Absolutely. I'm a little crushed I forgot GG via DaFoe on my list.
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The House of Ideas. Talking Time's 50 Favorite Marvel Characters!
- Thread starter Adrenaline
- Start date
#39: Mirage
AKA: Danielle "Dani" Moonstar, Psyche, Spellbinder
Powers: Telepathy, psionic weaponry, animal empathy
First Appearance: The New Mutants graphic novel, 1982
Created By: Chris Claremont, Bob McLeod
Portrayed By: Blu Hunt
2 votes, 65 points (Top voter: Peklo)
By the early 80s, Claremont's X-Men comics were a huge success and Marvel wanted to expand the line with another title. Most of the main characters had aged into adulthood, so a new group of teens were created, dubbed the New Mutants. Dani is one of those new characters, a Native American girl who came along with baggage from a demonic bear that haunted her dreams. After dealing with that problem, the New Mutants ended up in Asgard, where Dani befriended a winged horse and was given the powers of a Valkyrie, a role which she has occasionally returned to over the years.
After subsequent stints with SHIELD and her old friends in X-Force, Dani lost her powers as a result of the House of M event, and mostly spent her time teaching others in various organizations. Despite the depowering, she remained a skilled fighter and leader. She eventually got her powers back shortly before the mutant nation of Krakoa was formed, where she once again reunited with the New Mutants and continued helping to guide the next generation.
Dani appeared in The New Mutants, the last X-Men-related movie produced by Fox, although it wasn't released until after the Disney sale. She's basically the main character as the new kid at a mysterious mental institute where all the patients have powers. I didn't hate it. I've never read very much of the New Mutants but Dani always stuck out to me thanks to her dual role as a mutant and Valkyrie. It was sometimes a challenge for Marvel to make its characters interesting after their powers were taken away, but they did a solid job with Mirage.
AKA: Danielle "Dani" Moonstar, Psyche, Spellbinder
Powers: Telepathy, psionic weaponry, animal empathy
First Appearance: The New Mutants graphic novel, 1982
Created By: Chris Claremont, Bob McLeod
Portrayed By: Blu Hunt
2 votes, 65 points (Top voter: Peklo)
By the early 80s, Claremont's X-Men comics were a huge success and Marvel wanted to expand the line with another title. Most of the main characters had aged into adulthood, so a new group of teens were created, dubbed the New Mutants. Dani is one of those new characters, a Native American girl who came along with baggage from a demonic bear that haunted her dreams. After dealing with that problem, the New Mutants ended up in Asgard, where Dani befriended a winged horse and was given the powers of a Valkyrie, a role which she has occasionally returned to over the years.
After subsequent stints with SHIELD and her old friends in X-Force, Dani lost her powers as a result of the House of M event, and mostly spent her time teaching others in various organizations. Despite the depowering, she remained a skilled fighter and leader. She eventually got her powers back shortly before the mutant nation of Krakoa was formed, where she once again reunited with the New Mutants and continued helping to guide the next generation.
Dani appeared in The New Mutants, the last X-Men-related movie produced by Fox, although it wasn't released until after the Disney sale. She's basically the main character as the new kid at a mysterious mental institute where all the patients have powers. I didn't hate it. I've never read very much of the New Mutants but Dani always stuck out to me thanks to her dual role as a mutant and Valkyrie. It was sometimes a challenge for Marvel to make its characters interesting after their powers were taken away, but they did a solid job with Mirage.
Dani suffers from Native American stereotyping, as many other Marvel characters do, via a coded powerset and theming, with the culturally fraught handling of her valkyrie role further complicating matters, but it hasn't been enough to dissuade me from loving the narrative role and individuality that she had. New Mutants as a book was a vehicle and platform for experimentation in a publication line that was rapidly expanding but had not yet ballooned into unmanageable, and was still within the confines of a manageable workload for the Claremont-directed creative group that shaped what "X-Men" eventually stood for. It got to be the "weird" book--to tell horror stories, awkward but sincere PSAs, nerdy sci-fi yarns, character study oneshots, and whatever else that didn't feel comfortably standard for Uncanny X-Men. More than anything, it was a book about teenagers and feelings, and Dani for the longest while was its centerpiece and POV character. You don't get Cheyenne characters leading major books, and they especially don't also get to be pissed-off teenage girls with no directly violent superpowers. Dani was all of those things and much more besides, getting to enjoy the limelight in one of the strongest runs any book in the medium has ever had.
Also; "Make you hallucinate whatever scares you" is a good super power, and not one you'd commonly associate with a heroic character.
#38: Shuma-Gorath
AKA: Many ominous sounding titles
Powers: Omnipotence
First Appearance: Marvel Premiere #10, 1973
Created By: Steve Englehart, Frank Brunner
3 votes, 66 points (Top voter: Beta Metroid)
Shuma-Gorath is the most abstract character on this list, a Lovecraftian outer god, tied into the Conan the Barbarian mythos, who represents an existential threat to existence. Unlike other characters who exist in different incarnations across many universes, there is only one Shuma-Gorath, living in its own dimension, and always trying to reach other worlds in an attempt to conquer them and become their god. It ruled the earth many years ago, and has returned numerous times since, from during Conan's Hyborian Age and continuing to the present day. Besides Conan, Shuma-Gorath is associated with Doctor Strange, one of the only characters with the type of skill required to defeat it, or at least hold it off for a while.
