Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS
In which cartoon logic is terrifying; it’s immensely frustrating to be Doug Ramsey; Psylock gets evil robot eyes; queer subtext is not just for the ladies; Danger Room cold opens are the new Kitty’s costume changes; Mojo predicts reality TV; Longshot joins the X-Men; and we answer what may be the best question we have ever gotten.
X-PLAINED:
- Captain Britain Corps
- Alan Davis
- New Mutants Annual #2
- X-Men Annual #10
- Captain Britain (Brian Braddock)
- Psylocke (Betsy Braddock)
- Slaymaster
- Mojo
- Why cartoon logic is terrifying
- Animal Man vol. 1 #5, “The Coyote Gospel” (Incorrectly described as “The Ballad of Wile E. Coyote” in episode)
- Wildways
- Robot eyes
- Template
- Snitch
- Straight Arrow
- Jubilee (but not that Jubilee)
- The trouble with determining character ages in superhero comics
- The stated mission of the New Mutants
- The proto-X-Babies
- Longshot’s X-Men debut
- The New Mutants’ graduation costumes
- A really charged costume choice
- Tonal shifts in New Mutants
- X-Men vs. geese
NEXT WEEK: APOCALYPSE NOW!
ART CHALLENGE: Design a new graduation costume for one or more of the New Mutants! Send your designs to xplainthexmen(at)gmail(dot)com, with the subject line GRADUATION, and we’ll collect ‘em on the blog at the end of the week!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!
Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
Special thanks to Ryan Hill for this week’s art, and to Claire Miller for the research X-Pertise!
The Animal Man story you’re thinking of is v1, #5, “The Coyote’s Gospel.” As is so often the case, I don’t want to be THAT LISTENER but wanting to make sure people know where to look if they want to read the story and have their souls melted.
Hearing Charlie Adler as Mojo on WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN made him about ten times more terrifying when I read LONGSHOT and the issues you’re covering today than he ever was when I read later Mojo stories in the 80s and 90s. His “sleazy” voice (as heard as Mr. Bighead on ROCKO’S MODERN LIFE and the Red Guy on COW AND CHICKEN) is utterly TERRIFYING in a life-and-death context.
Love this story, love your recap of it.
Yup. You’ll notice that I clarified that in the “X-PLAINED” list for this episode.
You are correct, my mistake. I need to start looking at those more closely.
I just went through my Davis/Delanao Captain Britain volume that fills in (most of?) the gap between the Moore run and the New Mutants Annual and it looks like you’re correct, Betsy’s only code-name here is the two issues she takes on the title Captain Britain (with an amazing costume).
http://www.amazon.com/Captain-Britain-Alan-Davis/dp/1854000209
https://killerteacup.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/psylocke.jpg
Also, Cannonball looks like someone threw together the worst aspects of 80s GI Joe and Cyclops.
On looking again, I misremembered. Cypher looks like a cross between Cyclops and a GI Joe. Sam is wearing a very specific GI Joe helmet (Sci-fi) but from the neck down, his costume is just random bland horseshit.
I liked that Illyana was cosplaying as a White Mage from FINAL FANTASY.
ditto! I’m a sucker for anytime these two things cross over in design, fanart, etc.
I don’t know if this will be any use to you but all the early Captain Britain stories are available fairly easily in the uk. Its in five volumes with Moores run starting half way through the fourth. They’re fairly cheap but have have no idea what shipping to the US would be. Here’s a link to the first volume:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Captain-Britain-Birth-Legend-v/dp/1905239300/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435562603&sr=1-2&keywords=captain+britain
I also have a quick correction, Davies didn’t create Captain Britain with Claremont it was Herb Trimp. He did design the iconic costume and is easily as important if not more in shaping the character as Claremont and Moore.
Thanks for the link! We’re not great yet at finding UK-specific stuff. We’ve both read the material in this TPB but haven’t read anything earlier yet.
Found it – looks like this is the definitive US printing of pretty much all of CB’s 1980s UK stuff!
The omnibus is the best collection but it’s been out of print for a while, as the exorbitant price tag indicates (I was fortunate to get a used copy via AbeBooks a while back for relatively cheap, and even then it was a bit pricey).
The aforementioned TPBs published by Panini (who have had the Marvel licence in the UK for quite a long time) collect all the same material (in the fourth and fifth volumes) and more (the pre-Moore/Davis stuff is collected in the first four books; there’s two hardcovers that colelct the same material but I don’t think the quality of the stories necessarily justifies the expense).
