Excalibur #25 - "Come Fate Into The List"

[deh_tommy]

In some undisclosed timeframe, Betsy reunites with her old S.T.R.I.K.E. buddies. And also justifies why that’s okay for her to ignore her duties to Britain and for Krakoa to systematically colonise and take over Otherworld. Yay, historical revisionism!




In the present...

Comments

[tinygaylaura]

Fucking hell I want Betsy to just utterly destroy me

You might ask "Do you mean sexually or in battle?" and my answer to that is that I'm going to climax just as hard either way so both works for me

[lordultimus]

Betsy, Camelot was made to protect the natives from the invading Saxons, the last thing it was made for was for "everyone".

[tinygaylaura]

Camelot is fictional

In real life it wasn't made by anyone for anything because none of this existed or happened. It's a story from a work of fiction in the public domain. And it's been adapted more often than anything other than maybe Sherlock Holmes. There are probably a hundred different "Camelots" in the world of fiction, at least

Saying that Betsy's claim about what Camelot's purpose was in the Marvel universe isn't true is like saying Shang Chi is historically inaccurate because "I can't find any hospital records proving Fu Manchu had a son"

[deh_tommy]

Regardless, this is still pretty blatant revisionism to justify why that’s okay for Krakoa to keep occupying Otherworld and excuse Betsy’s weird apathy regarding Arthur.

[tinygaylaura]

Betsy doesn't seem apathetic to me, it seems like she actively hates Arthur and after seeing him in action here so do I

And yeah this seems like an excellent reason for Krakoa to stay in Otherworld. Not allowing a mentally defective moron who is the rabid slave of a fascist psychopath to take the throne sounds like a good plan to me

[deh_tommy]

Now are you talking about Arthur or Jamie? DOHOHOHOHO

Like, why did she hate Arthur? When he was gone she scoffed whenever he was brought up and never went looking for him. She makes a point about the flaws of the presumptuous god-given right of kings, yet (a)Arthur quite literally is the Once and Future King, (b)he’d been doing a pretty good job before he got kidnapped (no matter what this book claims), and (c)outside of when that happened initially she had no qualms with her brother’s landed gentry butt seating himself there. And she still calls her team Excalibur after his famous sword. Really, the impression that gives is she hates him because his claim to the throne threatened the legitimacy of Krakoa’s dominion.

[tinygaylaura]

Arthur is leading a campaign of attempted racist genocide on the orders of a fascistic rapist megalomaniac who is literally the child of the devil

Better question: Why WOULDN'T she hate Arthur

What has Arthur done to deserve anyone loving him?

Alternatively maybe she just hates him because he's to blame for the tv show "Merlin" being made. That's reason enough in my book

[lordy_co]

And she still calls her team Excalibur after his famous sword
Well, colonizers are known for either appropriating national symbols or erasing them...

[silverhammerman]

It's conspicuous to see this kind of approach on the stands at the same time as Gillen's Once and Future, which is all about engaging with the layers of Arthuriana and nationalism. Not that I'm saying either is better way to do it, but it's a big contrast.

[alliterator]

"blatant revisionism"

I mean, it's the Marvel universe. Saying "mutants existed back in Camelot" is revision. It's called a retcon. Nobody really cares.

And one again, they are not occupying Otherworld, Jamie is the king of Avalon, just like Brian used to be the King of Avalon.

[mastermahan]

I mean

Otherworld is being ruled by a foreign national who'd never even set foot there before. He's being propped up by another nation. His claim to the throne is based on a leonine agreement Pooky made with someone who was explicitly just a regent, and Jamie and Apocalypse didn't even hold up their end of the bargain.

King is just a word. Jamie has no legitimate sovereignty, so yeah, it's an occupation.

[alliterator]

Otherworld is ruled by Opal Luna Saturnyne, not Jamie. Jamie, again, rules Avalon, which is just a region of Otherworld. All the regions of Otherworld are ruled by different people or groups of people. And Jamie has definitely set foot in Avalon before. In fact, he and his family come from Avalon.

[laughing_tree]

https://abload.de/img/17ymjk6.jpg

[tinygaylaura]

So in other words Merlin is a fascist psychopath

[silverhammerman]

Nice to see some level of continuity between this and Spurrier's Curse of the Ebony Blade book. Is this Arthur supposed to be the original then, or is he an Otherworld creation based off of Merlin's revisionism?

[deh_tommy]

Probably, given he was stuck in the dungeons and had apparently been missing for a while.

