Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: Betsy Braddock, brian braddock, Comics, excalibur, marvel

Almost All Captain Britains Are Women Now? Excalibur #16 Lays It Out

Excalibur #16 spoilers ahead – but it makes some kind of sense. Britain has had a female monarch for the last seventy years, and of the last two hundred years has had a female monarch for one hundred and thirty-three of them. We have also had two women prime ministers in the last forty years, Scotland and Northern Ireland both have a female first minister, and the UK has a woman Home Secretary. It may be time for the gender of the superheroic embodiment of the nation to switch, while still, of course, keeping it as class-based as ever. In X Of Swords: Destruction, we saw the death of Betsy Braddock, the new Captain Britain, sister of the old Captain Britain, Brian Braddock. Shattered into shards and collected by Saturnyne, Omnibersal Majestrix of Otherworld. So the exact nature of her death is unknown but it also led to the reforming of the Captain Britain Corps. Who now looked like this.

Because while Betsy Braddock has been Captain Britain before, most of the Captain Britain Corps members are based on parallel dimensional versions of Brian Braddock, part of the Otherworld line. A variety of Captain Britains including frogs, dinosaurs, robots, women and what appeared to be men, certainly by the beard on one., But is that my own genre expectations? When receiving the Corps in her Starlight Citadel palace, they looked to be presenting more as female.

With plenty of female-gendered naming traditions too.

And in today's Excalibur #16, as the team come to terms with the seeming-death of Betsy Braddock, unable to be revived as her apparent death was in Otherworld…

We are told that all the Captain Britain Corps are now variations on Betsy Braddock, rather than mostly based on Brian Braddock.

Even the frogs, dinosaurs and hulking brutes with big beards. It's just my preconceptions at fault, here. Because we may have some trans male Captain Britains too.

And now it's all just a case of reams and reams of paperwork.

And here is how the Captain Britain Corps is looking now.

And while I am getting more and more flashbacks to the Alan Moore and Alan Davis Captain Britain of the eighties, at the time, the pair both worked on Marvelman for Warrior Magazine as well, which gave Marvelman and his wife a child, Winter Moran.  Am I the only one to make a link between the early intelligence and verbosity of Winter, compared to the young daughter of Brian and Meggan Braddock?

Because we also know where that ended… Here are the solicits for today's Excalibur, and those going up to March for comparison. And the cover to #17 especially, regarding the state of the nation.

EXCALIBUR #16
MARVEL COMICS
OCT200570
(W) Tini Howard (A) Marcus To (CA) Mahmud Asrar
THE SWORD IS SHEATHED !
The team is left changed in the aftermath of X OF SWORDS… and some things lost cannot be replaced. Rated T+In Shops: Dec 23, 2020 SRP: $3.99

EXCALIBUR #17
MARVEL COMICS
NOV200527
(W) Tini Howard (A) Marcus To (CA) Mahmud Asrar
QUEEN ELIZABETH III?!?
Opportunities and opportunists. Two heads-of-state seek to restore the state of things. Rated T+In Shops: Jan 27, 2021  SRP: $3.99

EXCALIBUR #18
MARVEL COMICS
DEC200581
(W) Tini Howard (A) Marcus To (CA) Mahmud Asrar
THE WOMAN ON THE SHORE!
As the Council makes moves to protect mutants in the Otherworld, Excalibur must determine the fate of Betsy Braddock. Rated T+In Shops: Feb 10, 2021 SRP: $3.99

EXCALIBUR #19
MARVEL COMICS
JAN210632
(W) Tini Howard (A) Marcus To (CA) Mahmud Asrar
POISONED BY HER OWN VENOM!
She didn't mean anything by it…but what's a girl without a body supposed to do? Rated T+In Shops: Mar 24, 2021 SRP: $3.99

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