Humorously, Shuma-Gorath has appeared multiple times as a playable character in Capcom's Marvel fighting games. It has yet to appear in movies, partly because the company that owns Conan the Barbarian owns the rights to the character, since its name was taken from one of Robert E. Howard's stories. A less powerful but still dangerous creature with a similar design appeared in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
AKA: Many ominous sounding titles
Powers: Omnipotence
First Appearance: Marvel Premiere #10, 1973
Created By: Steve Englehart, Frank Brunner
3 votes, 66 points (Top voter: Beta Metroid)
Shuma-Gorath is the most abstract character on this list, a Lovecraftian outer god, tied into the Conan the Barbarian mythos, who represents an existential threat to existence. Unlike other characters who exist in different incarnations across many universes, there is only one Shuma-Gorath, living in its own dimension, and always trying to reach other worlds in an attempt to conquer them and become their god. It ruled the earth many years ago, and has returned numerous times since, from during Conan's Hyborian Age and continuing to the present day. Besides Conan, Shuma-Gorath is associated with Doctor Strange, one of the only characters with the type of skill required to defeat it, or at least hold it off for a while.
Humorously, Shuma-Gorath has appeared multiple times as a playable character in Capcom's Marvel fighting games. It has yet to appear in movies, partly because the company that owns Conan the Barbarian owns the rights to the character, since its name was taken from one of Robert E. Howard's stories. A less powerful but still dangerous creature with a similar design appeared in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Hey, we're not monetizing this or affiliated with Marvel in any way. The name change only exists due to copyright goofiness; we're not beholden to it here! Shuma's in the MCU now, and you can't tell me otherwise!
So yes, I voted for Shuma, I did it almost entirely because of the Capcom games, and I don't regret it. My buddies and I thought it showing up among heroes and villains we'd actually heard of was funny at the time. And now, decades later, when I know that Shuma has still only shown up in about 20 issues total (and like half of them flashbacks), the fact it was chosen as one of about a dozen characters to rep all of Marvel is hilarious, as is the fact that it is a recurring character in that series.
Personal note: Shuma's default color in those games is typically green, like its traditional comic coloration, and its "2P color" was purple...except in the console version of Marvel Super Heroes that my friend had, where those were reversed. Thus, not knowing who Shuma was outside the context of that game, we referred to it as "the purple octopus." We were '90s kids growing up in Michigan, and the same year that game debuted was the year our favorite sports team, the Detroit Red Wings, started using a purple octopus character in its iconography (the team's octopus tradition dates back to the early '50s, but that's a whole thing). The Wings had also gotten extremely good around that time and stayed that way for the next 15 years or so, so I have lots of pleasant associations with purple octopi in my youth.
I also voted for 'Shuma.' I've never read a comic that had them in it. I too only know them from The Capcom fighters. I voted for them because I love elder/outer god HPL stuff, and cephalopods. So, I was always going to love Shuma. I haven't seen the latest Dr. Strange but when I saw in some previews a giant tentacle thing I wondered if it was Shuma...
If it weren't for the screaming fireball wizard, SHuma would easily be my favorite Dr. Strange villain.
Giant octo-eyeballs are an aesthetic choice that gets my full emotional support
Giant octo-eyeballs are an aesthetic choice that gets my full emotional support
I was the other vote for Dani Moonstar, both for her as an individual character and also as a kind of stand in for the Claremont created New Mutants generally (although I also voted for a few more of them). One thing that's great about the original New Mutants as a team that marks them as part of the trends in the height of the Claremont/Simonson era is their diversity of backgrounds and the limitations in their power sets.
Sunspot can briefly be super strong if he has recently been in the sun, but it doesn't come with any kind of invulnerability so he's just as fragile as any teenager.
Cannonball can be invulnerable, only while flying more or less uncontrollably and he can barely turn.
Karma can possess one person at a time, while losing the ability to do anything her own body while she does it. (Definitely the most powerful, but in practice it means they have to face problems more complicated than one (1) human or humanoid villain.)
Wolfsbane can be a girl, a wolf, or a wolfgirl.
Mirage/Psyche/Moonstar is introduced as the least conventionally useful of them all in standard superhero combat situations: She can create illusions that she can barely control, at times accidentally exposing her teammates' most traumatic memories or deepest desires. It's a very blunt storytelling device, but it's a good one for a book about the relationships and emotions of teenagers. And Moonstar is the character who is the protagonist of the book and becomes co-leader of the team, even when it gets a few more conventionally powerful members. Alongside a de-powered Storm, Moonstar creates a broader trend in Claremont's work of teams being lead a woman who was essentially a normal human in a conventional fight and who gains that position by defeating a symbol of the boring 60s X-Men—a depowered Storm defeats Cyclops in a one on one duel, and Moonstar keeps the team safe from a Brood Queen possessed Xavier in the first three issues of New Mutants.
