X of Swords: Destruction #1

[lordultimus]

Comments

[draganoche]

"Here rules Saturnyne, she never scored."

[silicondream]

Hm. I don't really like Saturnyne's flirtation with Brian getting amped up into some kind of tragic True Love deal; it seems like a betrayal of character. She's suited to be Omniversal Majestrix precisely because she's learned to approximate the cosmic perspective of Roma and Merlyn, and at that level individual humans should never be more than favored pets.

[shadowkat]

Oh dear. I'm really behind...I'm just past Stasis #1.

[beyondthefringe]

If nothing else...

We got the Captain Britain Corps back.
Though it seems as though many if not all of the Brian alternates have been replaced by Betsy alts. But hey, we get a frog Captain and a swan Captain and a baboon Captain and for the love of god, who will write us a new Captain Britain Corps titles?

Wait, Si Spurrier is apparently going to be involved in the next phase of the franchise (Reign of X), so... maybe? At least he'd be interesting and British.

[fiddlingfrog]

I went looking for the Captain Britain of Earth 8311 and couldn't find anyone, so I'm really hoping that Peter Porker's former roommate Brian Bradduck makes an appearance.

[deh_tommy]

One of the new Captains is a swan, no?

[fiddlingfrog]

They are, and I just noticed the first page in the OP lists "The Violet Swan" as the Captain Britain of 8311. I object to that though because the swan we saw was just a swan and not a cartoon anthropomorphic swan like Spider-Ham, Quacksilver, Croctor Strange, and the others we've seen from that world.

On the other hand, the Violet Swan's real name being Betsy Bradduck would be the dumb kind of joke I could get behind.

[deh_tommy]

Here’s hoping the new Corps is actually worthy of the mantle unlike the person who unintentionally spawned them.

[themajesticmoose]

You aren't a fan of Betsy Braddock?

[deh_tommy]

I was, until #13 happened.

[themajesticmoose]

What happened in issue thirteen that put you off her?

[deh_tommy]

Oh, lots of things. She spent the past 12 or so issues not wanting the mantle and all of a sudden she’s become very possessive of the name? I get the whole “prove the haters wrong” thing, that’s a tried and true character arc for a reason, but nothing in this series has really shown why Betsy is genuinely deserving of Captainship. She was given the amulet not out of the true test, but out of convenience to stop that falling into the wrong hands. She’s spent all her time acting in Krakoa and Big A’s interests over protecting and helping the British Isles (unless that also happened to benefit Krakoa). Remember how King Arthur went missing? Neither does the book seemingly enough. And they probably won’t care because a mutant rules Camelot now. Hooray for imperialistic puppet states! What could be more British?

She got really snappy and presumptuous with her emotionally traumatised brother and constantly pestered him over the source of his shame, pushing the Sword of Might on him at every turn (when he clearly wanted nothing to do with that) to the point of fighting him because he may get the Amulet back.

Then, and here’s the real kicker, she destroys the Amulet so no one can ever take the mantle from her again. They try to cover themselves by having Saturnyne go “oh, the test is actually meaningless and outdated”, except we saw Roma and Merlin testing Brian earlier in the run so that’s obviously more important than Saturnyne lets on. That’s how they got the Sword of Might in the first place! That’d be like if Jane Foster constantly bullied Thor over him being unworthy and then ate Mjolnir so no one but her could possess his power. All this, I feel, just goes to prove exactly why Betsy doesn’t deserve the role.

Oh, but then everything turned out to be according to their plan!...wait, what? What was the plan? Which parts were faked? Was that any time Betsy was acting spoilt? What about the parts where Saturnyne wasn’t watching? He I’m what was their end goal anyway? Getting the Starlight Sword? Saturnyne was going to give them the Starlight Sword the whole time, for pete’s sake, so the whole deception plot was completely pointless. Just swap swords if you really wanted the Starlight Sword so badly, Brian was clearly okay with the idea. Except that’s still kind of iffy because Brian is clearly ashamed of failing the test, so pushing the Sword on him is pretty icky.

And that’s not even getting into how the both of them treat Jamie like he’s some incorrigible little rapscallion instead of someone who’s been cruelly splintering reality and pressing the inhabitants into his own private army. Heck, he flat out murders one of them! And as they stress throughout the crossover, if you die in Ofherworld then you’re dead for good! And Brian thinks that right to pledge loyalty to him.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not looking forward to what comes next for Excalibur.

[silverhammerman]

Kinda weird that Saturnyne orchestrated this whole nightmare and multiple deaths and the only comeuppance she gets is not getting laid.

[themajesticmoose]

Well not getting laid with Brian anyway

If she's not going to make the most of the fact she's now got a loyal legion of beautiful buff ladies with purple hair then she can't be as smart as she claims to be

I would absolutely be thinking orgy in this situation

[deh_tommy]

So do they all have naturally purple hair, or do they dye them first? Or does the purple hair come with the costume, like how everyone who’s claimed the mantle of Thor gets magnificent golden locks?

[themajesticmoose]

Personally I like to imagine Saturnyne now has to bulk order a hundred cases of purple hair dye every few months so the new Captain Britan Corps can keep it looking like that