I’m pretty sure thebookdepository.com would have them for a fairly reasonable price, and I beleive they do free shipping worldwide.
Yeah the pre Moore/Davies run is fun at times but far from essential reading.
I have gotten the impression that you’ve read the Moore/Davis Captain Britain run, but it appeared before the Delano/Davis run.
If you haven’t read the stories in this collection, and you want, we could work out a loan of my copy since I am local to you (Vancouver, WA).
Ah, I may be quite chatty about this podcast. Listened to the first half on the way into work, and have the second half to look forward to tonight on the way home! 🙂 (If I reference anything that’s covered in the latter half, my apologies).
Excuse me starting with an imperative, but go read the Moore/Delano/Davis Captain Britain run… NOW! It’s early Moore and Davis so you can see how they’ve grown, but it’s both a fascinating read in that context and enjoyable as a story too.
I agree that Claremont gives Betsy the codename Psylocke here for the first time, and for no ever explained reason (I was at a Con once in the 1980’s where I think Claremont said it was because she was supposed to be the Psy-Lock to the Psyche (key, sic), but that was probably just his love of bad puns showing.
You don’t mention it, but you probably were already fully aware that the freaked out carousel the New Mutants end up on is a flashback to the opening of the story, where Betsy is “looking” at an old carousel and remembering it as a source of innocence (which of course Mojo warps the hell out of).
Douglock actually ripped his/their _face_off_ (in his/their case it’s not a mask I think since it seems to be made of the same stuff as the rest of him/them).
Doug as audience identification character is spot on, I’d say even moreso than Kitty who was instantly given a supergenius rank in an area most kids have no exposure to at that age; astrophyics IIRC. Doug had an amped up gift for languages which most kids study at school at least. He’s also the only New Mutant to never tell his parents that he was a mutant, and that strikes me as being important. All the other Mutants parents are fully aware of their kids nature, but not Doug (I wonder if that was a holdover to a notional idea that Doug was intended to be the son of the Philip Ramsey who had been introduced in God Loved man Kills as an important member of the Church of Humanity, but whilst Doug’s dad IS called Philip Ramsey, he seems to be a very different one)
Warlock being a living doodle under Davis’ sublime art is never not gorgeous and find it very difficult to pick a I loved that Bill S made him assymetric and angular, Art Adams made him a blend of whacky a sleek, and Davis makes him look… like he’s made up of a bunch of random irregular construction set pieces that are sort of smabling along half the time. I don’t often imagine what Warlock sounds like, but I always imagine Davis Warlock sounding like a rainstick…
Proud to say I own the original art for the _ultimate_ Ramsey hairswoop, the splash for NM Annual 3!
Sorry to crush Miles’ illusions, but the Doug/Betsy age difference thing is indeed problematic. Betsy is Brian’s _twin_ sister (I can’t recall who is the older by how many minutes), and since Brian was out of University some time before this issue, Betsy (who has also had a career as a model and as an agent of UK psi-ops team STRIKE before this) is at least in her mid 20’s at this point.
There was a sort of implication that Betsy’s powers (which ping ponged all over the place from basically every time she was introduced. She was initally a precog then a telepath, then swapped powers with someone somehow and became a telekinetic and then… I’ve lost track.
Brian’s powers being linked to his confidence is very new and only goes back as far as the recent ‘Captain Britain and MI-15’ series. Prior to that his powers were originally thought to be the result of Merlyn and Roma’s magic amulet, then was revealed to be inborn, but amplified by his costume and sceptre (Which was sort of when Roma and Merlyn were shown to be part of the “Technology so advanced we’ve always assumed it was magic because it operates like it” school) and then was fully internalised. Claremont later introduced the limitation that Brian’s powers fade when away from Britain which had never been an issue.
I agree I’d love to see Doug and Betsy at least TALK since their mutual returns from the great dirtap.
I’ll probably burble more about this podcast later, but great job so far! 🙂
Loved this episode, AND ALSO love the particular issues you were talking about.
Two things that came to mind:
I got a sense from listening that you guys might not have read DR & Quinch, and from there a vague impression that you might not have seen much of Alan Moore or Alan Davis 2000AD stuff? Which… bothers me. If you haven’t, you should get on that. Davis art is always great, and a lot of my favourite Moore stuff is still from that point in his career.