Moonstar herself is also in a way the villain in that initial New Mutants story, as the team travels through her illusions that are operating on an enormous scale. It suggests a long arc for the character's power set that was unfortunately never realized. The extreme 90s flattened the characterful power sets of Claremont/Simonson characters and replaced them with what could easily be drawn on a splash page, and this was especially true for this cohort of characters. Boom-boom does time bombs? No, now she does pink energy blasts. Richter does vibrations? Now he does green energy blasts. Sunspot has temporary super strength? Now he does black energy blasts. Even Cannonball, who has the classical superhero power of flying into a guy to hit them really hard, had a period where he was doing yellow energy blasts! .And Moonstar, a protagonist with a psychological and character driven power, became a tertiary character who shot arrow shaped energy blasts.
Dani recovered from this sidelining and flattening somewhat in the following decades, but never fully reclaimed the spotlight and rarely became a fully realized character. But, when she was in the spotlight, Dani's conversations with her teammates were the core of the New Mutants, and her power set was part of a move toward superhero storytelling that didn't have to center violence.
One example of this is the introduction of Legion, Xavier's more or less omnipotent son with multiple personalities, each with their own power. Xavier, Legion's mother Gabrielle, Dani, and some others are trapped inside Legion's psychic landscape. It's Dani (along with fellow New Mutant Rahne) who sees through the facade of the swaggering good guy persona of Jack Wayne and seeks an uneasy and imperfect resolution with the Palestinian terrorist Jemail (ambiguously either the absorbed psychic residue of the man who killed Legion's Israeli stepfather, or Legion's perfect psychic mimicry of Jemail), who turns out to be the only personality actively working in Legion's best interests. It's blunt and imperfect, but also it's a story that explores the humanity of not just a Palestinian caught in the crossfire, but of a Palestinian driven to terrorism. It's a comic where a holocaust survivor lashes out at a Palestinian terrorist who killed her Israeli husband, and that action is portrayed as an extension of cowboy-imperialism. Dani is only one character in this complex story about cycles of violence, but she is the kind of character who exists to tell this kind of narrative. It's not exactly The Battle for Algiers and it's definitely raw and messy, but it's nonetheless presenting a perspective you don't see often in mainstream American pop culture.
The conservative and backwards looking 90s and current anodyne corporatism of Disney Marvel aren't great for a character like Dani. She's got more focus recently, but I think she's still essentially a character meant for a path not taken and now forclosed, a suggestion never realized. Or, if you're more optimistic than me, maybe she was ahead of her time and Marvel is finally catching up.
Either way, Dani Moonstar was the future.
Sunspot can briefly be super strong if he has recently been in the sun, but it doesn't come with any kind of invulnerability so he's just as fragile as any teenager.
Cannonball can be invulnerable, only while flying more or less uncontrollably and he can barely turn.
Karma can possess one person at a time, while losing the ability to do anything her own body while she does it. (Definitely the most powerful, but in practice it means they have to face problems more complicated than one (1) human or humanoid villain.)
Wolfsbane can be a girl, a wolf, or a wolfgirl.
Mirage/Psyche/Moonstar is introduced as the least conventionally useful of them all in standard superhero combat situations: She can create illusions that she can barely control, at times accidentally exposing her teammates' most traumatic memories or deepest desires. It's a very blunt storytelling device, but it's a good one for a book about the relationships and emotions of teenagers. And Moonstar is the character who is the protagonist of the book and becomes co-leader of the team, even when it gets a few more conventionally powerful members. Alongside a de-powered Storm, Moonstar creates a broader trend in Claremont's work of teams being lead a woman who was essentially a normal human in a conventional fight and who gains that position by defeating a symbol of the boring 60s X-Men—a depowered Storm defeats Cyclops in a one on one duel, and Moonstar keeps the team safe from a Brood Queen possessed Xavier in the first three issues of New Mutants.
Moonstar herself is also in a way the villain in that initial New Mutants story, as the team travels through her illusions that are operating on an enormous scale. It suggests a long arc for the character's power set that was unfortunately never realized. The extreme 90s flattened the characterful power sets of Claremont/Simonson characters and replaced them with what could easily be drawn on a splash page, and this was especially true for this cohort of characters. Boom-boom does time bombs? No, now she does pink energy blasts. Richter does vibrations? Now he does green energy blasts. Sunspot has temporary super strength? Now he does black energy blasts. Even Cannonball, who has the classical superhero power of flying into a guy to hit them really hard, had a period where he was doing yellow energy blasts! .And Moonstar, a protagonist with a psychological and character driven power, became a tertiary character who shot arrow shaped energy blasts.
Dani recovered from this sidelining and flattening somewhat in the following decades, but never fully reclaimed the spotlight and rarely became a fully realized character. But, when she was in the spotlight, Dani's conversations with her teammates were the core of the New Mutants, and her power set was part of a move toward superhero storytelling that didn't have to center violence.
One example of this is the introduction of Legion, Xavier's more or less omnipotent son with multiple personalities, each with their own power. Xavier, Legion's mother Gabrielle, Dani, and some others are trapped inside Legion's psychic landscape. It's Dani (along with fellow New Mutant Rahne) who sees through the facade of the swaggering good guy persona of Jack Wayne and seeks an uneasy and imperfect resolution with the Palestinian terrorist Jemail (ambiguously either the absorbed psychic residue of the man who killed Legion's Israeli stepfather, or Legion's perfect psychic mimicry of Jemail), who turns out to be the only personality actively working in Legion's best interests. It's blunt and imperfect, but also it's a story that explores the humanity of not just a Palestinian caught in the crossfire, but of a Palestinian driven to terrorism. It's a comic where a holocaust survivor lashes out at a Palestinian terrorist who killed her Israeli husband, and that action is portrayed as an extension of cowboy-imperialism. Dani is only one character in this complex story about cycles of violence, but she is the kind of character who exists to tell this kind of narrative. It's not exactly The Battle for Algiers and it's definitely raw and messy, but it's nonetheless presenting a perspective you don't see often in mainstream American pop culture.
