The Knight and her Sorceress: How We Got Rachel and Betsy

[alliterator]

"I have a real love for the sorceress and the knight," Howard says. "From Final Fantasy to Geralt and Yennefer in The Witcher, I love a sword-wielder and their more magical partner who is equally powerful and tough. That dynamic lets the characters react to the expectation that one of you defends the other or something; instead they can show how partnerships actually work and how people actually love each other."
-- Tini Howard


It all started back in 2004, when Joss Whedon had started Astonishing X-Men, but it just happened that Chris Claremont was also put on Uncanny X-Men at the time. Since his favorite character, Kitty, was otherwise preoccupied, though, he turned to his two other favorite characters: Betsy Braddock and Rachel Summers. In fact, this was when he brought Betsy and Rachel back to life.

Which is how, when House of M begins, they are able to escape the reality warp in Uncanny X-Men #462:








Yes, that's right: Jamie bound "their lives and fates together."

When they re-enter reality, they are immediately changed into their House of M selves: Princess Betsy (since Brian is the King of England) and her "companion" Rachel:




There's a lot of bantering back and forth between them like this.

When Claremont leaves, of course, not much else happens between them, until G. Willow Wilson started writing X-Men (2013) for her storyline "The Burning Earth" in X-Men #25. Storm is trapped underground, so Monet, Betsy, and Rachel go underground to find her, but encounter trouble:




And then the book ended a few issues later.

And now we come to the Krakoa era and Excalibur. Specifically, Excalibur #8, where Betsy decides to spare a baby Warwolf...and she knows just who can take care of it.




Later, during Hellfire Gala in issue 21:


And then, in the last issue:






And in Knights of X, it's just gotten more blatant:








Finally culminating in this page:


So there we go.

Comments

[stubbleupdate]

And as was pointed out on twitter, the characters are depicted in the palette of the lesbian and bi pride flags on the cover.

[shakalooloo]

So in House of M, Elizabeth's name is spelled with an 's'?

[lilacsigil]

It has been on and off for decades!

[angelophile]

I feel like posting Chris Claremont comics as evidence of bisexuality is cheating. In Chris Claremont comics everyone is bisexual.

[icon_uk]

I feel like with Rachel especially, you'd need to look quite hard for actual evidence of anything other than the most performative aspects of heterosexuailty.

[scorntx]

Aside from that Shi'ar guy.

And even then, that felt a bit like the writers going "see? She's dating a guy! Completely of her own free will! Totally not gay!"

(and the bizarre crush on Nightcrawler. Which might not mean anything, because... hey. Nightcrawler.
... but let us never speak of it again.)

[mastermahan]

I think Rachel decided the thing with Big Sword Shi'ar Guy was really just their shared Phoenix connection.

And like you said, Nightcrawler is Nightcrawler. Some people are attractive enough that orientation doesn't matter. Kurt Wagner. Nightwing. Idris Elba.

Was this Rachel with Franklin before she came back through time or was that an alternate Rachel*?

*who isn't a counterpart to this Rachel because we said so shut up

[cainofdreaming]

This. Franklin's ghost came even back to woo her again.

[arilou_skiff]

Wasn't there something about her having a crush on some dude in the original Excalibur days?

[cainofdreaming]

Alistaire Stuart, the brother of Marvel's Lethbridge-Stewart expy.

[icon_uk]

If you're thinking of Alistaire Stuart of the Weird Happenings Organisation, that was the other way around.

He had a crush on Rachel, but it was Kitty who had a crush on him.

[cainofdreaming]

Kitty also understood why he had a crush on Rachel. Understood very well indeed.

[arilou_skiff]

That's probably it. Was a long time since I read those issues.

[jlbarnett]

Franklin?

[icon_uk]

Oh, good catch, I'd forgotten about Franklin.

[scorntx]

And from the looks of it, so had Rachel.

(Though maybe they were just together on account of being the only two teens in a concentration camp, but she did feel him die in her mind. That does sort of seem like the thing that warrants the occasional mention.)

[alliterator]

The thing is, as soon as Rachel moves into the 616, she forgets about Franklin for probably two reasons:
1: She is an adult and Franklin is currently a young child, so it would be weird.
2. Claremont so queercodes her that she almost immediately falls into a relationship with Kitty.

[jlbarnett]

seriously, this is weird enough for me cause to me Rachel has single person sexuality for each gender, Kitty for women, Franklin for men. Anything else is just like performative

[deh_tommy]

It still feels to me like it came up out of nowhere in Excalibur #21.

[shakalooloo]

To be fair, lots of things in the last Excalibur run came out of nowhere. Merlyn was the villain all of a sudden in the same issue where he appears, and then is treated as if he's been the Big Bad all along!

I'm sure some of the intended foreshadowing for these events is somehow being left on the cutting room floor.

[alliterator]

Merlyn was very much foreshadowed in the book itself.

[shakalooloo]

I don't recall him being mentioned before he showed up at the big council meeting, but then it's been a while since I read through the series - any instances I should go back and look up?

[alliterator]

During X of Swords, the description of the "Holy Republic of Fae" shows just how fascistic Merlyn has become:


This is a pretty big hint that he's going to be trouble in the future, which is what happens in Excalibur #22:

[deh_tommy]

Was he? He showed up once in a vision Brian had, one that resulted in Brian forsaking the right to Captain Britain when he chose the Sword of Might, then isn’t heard from again until he suddenly shows up out of nowhere to no one’s surprise despite his mysterious absence and it was revealed he was apparently the one who disappeared Arthur this whole time.