(It’s off-topic for X-Men, but it feels important somehow that you treat yourselves to it.)
Also, back when comics were hard to come by and I quite often missed stuff, so the stuff I did have got re-read an awful lot, I had this one issue of the Marvel UK Captain Britain magazine that has ended up informing my whole understanding of Braddock family dynamic (and I think was my introduction to Betsy).
It’s a big battle between the 616 Captain Britain and an evil alt version – the multiverse was also introduced to me here – and it ends with a really, REALLY creepy scene wherein Betsy is about to be sexually assaulted by her “brother”.
Because of this, I’ve always thought of Betsy in that context – a graceful, sweet “English rose” character whose family and life keep throwing sickening and twisted twists at her.
So it didn’t even register that the scenes with her and Doug might be weird – although bear in mind I would have been imprinting on Doug at the time – because it just seemed pretty sweet and normal compared to what I knew about her.
(I thought about that Captain Britain comic a lot when reading the later Davis-drawn issue where she’s up against Sabertooth, actually.)
Imprinting on Doug Ramsey is a perfectly healthy and normal thing to do (I hope) because I sure did at that time and I don’t think it ever quite faded. Doug Ramsey remains the sort of person I want to be when I get around to growing up.
Likewise, I also encourage Rachel and Miles to seek out “DR and Quinch” and, as lovely examples of the short form sci-fi story from 2000AD two collections of Alan Moores work on the title; Alan Moore’s Shocking Futures and Alan Moore’s Twisted Times.
Mid 1980’s Alan Davis is sort of my “comfort food” art, when I feel down or depressed after reading some comic or other (or by life in general), reading this story and NM Annual #3 (weird though they are), and the Mike W barr/Alan Davis Detective Comics run always makes me feel better, because people are just so darned pretty and brave and heroic and excited about the madness which is their lives.
I remember the “X-Pialidocious” joke from an issue of WHAT THE–?! lampooning Fall of The Mutants:
“I’m gonna start my OWN group–X-Pialidocious!”
“What a supercalifragilistic name! Can I join?”
“Sure, anyone who wants doesn’t want to be dead can join!”
Okay, have now listened to the other half of the episode! 🙂
Some random comments again.
Was always disappointed that Betsy was so instantly a member of the X-Men, when everything about her introduction here (though it goes against a lot of what we’ve seen her do in the pre-MU USA appearances) would point towards her being on the New Mutants, and there was technically nothing to say that an adult _couldn’t_ be a member of the New Mutants, and might have made for an interesting team dynamic, since Betsy wouldn’t be the leader.
As I understand it, transmode infection wouldn’t have killed Doug automatically, only if Warlock chose to feed on the lifeglow as he infected him, otherwise Doug would be alive as a technorganic being, which might well trigger a clash between Warlock and Doug, since Doug would technically be his offspring and it could well be Magus/Warlock all over again.
Love that Art Adams also tends to draw something cute which is that, aside from the risk of Warlock infected Doug with transmode virus, it seems to work the other way round too, and Warlock starts to mimic Doug’s poses (and hairswoop) quite a lot.
I always saw that Warlock’s graduation costume was the cape… and that’s it.
Doug’s graduation costume is also prescient in the sheer number of pouches his outfit has (It’s fun to think about what someone fairly sensible might put in those… some food, a few memory sticks (albeit they wouldn’t exist for another 20 years) some cash for cab fare and so on) but it also has the useful feature of being bulletproof and protection from energy beams (a trend which continues to be actively required when he wear it, until that terribly sad one time he SHOULD have worn it, but didn’t)
Another cameo is that I think the folks sitting behind the Brat Pack are from the US sitcom “The Jeffersons”, could be wrong anout that since I’m not terribly familiar with it.
Note that the first attack of the lower case x-men is that Colossus apparently punches Cypher in the groin… unresolved issues over Kitty perhaps? 😉
I agree that the sheer arrogance of the “grown ups” at the end about why some people are X-Men and some are New Mutants was just… deeply unpleasant and terribly condescending, especially considering how long it took ANY team to accept a New Mutant member, and when they did take Sam in, they treated him like a complete rube.
Sorry, rattling on again…
There is some Captain Britain available on Marvel Unlimited. #8-14, including such goodies as Meggan changing from bat-wolf-girl Meggan to the Meggan we see in Excalibur, the purchase of the Tower that Crosses Time, and Betsy’s (remarkably short) stint as Captain Britain, including her blinding by Slaymaster.