The conservative and backwards looking 90s and current anodyne corporatism of Disney Marvel aren't great for a character like Dani. She's got more focus recently, but I think she's still essentially a character meant for a path not taken and now forclosed, a suggestion never realized. Or, if you're more optimistic than me, maybe she was ahead of her time and Marvel is finally catching up.
Either way, Dani Moonstar was the future.
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I'm loving what y'all are writing about these characters
#37: Captain Britain
AKA: Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock, Psylocke
Powers: Telepathy, psionic weaponry, telekinesis
First Appearance: Captain Britain #8, 1976
Created By: Chris Claremont, Herb Trimpe
Portrayed By: Meiling Melancon, Olivia Munn
3 votes, 67 points (Top voter: Estragon)
Betsy has one of the more convoluted histories you'll find among comic book characters. She is the original Captain Britain Brian Braddock's sister, appearing as a supporting character in his stories. She had unexplained psychic powers which were later revealed to be due to her part-mutant heritage. After briefly becoming Captain Britain herself, she was taken to Mojoworld and brainwashed, not for the only time. This is where she got the name Psylocke and joined the X-Men. Not long thereafter, there was a confusing plot where she was body-swapped with an Asian woman named Kwannon. Then Kwannon died in her body, leaving Betsy trapped in Kwannon's. For... almost 30 years.
So the character has spent the majority of existence stuck in another body, and became known for being a sexy psychic ninja. She had many adventures during this period, including stints with the Exiles and X-Force. Her relationship with Angel got her tangled up in the machinations of Apocalypse and temporarily made her one of his horsemen. Later, while helping search for Wolverine after his apparent resurrection, her soul was taken from her body, but she used her psychic powers to reform and join with her original body, ending nearly three decades of orientalism. She shortly thereafter took up the Captain Britain title again. Also, to keep things confusing, Kwannon returned to her now vacant original body, retained some of Betsy's psychic powers, and became the new Psylocke.
In the current X-Men era, Betsy leads a new iteration of Excalibur, living in Avalon and protecting Krakoa from magical threats. Despite some troubling elements in her history, I really like the character, as I do pretty much all of the telepathic mutants. She is always dealing with impossible situations and trying to resolve them without losing her sense of right and wrong. She appeared a couple times in the X-Men movies, but they always got stuck on the sexy ninja aspect and never really got into her actual character at all.
AKA: Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock, Psylocke
Powers: Telepathy, psionic weaponry, telekinesis
First Appearance: Captain Britain #8, 1976
Created By: Chris Claremont, Herb Trimpe
Portrayed By: Meiling Melancon, Olivia Munn
3 votes, 67 points (Top voter: Estragon)
Betsy has one of the more convoluted histories you'll find among comic book characters. She is the original Captain Britain Brian Braddock's sister, appearing as a supporting character in his stories. She had unexplained psychic powers which were later revealed to be due to her part-mutant heritage. After briefly becoming Captain Britain herself, she was taken to Mojoworld and brainwashed, not for the only time. This is where she got the name Psylocke and joined the X-Men. Not long thereafter, there was a confusing plot where she was body-swapped with an Asian woman named Kwannon. Then Kwannon died in her body, leaving Betsy trapped in Kwannon's. For... almost 30 years.
So the character has spent the majority of existence stuck in another body, and became known for being a sexy psychic ninja. She had many adventures during this period, including stints with the Exiles and X-Force. Her relationship with Angel got her tangled up in the machinations of Apocalypse and temporarily made her one of his horsemen. Later, while helping search for Wolverine after his apparent resurrection, her soul was taken from her body, but she used her psychic powers to reform and join with her original body, ending nearly three decades of orientalism. She shortly thereafter took up the Captain Britain title again. Also, to keep things confusing, Kwannon returned to her now vacant original body, retained some of Betsy's psychic powers, and became the new Psylocke.
In the current X-Men era, Betsy leads a new iteration of Excalibur, living in Avalon and protecting Krakoa from magical threats. Despite some troubling elements in her history, I really like the character, as I do pretty much all of the telepathic mutants. She is always dealing with impossible situations and trying to resolve them without losing her sense of right and wrong. She appeared a couple times in the X-Men movies, but they always got stuck on the sexy ninja aspect and never really got into her actual character at all.
I hate comic book writers sometimes.
I didn’t read too many comics with Psylocke in them, but I do love that the thing that sets her apart from all the other telepaths in X-Men is that she shoves all her psychic powers into her fists and then punches someone in the brain.
