make the shittiest possible choice for any given situation.

Yeah, compared to the shit dribble of the current Avengers continuum its passable but that's a damn low bar.

Yeah, tried a few Remender issues of the Avengers (storyline involving the Red Skull?), and they weren't for me at all - thought they were badly written just in terms of the dialogue/captions, never mind the clunky plotting, and he didn't seem to have any real feel for the characters at all (but I'm a Bendis Avengers stan, which seems to put me v much in the minority here)

Btw who other than Al Ewing is doing this world building stuff at the moment?

The following, from the letters page of this month's All New Hawkeye, maybe sums up what a clusterfuck Marvel is just now.

So there you have it, the end of All New Hawkeye by Jeff Lemire and Ramon Perez. I know what you're thinking: "What?! They can't go!! Those guys just got here!!" I know, I know... I had the same reaction at first. Chill. Though this is technically issue #6 of our series, it's really more like part 11 of an (almost) yearlong story that Jeff and aragon wanted to tell.

If you've been reading Hawkeye since Matt Fraction and David Aja's run...or if you've been reading since Jeff and Ramon's first issue... or if you've been reading since their second first issue... we thank you for joining us for this ride.

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/10/103503/3744893-face+palm.png

Not sure you know, but that Loeb series fits in with other origin tales he has done with Tim Sale. The Hulk one is Green, the Spider-man is Blue and the Daredevil was Yellow (as in his original costume.). There was a first issue of that Cap series published like 5 years ago, so Sale must have finally finished the rest.

I guess there was a "preview issue" in 2008, but yeah, I think we're all aware it's a thematic thing

The fact they released the real series years later implies it's not really contingent on continuity and could be released at any time which actually kind of makes it _worse_ that they decided the right time to release it was when the titular Captain America was a black man

it just sat around for eight years, couldn't it wait another year or so?

Or been burned in a heap along with everything else Loeb ever wrote? Is that really too much to ask?

can we have an international ilx meetup to burn our copies of jeph loeb comics? i feel like it'd be theraputic for all of us

I might not have any, at least in print

I have at least the first three of his Challengers Of The Unknown miniseries, nothing since that

i can lend you some for the occasion, no problem

Cannot unsee Ultimatum

Burn my eyes

TASTES LIKE CHICKEN

I feel like the comics he's best known for are mostly just origin retellings or by-the-numbers plots that drop in the most well-known allies/villains with the "this is character X who acts in this way and progresses the plot by doing what they always do, in a way that ties back to the main antagonist"

which is, to be fair, a lot of non-Loeb comics but it really highlights how quickly he goes off the rails when he doesn't retell stories

Old Lunch otm

I will reiterate the props I've formerly given to Loeb for Ultimate X, which was good (with beautiful Art Adams art) and which redeemed like .00001% of the soul he tarnished so thoroughly by writing Ultimatum.

(It was more than a little jarring to see Loeb briefly on the rails and realize that he can actually write competently if he wants to. But I guess trying is hard or something.)

turns out I've been Loeb-free for 25 years (had seen Teen Wolf previously)

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2010/05/11/comics-you-should-own-flashback-challengers-of-the-unknown-1-8/

those Baker and Hempel covers tho

Never forget that Loeb wrote Commando. Yes, the Schwarzenegger movie.