Waiting for Uncanny Annual #12 and more Miles Mojo voice.
I love the Davis stuff – he’s really prolific but he doesn’t seem to get the recognition (the man did a decent chunk of Miracleman, for goodness’ sake! He can draw a good smiling Batman!). New Mutants Annual #3 and Excalibur #50 (which I am sure you’ll get to eventually) are two of my favourite single issues of any superhero comic ever.
Fun fact, which I think I mentioned in a previous comment on an earlier video: Marvel UK had a weird semi-detached status vis-a-vis continuity with Marvel US until Claremont started using a lot of the characters in X-Men (I think a certain amount of Alan Moore’s influence sneaks into his own writing around this time, actually). However, before that, he’d wanted to essentially do an adaptation of the Jaspers’ Warp story in mainstream continuity, and when it fell through he reconfigured some of those ideas into Mutant Massacre and Fall of the Mutants. That’s why Sir James Jaspers shows up in UXM #200 at Magneto’s trial; that was meant to set him up as a major bad guy for this story he was planning.
Did you say that Captain Britain was created by Claremont / Davis ? Wikipedia has Trimpe, but I really don’t know for sure–Like you I have read very little of the British stuff…
Captain Britain first appeared in 1976’s “Captain Britain #1” in a story written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Herb Trimpe, so he would rightly get creator credit.
There was some truly weird stuff introducing Saturnyne and her agents, the Avant Guard by Dave Thorpe and Alan Davis, before Alan Moore came along and the rest is, more or less, history.
Okay, last couple of comments then I’ll be quiet… for a bit… probably…
Betsy being rather bloodthirsty does seem to be a trend, she’s also quite keen on killing Havok and Polaris when they meet up in a few issues.
Geese are genetically malevolent. That is all.
Does Rachel’s Phoenix costume make an appearance in window of the Body Shoppe we see in the theatre? I don’t have the issue to hand, but I vaguely recall it being a presence, Might be wrong or in another issue or context.
So, annual number 10 … the most notorious annual because, as detailed as Claremont was known for in his plotting, this is the single hardest issue of his first “Uncanny X-Men” run to place.
Most people — and I believe including the MCP but I could be wrong — think this issue takes place between pages of “Uncanny” 210, after Kitty and Peter find the injured Nightcrawler but before the rest of the story. Frankly, that’s the only place this issue CAN take place. That leaves a few problems.
One you addressed during the episode, ie “Where’s Longshot during the Massacre?” My head canon: Longshot wasn’t a full-fledged X-Man yet so they kept him out of the way.
The other problem: Nightcrawler was hurt in 209 and has lingering effects until he’s hurt again in 211, but he didn’t seem injured during Annual No. 10. The real reason is probably editorial interference shifting things around, but my head canon: The X-baby rejuvenation probably helped Kurt feel better, but the effects didn’t last once he was restored.
Oh Annual 10, I love you but you keep messing with my head.
“Emperor Joker” was not an Elseworlds, it was an in-continuity Superman event. 9 issues of the Superman titles, 4 of not knowing what was going on followed by a one-shot, followed by 4 of trying to stop a Joker with 99% of Mr. Mxyzptlk’s power. It’s a really good storyline.
Joker also gets nigh-omnipotence from the Shaper of Worlds in Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk.
See, this is why I don’t X-Plain D.C.
Huh. I thought it was because government funding for DC explanation was still intact.
The best explanation for the Psylocke/Doug flirtation is that Psylocke is supposed to be a teenager here. On one hand, it makes a certain amount of sense, as Psylocke seems poised, for an issue or two, to join the New Mutants rather than the X-Men. (Suggesting that Claremont seems to think, at least for the moment, that she is a teenager.)
On the other hand, for all his faults, Claremont is very mindful and respectful of continuity, and Betsy was fairly well established at this point as an adult in the Marvel UK universe. (She worked as an agent for a paranormal arm of a British intelligence agency, which seems like a fairly grown-up job.) And of course in the future Psylocke will be portrayed as one of the more *adult* members of the X-Men.
Anyway, if you love Excalibur you absolutely need to read Captain Britain starting with Moore/Davis. Not only is it an incredible amount of fun, but the best parts of Excalibur are more closely related to the Captain Britain universe than are to the X-universe. I feel like reading Captain Britain adds a huge amount of texture to the experience of reading Excalibur — especially re: Davis’s solo run. (Which is, to me, by far superior to the Davis/Claremont run.)