Also her current Captain Britain look in Excalibur is real cool. Top shelf superhero costume
Also her current Captain Britain look in Excalibur is real cool. Top shelf superhero costume
I voted for Betsy. An orientalist brainwashing body transformation/bodyswap into a pantsless sex ninja is about as severe a crisis as any narrative entity can be inflicted with, and I'm not going to say that Elizabeth Braddock as a character ever really recovered, because I haven't personally read up to the point where that might theoretically occur (if you want continuity at its most convoluted and self-contradictory, the aforementioned character nadir event is retconned at least twice in the mid-'90s). The vote comes almost solely on the basis of her depiction until that 1989 downturn, for the lowkey Captain Britain supporting character that she was--mostly-a-civilian with dyed-purple hair and minor precognitive abilities.
There's honestly weird, bad stuff that occurs to her almost regularly even early on, like her sidelining blinding by Slaymaster, or the teasing of mutual attraction with a teenager upon being introduced and integrated to the X-books, but unlike in the character's future they pass without dominating her presentation and are used as narrative gruel for better stories establishing and emphasizing Betsy's character, which turns out to be a thrill-seeking, adrenaline and violence-minded woman of war. The juxtaposition of that innate defining quality with her pink and conventionally feminine superhero outfit (still her best one, as Psylocke at least) down to the butterfly motifs that visualize her (rapidly powercreeping) telepathy during this time are what make the character tick as an individual, and cast her as someone with interiority and conflict outside of contrived plotting. The era she came into prominence also defined her, as the late '80s Uncanny run took many turns but iconically encompassed the "Australia" run, a relatively brief period which still looms large for the characterization of all that were involved with it, as it was more interpersonally-driven than even the series and author standard. The Betsy that lives in my head and that I consider significant comes from the narrative bulk that culminated there; comes from her fending off Sabretooth with her arm in a sling for an entire issue and having the time of her life rolling with those punches.
I also voted for Betsy Braddock purely on the basis of the time before body swap. That whole story is a mess. Jim Lee wanted to draw Psylocke as a bikini ninja. It was supposed to last a couple issues as part of a broader story about rebirths and new bodies. For every other character, the changes in the story were temporary. But readers loved the proto-Image Comics redesign, so they let it stick around. And then, Jim Lee got so popular Claremont (writer for 15 years) was pushed off the book. And then, a handful of issues later, Jim Lee quit to found Image comics. Everyone involved in the planned to be temporary body swap was gone, no one ended up reversing it, and it stuck for 30 years. Marvel got the best selling comic of all time (X-Men #1, vol 2) out of firing the creators who made the line popular to replace them with artists who'd only stick around for a few months, but it was a scorched earth decision that killed the closest thing American comics had to manga style long form storytelling with a singular creative voice. X-Men would continue to sell on inertia, and sometimes there were good stories, but it would never be the same. Jim Lee's Psylocke redesign was like the scar left behind by that transition. Besides the obvious representational issues, Betsy's personality was a casualty of this. if you were just someone who enjoyed Betsy Braddock as a character, this basically killed her.
It's hard not to just post the entirety of the issue Peklo capped above, Uncanny X-Men #213. It's a wonderful character piece for Betsy Braddock and yet another example of a classic Claremont story: a woman against all odds, without any powers to help her.
The important context here is the Mutant Massacre. This was the prototype for Marvel events. Claremont, his former editor and then current X-Factor and Power Pack writer Louise Simonson, and her husband and Thor writer/artist Walt Simonson were friends. They decided to tell a big story where X-Men, X-Factor, Power Pack, and Thor would all intersect. This formed the basis for the modern comic crossover. Sabretooth is now a generic villain, but at the time he was like a Terminator type figure, a relentless killing machine that no one could stop, and he was just one member of a larger organization the X-Men had no grasp on the larger details of. Before this issue, Colossus, Kitty Pryde, and Nightcrawler have all been injured and will leave the team for years of real life publication time, and most of the morlocks (mutants living in the sewers) have been murdered. Psylocke, not a member of the team, is alone in the mansion when Sabretooth appears. She gets off one psi-blast that exhausts her, then has to stall for time. It's basically a horror movie:
Eventually she's rescued by Wolverine and Storm. In a notably Claremontian touch, in the actual rescue Wolverine distracts Sabretooth by taunting him while the depowered (!) Storm is the one to get in and take Betsy to safety. So, for the vast majority of this sequence, it's basically about two human women fending off the most dangerous foe of that era.
But it's what happens after the rescue that defines who Psylocke would be during this era of the X-Men on the run. Her immediate thought isn't her own personal safety or getting her wounds treated, but to discover more information about who planned the Mutant Massacre. Magneto, a much more gentle character, worries that Betsy's plan will lead to Wolverine's death, but Psylocke argues that it must be done.
This conversation does at least two things. First, it emphasizes what a badass Psylocke is for surviving during the horror movie portion of the issue. They're worried about whether Wolverine will be able to survive, and this is after spending half the page count showing Psylocke making it out alive as basically a normal human. Second, it establishes her moral ambiguity and risk-taking pride that makes her a perfect fit for this era of the X-Men constantly on the move. She'll put her life on the line and always wants to prove her worth, but she demands that her teammates do it, too. That aspect of her character grows to the extent that at times she begins to control her teammates with little psychic suggestions when they can't do what she thinks needs to be done to survive.