[alliterator]

X of Swords data pages hinted that he was going to be trouble with his more fascistic piece of Otherworld:

[icon_uk]

In fairness, Merlyn being an amoral, manipulative schemer working behind the scenes to achieve his ends until he reveals himself is pretty much business as usual in any story involving Otherworld and Roma

[cainofdreaming]

He never exhibited anti-mutant leanings before, though. He was a bastard, but he was a bastard without a preference.

[alliterator]

Every time Merlyn and Roma die, they are reborn slightly differently. Roma is also different then how she was before. The X of Swords data pages explain what they are like now, with Merlyn becoming more fascistic:

[cainofdreaming]

And that never happened before either. Lets call a retcon a retcon, yes?

[alliterator]

I was explaining how this book foreshadowed Merlyn's turn as a villain. I mean, he's also been a villain before, even if it was a different kind of villain, but that doesn't really matter.

In the comics, Merlyn is a creature of magic and story and changes as the story changes. He has many forms and many names and all of them are Merlyn.

[jlbarnett]

I haven't been following comics recently, except occasionally here. I do seem to recall them mentioning the nature of stories affecting their nature(I have become so SICK of that bit) and all I can think is if they're aware of that affecting them, as so many major comics villains seem to be, why do none attempt to cast themselves as the hero of their story and twist things around

[shakalooloo]

Last time I saw him (in Captain Britain and MI:13) his evil was drawn into a Fury shard and extracted from him (along with his insistence on spelling his name with a 'y'!). When/why did he break bad again?

[alliterator]

I've read Captain Britain and MI-13 before, but I don't ever remember that happening in it. In fact, I don't remember the Fury showing up at all.

In any case, post-Secret Wars, when he and Roma were reborn:

[shakalooloo]

In the Secret Invasion tie-in, after he has Pete Wisdom (a mutant!!!) free him from his imprisonment, Merlin displays a Fury shard that was driven into his side. All the evil in him was drawn into it, and it is by inverting and destroying this evil that he resurrects Brian Braddock.

This Merlin then also goes on to push Faiza Hussein into becoming Excalibur, the sword that heals, so he was clearly a Good Guy, and Paul Cornell said as much in interviews at the time.

Interestingly, the Merlin in the text piece you posted - which, I'll admit, I tended to gloss over as world-building in my pathetic excuse for not remembering - is of the 'i' spelling variety, and the one on-panel is chanelling pure 'y' Merlyn energy. I'm going to put that down to a typo, as whichever Marvel staffer types up the text pieces just went with the traditional spelling.

Then again, since Roma returned to life with no explanation -BEFORE Secret Wars, no less! - expecting continuity in the magical Otherworld is probably as futile as a mortal human trying to impsoe order on the fae.

I'll just go with the flow. Merlyn is a douche.

EDIT: Huh, Marvel Merlyn's wiki page just re-directs to Roma. The most you can find on the man himself is on the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_in_comics page, which shows no transitional state between friendly Cornell Merlin and asshole Howard Merlyn.

It's magic. We don't have to explain it.

[alliterator]

I just double check and he does say that all his evil was drawn into the Fury shard, but then, in order to bring Captain Britain back, he destroys the shard, presumably releasing the evil again:

Thematically, this is like Pete Wisdom letting out all of the Fae creatures and getting a reward -- Merlyn brings back Captain Britain and Pete gets rid of all the Skrulls in Britain -- but it also results in the spread of chaos and evil.

In any case, it also doesn't matter, because that was back during Secret Invasion and it's revealed post-Secret Wars that both Roma and Merlyn were reborn along with the multiverse, so they are different then how they were (this is where it's revealed that Opal Luna Saturnyne also arranged things so that she would come out as Omniversal Majestrix post-reboot):

[shakalooloo]

So it's Saturnyne's fault. If you create a 'terrible' land for a wizard to rule, OF COURSE he's going to go all Dark Lord about it! :P

The evil int he shard was not released, it was reveresed, and converted into energy to give life - rather than death - to Captain Britain. Merlin reversed the polarity of the neutron flow, and it's walking around as Brian Braddock.

[alliterator]

"So it's Saturnyne's fault."

Pretty much. This is why Betsy is so angry at her at the end of Excalibur.

[laughing_tree]

Re: the quote
Which Final Fantasy would that be?

[super_fly]

The most obvious one that comes to mind would probably be FF8 which uses the theme of a Sorceress and their stalwart protector abundantly: for Siefer and Edea, Squall and Rinoa.

[deh_tommy]

It’s probably more archetypal and not always literal given a good few of the games don’t even have knights in their settings. Off the top of my head, there’s Cecil & Rosa (IV), Cloud and Aerith(VII), Tidus & Yuna and Wakka & Lulu (X), Garland & Sarah (Stranger of Paradise), there’s probably a ton of others I’m forgetting.

[dragontail]

... I had no idea how badly I needed to see all of this tonight, but the grin on my face is so damn wide and so damn comfortable.

[didiji]

Thank you for the beautiful post. Forthcoming or not, I'm really glad how things went on, since I do remember Uncanny X-Men #462 and always felt the need for some closure back then.

[giraffesforever]

I always enjoy when someone takes the time to collect a theme across a couple decades, thanks alliterator.

I was one of the ones who had thought their flirtation in the recent Excalibur was a surprise, not because of their sexuality, but because I wasn't aware of any previous relationship between them. It's nice to see those earlier pages establish that there has been at least a close friendship. Long-time friends to more seems very in keeping with the X-people's history.

[mastermahan]

I second that thanks. I really didn't know there was history there.

[blues32]

I am disappointed. They fail to mention the best sorceress and knight. Dynaheir and Minsc. ...okay, nobody cares about Dynaheir, but everyone loves Minsc! "Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, watch it! I'm huge!" "Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes!"