Finally, an Alan Davis related question that’s not really a question: doesn’t it seem like there’s a really fun bit of fanfiction to be written about the theoretical relationship between Meggan and Snowbird?
I’m with Rachel on the creep factor on this one. I’m pretty sure Betsy is supposed to be over twenty by this point. At this point in her continuity she had been both a fashion model and I believe also a British intelligence agent. I think she was already older than a teen by her 1st appearance in Marvel UK.
Lemme put it this way: Betsy and Brian Braddock are twins, and Brian is supposed to be the same age or slightly older than Spider-Man — they did briefly room together in grad school. Spider-Man in Marvel continuity is the same age as Angel, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Johnny Storm and Rick Jones (early 20s by this point, despite the error on Jean’s tombstone in 137 that put her at 25).
Oh and for the record, in terms of other ages: Beast is 1-2 years older than the other original X-Men, and Iceman is one year younger. Colossus and Nightcrawler are meant to be the same age, with Rogue either their age or a year younger. Meanwhile, the Wasp is younger than most people remember — she was introduced as a 20-year-old when Spidey, the X-Men and Johnny were teens. Yup, Pym’s a cradle-robber.
One of my side projects recently has been a chart of ages/time passed in the Marvel U since FF #1. I’ll share a link when it’s complete if anyone is interested, and if Rachel and Miles are so inclined.
I missed out on this X-men annual, but I’m wondering if Betsy’s attraction to Doug was just a brief infatuation, brought on by being rescued by him. I remember it coming up in Uncanny X-men #213, but I don’t recall Betsy saying anything about Doug for the rest of her time with the X-men.
I’m not so sure I would have characterized their feelings as lasting until Doug’s death; if nothing else he moved onto Rahne.
She does say something some years later when she’s in the process of first being transformered into her Asian “Lady Mandarin” self.
She has a trip inside her mindscape where she is forced to embrace her wild side and a memory of Doug takes her to task for being so reckless, and whilst the part of her that would become Lady Mandarin coldy dismisses him and is astonished she could have cared for such “a consumate child”, but her other, less wild, side is clearly moved by what he says.
Rahne and Doug just seemed a very sudden, random relationship that Simonson threw in just to up the emotional ante when she killed Doug off a handful of issues later, but I’ll hold off, as I see that as discussion for a later podcast.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Dug and Rahne as I also felt like it was thrown together very fast.
Also, I don’t think Doug has even spoken to Rahne either since his Resurrection. So many potential character stories floating out there for Doug that no one seems to care about but the fans.
Amd that’s what fanfic is for.
Doug’s return is such a wsted opportunity to see how one goes about becoming… “not dead” in the MU. There are presumably forms to fill in and so on. Plus lack of significant interaction with several vitally important people;
1) His parents – They must have worked out he was a mutant after the Xavier School went public, how did THAT work out for them? His dad was a lawyer so there might have been a lawsuit to be had there methinks.
2) Kitty – They have scenes together in a Wolverine arc, but it’s very much “business as usual” as opposed to seeing these two glorious dorks just saying hi to each other again.
3) Betsy – For oh so many reasons.
4) Rahne – Since they _were_ involved, however forced it may have felt.
Glowing eyes? Inability to recognize social cues? How did Rachel not mention Cyclops as a candidate for for goose attacks?
Because the lone social cue Cyclops can pick up is someone about to attack.
Heh. This made me laugh.
Nice.
Betsy is definitely mid-twenties, given Brian’s age at the time and I’m also pretty sure that Doug is Kitty’s age. So he’d only be 14/15 (which birthday had she had at this point?)
I realize other posters have said pretty much the same thing already, but I NEEDED to say that the moment I heard you guys wondering. Being superfluous shall not silence me!
I think I may be in the minority in that my favourite Claremont issues are the 2 years or so before he leaves the title. I just love how they fall apart entirely and then slowly rebuild. I found the new characters, and the character development of established characters to be really well done. And I don’t LIKE Alex, Piotr, or Alison, so I was very pleased that they all got written out. (Peter makes such a GOOD artist, why couldn’t that have stayed a thing?)
Chris Claremont refused to finish writing the issue where Peter was forced to become Colossus again. Fabian Nicieza had to do it.
Thank you for a lovely episode. You really have me appreciate more both Daug and the Mojoverse.