This Betsy Braddock basically doesn't exist anymore, even though the body swap has finally been reversed. In the three decades since no one seems to remember who she used to be, and it probably makes narrative sense that she's different now. But her moral ambiguity and drive to survive at all costs made her the perfect character for what I think is the best part of Claremont's X-Men, the on the run period between the Mutant Massacre and the Siege Perilous.
It's hard not to just post the entirety of the issue Peklo capped above, Uncanny X-Men #213. It's a wonderful character piece for Betsy Braddock and yet another example of a classic Claremont story: a woman against all odds, without any powers to help her.
The important context here is the Mutant Massacre. This was the prototype for Marvel events. Claremont, his former editor and then current X-Factor and Power Pack writer Louise Simonson, and her husband and Thor writer/artist Walt Simonson were friends. They decided to tell a big story where X-Men, X-Factor, Power Pack, and Thor would all intersect. This formed the basis for the modern comic crossover. Sabretooth is now a generic villain, but at the time he was like a Terminator type figure, a relentless killing machine that no one could stop, and he was just one member of a larger organization the X-Men had no grasp on the larger details of. Before this issue, Colossus, Kitty Pryde, and Nightcrawler have all been injured and will leave the team for years of real life publication time, and most of the morlocks (mutants living in the sewers) have been murdered. Psylocke, not a member of the team, is alone in the mansion when Sabretooth appears. She gets off one psi-blast that exhausts her, then has to stall for time. It's basically a horror movie:
Eventually she's rescued by Wolverine and Storm. In a notably Claremontian touch, in the actual rescue Wolverine distracts Sabretooth by taunting him while the depowered (!) Storm is the one to get in and take Betsy to safety. So, for the vast majority of this sequence, it's basically about two human women fending off the most dangerous foe of that era.
But it's what happens after the rescue that defines who Psylocke would be during this era of the X-Men on the run. Her immediate thought isn't her own personal safety or getting her wounds treated, but to discover more information about who planned the Mutant Massacre. Magneto, a much more gentle character, worries that Betsy's plan will lead to Wolverine's death, but Psylocke argues that it must be done.
This conversation does at least two things. First, it emphasizes what a badass Psylocke is for surviving during the horror movie portion of the issue. They're worried about whether Wolverine will be able to survive, and this is after spending half the page count showing Psylocke making it out alive as basically a normal human. Second, it establishes her moral ambiguity and risk-taking pride that makes her a perfect fit for this era of the X-Men constantly on the move. She'll put her life on the line and always wants to prove her worth, but she demands that her teammates do it, too. That aspect of her character grows to the extent that at times she begins to control her teammates with little psychic suggestions when they can't do what she thinks needs to be done to survive.
This Betsy Braddock basically doesn't exist anymore, even though the body swap has finally been reversed. In the three decades since no one seems to remember who she used to be, and it probably makes narrative sense that she's different now. But her moral ambiguity and drive to survive at all costs made her the perfect character for what I think is the best part of Claremont's X-Men, the on the run period between the Mutant Massacre and the Siege Perilous.
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#36: Longshot
AKA: None
Powers: Probability manipulation, psychometry
First Appearance: Longshot #1, 1985
Created By: Ann Nocenti, Art Adams
3 votes, 70 points (Top voter: Falselogic (#1))
Here's another character from the X-family with a strange history. Longshot comes from the Mojoverse, a world run by Mojo, a bizarre looking creature who has turned all of existence into reality programming for himself and his paying viewers to enjoy. Longshot is one of the slaves artificially created by Mojo's people to serve them, but he was given powers in order to fight back. He can change the "luck" of those near him for good or bad, and see into the pasts of mundane objects he touches. It's a fun set of powers that makes him useful for certain kinds of stories writers might want to tell.
After meeting the X-Men, he spent time on the team, as well as with the Exiles, and in what I know him best from, X-Factor Investigations. This is where his strange connection with Shatterstar was finally explained: When Shatterstar was sent into the past in Mojoworld, his genetic material was used to create Longshot. Longshot then had a child with Dazzler, who was... Shatterstar. Their memories were wiped at the time, but Longshot is his own grandfather. Besides the weird family stuff, Longshot is a fun character who can add spice to any story he shows up in.
AKA: None
Powers: Probability manipulation, psychometry
First Appearance: Longshot #1, 1985
Created By: Ann Nocenti, Art Adams
3 votes, 70 points (Top voter: Falselogic (#1))
Here's another character from the X-family with a strange history. Longshot comes from the Mojoverse, a world run by Mojo, a bizarre looking creature who has turned all of existence into reality programming for himself and his paying viewers to enjoy. Longshot is one of the slaves artificially created by Mojo's people to serve them, but he was given powers in order to fight back. He can change the "luck" of those near him for good or bad, and see into the pasts of mundane objects he touches. It's a fun set of powers that makes him useful for certain kinds of stories writers might want to tell.
After meeting the X-Men, he spent time on the team, as well as with the Exiles, and in what I know him best from, X-Factor Investigations. This is where his strange connection with Shatterstar was finally explained: When Shatterstar was sent into the past in Mojoworld, his genetic material was used to create Longshot. Longshot then had a child with Dazzler, who was... Shatterstar. Their memories were wiped at the time, but Longshot is his own grandfather. Besides the weird family stuff, Longshot is a fun character who can add spice to any story he shows up in.