On that note, I rather dislike what Si Spurrier did to Arthur in the MARVEL universe. Why can’t Arthur just be good? You play Thor pretty straight and that’s okay for Black Panther to be a king and you live in a world of literal superheroes, but King Arthur is apparently “infantile fantasy” and where you draw the line? Meanwhile, crap like this book that peddle the idea that’s okay to adopt your oppressor’s tactics as your own, act as exceptionalism propaganda and turn everyone into pre-redemption Magneto are a-okay.

I’m not even really sure why this ticks me off so much, I’m not really an Arthurian purist or necessarily the biggest fan of the myths. That’s just... ugh, I’m sick of this era, I’m sick of deconstructions, I’m sick of subversions, I’m so bloody sick of it all.

[deh_tommy]

Oh, no! Not *gasp* chaste! The horror!

[tinygaylaura]

I feel like the above debate may distract from the important thing here which is that this issue had a body hopping bisexual and her friends beat the shit out of King Arthur with help of the adopted shape shifting dragon baby a girl with firework hands is raising and that's both fucking insane and insanely fucking cool

[deh_tommy]

I don’t know, I can’t get beyond the whole manifest destiny angle, what with Betsy going “magic belongs to us” and “we’ll make Camelot great again” and that oh-so inspirational mutant supremacy monologue that’d make even Magneto blush. Let’s not forget this new magic they’re pushing that’s so superior to regular magic by virtue of coming from mutants and that the dragon is a literal infant being placed in mortal danger.

[tinygaylaura]

I don't read Betsy's actions that way here at all. She's defending Camelot as a place where everyone can be free, mutant and human alike. If anyone's pulling the "Make Camelot Great Again" act here it's Merlin and Arthur...they're the ones who are saying that Otherworld's "Purity" needs to be restored by throwing out all the "Witchbreed"

I do agree that it's a bad idea for them to risk Shogo's life like this tho. Especially as he's human and couldn't be resurrected if he was mortally wounded even if they got him back to our world

[blues32]

Why is all this "mutant supremacy" stuff okay now anyway? Used to be that when the X-Men heard such talk, they'd refute it. Push for harmony between mutant and human. We were supposed to boo the people who go on about "flatscans" as we were the ones who spat the word, "mutie".

The hell is Shogo doing in Otherworld anyway? The instant Jubilee saw her baby boy turn into a dragon, she should have taken him home, posthaste. He's a DRAGON with the mind of an infant. They're fighting people rather good at magic, which includes enslavement. This is going to end with Shogo being made to attack his mother and I, for one, am going to be more angry at Jubilee than I am at Merlin. We expect such tactics from him.

[lordy_co]

Why is all this "mutant supremacy" stuff okay now anyway? Used to be that when the X-Men heard such talk, they'd refute it. Push for harmony between mutant and human. We were supposed to boo the people who go on about "flatscans" as we were the ones who spat the word, "mutie"

Tbf, this is at least coherent with the initial pitch for Krakoa, i.e. that things get nasty once a minority goes from "hated and feared" to "global superpower". Of course extremist discourses are going to become more common among Krakoans: what can any of the offended do agains them?

[blues32]

Yeah, but I haven't seen anyone arguing in opposition of such discourses. I mean, Cyclops says to Sue Storm that she should tell Franklin that, when he's ready, his real family is waiting for him on Krakoa. I'd have put him in an invisible box, spin him around until he vomits, and ask him to rephrase that if I was her.

Then, after all the nonsense they put the Fantastic Four, they tell Franklin to take a flying leap. He didn't mean to turn himself into a mutant with his powers. I'm not sure how it all ended, but I'm assuming they're no longer willing to help Franklin get his powers back. Why, he might become a mutant again! That is just cold. And this is after Xavier messed with Reed's mind so he wouldn't be able to make the suppressing device again while making sure he still knew he had made one.

The X-Men used to be about bridging the gap between humans and mutants. Now all they do is widen it. That just saddens me.

[tinygaylaura]

I don't see anything "Nasty" about anything Krakoa has been doing regarding humanity

Humanity in the Marvel universe is absolute garbage and despite that, mutantkind is happy to live in peace with them

On top of that mutantkind has still given them cures for diseases none of these morons could ever hope to find on their own

And all they have demanded in return is what mutantkind is owed and deserves to have

And as for any humans who are offended by what mutantkind are doing or saying feel well honestly, as far as I'm concerned none of their feelings matter