I’m more then excited to hear your take on Excalibur and much later on (maybe?) the Exiles.
I’m seconding the X-plain the Exiles suggestion. It was so good, until they had to start getting involved with the main 616 Marvel Universe. And then Claremont came on and brought ALL his fetishes with him and kicked out all the good stuff. I had to walk away until Jeff Parker’s excellent mini.
Man, what HAPPENED to Claremont after 1991?
I actually really like Adams’ Storm cause it’s the only official art I can think of where her hair has even the tiniest bit of texture (low bar I know but I like to believe that her mohawk would be able to stand up on its own.)
I believe that Rob Liefeld’s saw the New Mutants’ costumes from Annual 10 and thought, “yes. This!” I came to the issue years after seeing The Rob’s art in X-Force and being startled by how much his character designs resembled what we see here.
It’s certainly the beginning of “Wolfsbane’s hair turns into a flat wedge-shape whenever she shifts midway” thing, if I’m remembering right.
Wouldn’t be surprised, since Art Adams and his hyper-detailed pencilling was one of the biggest influences on the “Image style” in general (I’d say it was equal parts Art Adams, Neal Adams, John Byrne and MAYBE a bit of Michael Golden, by way of Heavy Metal magazine covers).
With a pinch of George Perez’s detailing. Liefeld’s early stuff is astonishingly Perez-like, but you can tell when he started seeing Art Adams’ stuff turn up.
Given the infamous X-Force multiple page sequence which is a complete and unacknowledged (or else I’d call it an “homage”) rip-off of a New Teen Titans scene, this does not surprise me.
Except, I would suggest, lacking Perez apparently effortless awareness of anatomy, pacing and consistency in detail. Perez can draw forty faces in a single panel and it’s easy to tell who each of them are, with Liefeld one person might barely look the same between one panel and the next. (Liefeld has an energy to his work to be sure, but it’s not an energy that ever engaged me)
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that Liefeld was and is a massive Teen Titans fan, so I would be surprised if Pérez HADN’T influenced him.
I think Liefeld’s early art was also helped by the presence of some very talented inkers who were able to cover up his weaknesses. There’s a famous story about his first big professional work, which was a Hawk & Dove mini for DC; he didn’t draw any hands or feet and Karl Kesel had to fill them in himself. It was when he started inking himself that a lot of the oft-cited shortcomings of his style became apparent.
About Longshot being a blank slate here, I have a vague recollection of reading somewhere (a Marvel Age article?) that his tenure on the X-Men actually took place before the Longshot miniseries in his own personal timeline. That not just dimensional travel but time travel is involved.
If that memory is correct, all it means is that Longshot’s memory gets wiped after being part of the X-Men instead of after the miniseries.
There is a LOT time travel weirdness goes on with Longshot later on, especially with what we find out in the Shattershot Assorted X-Title Annual/crossover/event thingie and then later in X-Factor.
The Shattershot arc is also, i think, the first time that we find out that Spiral is a time-looped Riccochet Rita which makes me wonder if it was ever intended to be a plot point under Ann Nocenti.
I can’t wait for the exasperated cries and wails when Rachel and Miles have to X-Plain Shattershot.
Herclues could not have done it; he’d sooner clean out the bloody stables.
See? Now I wish I would have had this industry context when my brother (dressed as Longshot) & I met Art Adams at SDCCI ’09. Would have love to have picked his brain more about this aspect of his creative process and history. There’s a fairly embarassing video somewhere on YouTube of Longshot meeting his maker, but don’t tell my brother I told you…
Also, being another of those Americans who had no prior Capt. Brit. experience, was brother Jamie introduced across the pond prior to these annuals or was he created within the pages of Excalibur years later?
Jamie existed in the British issues. He appears in (at least) Captain Britain #10, as a captive of Doc Croc.
Ah, good ol’ Doctor Crocodile. Neither a doctor nor an actual crocodile. (well, till later at least) Although I must say being tortured for over 4 years straight would make me want to yank the cosmic strings of reality too…
The Doug/Betsy relationship is strange and questionable, but I just let it go since trying to figure out character ages is so difficult in the MU. I am still unsure exactly what age Kitty and Jubilee are supposed to be.
Psylocke has an actual Birthdate that stayed current up until 1990. She was born on 4/23/56. Same as Brian.
So when she got her powers she was 26, and joined the X-men 4 actual years later while Doug was 14. She was with the team for only 2 actual years before the body swap mess.