Longshot was also a vote. The appeal of the character is strongly rooted in just who created him: Ann Nocenti, at this point a comics legend for her crucial involvement as an editor in Claremont's X-Men and New Mutants and her incredible Daredevil writing run of several years, but at this point she hadn't yet done the latter and was early into the former. Nocenti didn't come from superhero comics; she didn't read them growing up and lacked the myopic kind of devotion to the form as a result, both leading to stumbles in acclimatizing to the trade early on and greatly expanding the narrative possibilities of anything she got her hands on or thought up once she got going.
Longshot is a result of that kind of outsider perspective: a metaphysical and ethics-centered lead whose circumstances and struggles don't really mirror the usual superhero paradigms, nor do his powerset that facilitates those narrative beats. Nocenti's politics aren't the usual kind of comics writer viewpoints, both in the texture and subject matter of her stories but how those views are expressed; she has an ability to satirize almost anything so exaggeratedly that binary uplifting or indictment of the text as subtle or anvil-obvious breaks down along the way, which is a great boon for a character like Longshot whose existence is so tied up with his environment, whether he's rebelling against it or simply trying to comprehend the prickly rhetoric around him. Once the plans for a Nocenti-written follow-up to his debut mini-series didn't materialize, Claremont adopted Longshot into his Uncanny line-up which remains the character's most consistent team dynamic to this day. Even so, Claremont's Longshot was vastly different from Nocenti's--a sort of childishly naive ingenue--so the social context of the character was mostly diluted or lost, but the act helped an outsider character integrate momentarily into a group of outsiders in their most isolated period to memorable effect nonetheless.
Longshot is a result of that kind of outsider perspective: a metaphysical and ethics-centered lead whose circumstances and struggles don't really mirror the usual superhero paradigms, nor do his powerset that facilitates those narrative beats. Nocenti's politics aren't the usual kind of comics writer viewpoints, both in the texture and subject matter of her stories but how those views are expressed; she has an ability to satirize almost anything so exaggeratedly that binary uplifting or indictment of the text as subtle or anvil-obvious breaks down along the way, which is a great boon for a character like Longshot whose existence is so tied up with his environment, whether he's rebelling against it or simply trying to comprehend the prickly rhetoric around him. Once the plans for a Nocenti-written follow-up to his debut mini-series didn't materialize, Claremont adopted Longshot into his Uncanny line-up which remains the character's most consistent team dynamic to this day. Even so, Claremont's Longshot was vastly different from Nocenti's--a sort of childishly naive ingenue--so the social context of the character was mostly diluted or lost, but the act helped an outsider character integrate momentarily into a group of outsiders in their most isolated period to memorable effect nonetheless.
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Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I just wanted to say I'm glad all of you are talking about Betsy Braddock in such detail, I didn't know any of this history. I'm mainly aware of Psylocke from Marvel vs Capcom 2 and a couple comics I read around that time where she made an appearance but nothing in-depth enough to discuss her history.
I didn't expect Longshot to show up. I am very glad he did. The only comic set I had as a kid (sub ten years old) was the 6 issue original run of Longshot comics. I believe I traded an old transformer toy for them. I still might have them somewhere in my parent's garage.
Everything about that series was so bizarre. I'd never seen anything like it and really haven't sense. Also, his power is so off the wall.
Everything about that series was so bizarre. I'd never seen anything like it and really haven't sense. Also, his power is so off the wall.
Longshot was a reluctant cut from my list; dude is *quite possibly* the Most Fun X-Men member, between the fact that he's one of the few that are enduringly goofball centric and also the fact that Incredibly Lucky If He's Doing it for a Good Reason is just the most delightful super power imaginable in the right hands.
I mainly know him from the Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe mini from about a decade or so ago, where his incredible lucky powers were straining the Inbetweener, a god tasked with making sure good and bad luck (among other things) were in perfect balance, and correpsondingly the entire universe was threatened.
It's also a comic by Chris Hastings, and very few people in the entire comics industry synch up with my own sense of what makes a good story than him.
I mainly know him from the Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe mini from about a decade or so ago, where his incredible lucky powers were straining the Inbetweener, a god tasked with making sure good and bad luck (among other things) were in perfect balance, and correpsondingly the entire universe was threatened.
It's also a comic by Chris Hastings, and very few people in the entire comics industry synch up with my own sense of what makes a good story than him.
If I remember correctly, Longshot barely didn't make my list (I think?), but I'm glad he found a place. Agree with everything Peklo wrote about the character and Nocenti. I'd strongly recommend anyone with an interest in Nocenti to listen to the Cerebro Cast episode where Nocenti is the guest. The focus is on Mojo, but they talk more broadly about what it was like to work at Marvel in the era.
Very good trade, IMHO. Nocenti not growing up on superhero comics or even particularly liking them really made her work unique. Jumping between her Longshot mini and the rest of the comics going on at the time, it's kind of amazing it got printed. (Depictions of attempted suicide in the following panels, don't expand to full size if you don't want to see it.)
I've used Claremont/Simonson as a shorthand for this era as the two major writers on the X-books, but Nocenti's position as an editor and her feeling unbound by conventions also had to play a hand in wildness and experimentation going on even in those relatively more conventional comics.
Very good trade, IMHO. Nocenti not growing up on superhero comics or even particularly liking them really made her work unique. Jumping between her Longshot mini and the rest of the comics going on at the time, it's kind of amazing it got printed. (Depictions of attempted suicide in the following panels, don't expand to full size if you don't want to see it.)
I've used Claremont/Simonson as a shorthand for this era as the two major writers on the X-books, but Nocenti's position as an editor and her feeling unbound by conventions also had to play a hand in wildness and experimentation going on even in those relatively more conventional comics.
Also, here's a fun contrast between both of today's characters, from when they were both on the X-Men.
I love Betsy super seriously risking everything to drive a car straight into the Juggernaut, while Longshot just flits around and gets a building dropped on him (and he's fine, of course, he's Longshot, everything just works out for him, until it doesn't).
I love Betsy super seriously risking everything to drive a car straight into the Juggernaut, while Longshot just flits around and gets a building dropped on him (and he's fine, of course, he's Longshot, everything just works out for him, until it doesn't).
If I’m remembering that story correctly, it ends with all the characters who hadn’t fought Juggernaut before realizing how to beat him when every one of Longshots attacks wind up hitting the same spot, and they figure that’s important
I also feel like something luck related like this definitely happened at some point that I don't remember, but not in this particular issue and I can't remember when. Now I wish I did remember, too. Hrm...
Reviewing it, this is just a pretty straightforward Power of Teamwork arc. Rogue (who is also there) already has knows what they should be doing, but no one is working together. The arc starts the previous issue with a training session for the new team members where Dazzler gets angry and frustrated. She doesn't really want to be there in the first place and goes off on her own for a while. Then everyone individually runs into Juggernaut, and then these new team members and still semi-new Rogue finally work together.
It's very Claremont that Longshot's role in the eventual teamwork is to... stand inside a runaway train and generally give off lucky vibes to make it more likely the passengers survive while Rogue, Psylocke, and Dazzler do the active work. This goes back to the character work in the arc, though. Dazzler, Psylocke, and Rogue have an interpersonal conflict to work through that initiated and ends the story, and Longshot's just kind of there being goofy and looking cool.
Very conventional superheroics, here, but well executed and characterful.
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there's a punchline that undercuts it, though--they can't get any credit, and also juggernaut was just a distraction so black tom could do something else entirely. whoops.
arguably a fairly conventional punchline for marvel
the whole superhero who can never get any credit deal is a spider-man classic
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#35: Daredevil
AKA: Matthew Murdock, Mike Murdock
Powers: Enhanced senses besides sight
First Appearance: Daredevil #1, 1964
Created By: Stan Lee, Bill Everett
Portrayed By: Rex Smith, Ben Affleck, Charlie Cox
3 votes, 71 points (Top voter: Adrenaline)
Matt Murdock was a pretty normal kid, living with his boxer father, when he saved a blind man from being hit by a truck, and was struck by a radioactive substance that left him blind as well. Luckily, it also enhanced his other senses, and in time he honed this into a "radar sense" that essentially allows him to see, although it can be thwarted by things like glass. After his dad was murdered for refusing to take a dive, Matt was instilled with a desire to bring criminals to justice. He trained in the ninja arts with a man named Stick and went to law school, and after graduating, started a small law firm with his friend Foggy Nelson. He also started wearing a costume and fighting crime under the name Daredevil.
Throughout his existence, the Daredevil book has generally been high quality, with a long line of good creators wanting to work on it. In an AMA, current writer Chip Zdarsky explained the appeal: "It's the title at Marvel where you can do almost anything. He's not an Avenger, not an X-Man, he's in his own world where you can fuck him up as much as you want. The title is, I think, the most prestigious title in Marvel's history with the best runs of any character." It's the "fuck him up" part that jumps out at me, because Daredevil's life has certainly been defined by tragedy. Being his girlfriend is one of the biggest risks a woman in the Marvel universe can take, with several of them dying or worse, although at least one has returned from beyond the grave. He's been in an out of jail, outed as a superhero, disbarred, moved coast to coast multiple times, become king of an undead ninja clan, and had his fake twin brother alter ego magically brought to life before getting killed. His most notable enemy is Kingpin, but Bullseye has probably caused him the personal grief, and Mister Fear, the Owl, Purple Man, and Typhoid Mary have also made his life difficult.
His first major live action appearance was in the 2003 movie starring Ben Affleck. There were some interesting ideas there but it didn't connect with a wide audience to the degree other Marvel movies at the time did. The Netflix series was more accurate to the characters, and while the violence was a bit extreme, it was the best of the Netflix MCU stuff before it was shut down. Daredevil is one of my favorite Marvel characters, largely on the strength of the stories told about him. The Daredevil comic has been pretty consistently excellent over the last 20 years, with good work by Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Mark Waid, Charles Soule, and Zdarsky. I have also heard good things about Frank Miller and Ann Nocenti's work. Whether he's teaming up with Frank Castle to bust out of jail or successfully arguing before the Supreme Court that superheroes should be allowed to give testimony without revealing their civilian identities, he's always up to something interesting.
AKA: Matthew Murdock, Mike Murdock
Powers: Enhanced senses besides sight
First Appearance: Daredevil #1, 1964
Created By: Stan Lee, Bill Everett
Portrayed By: Rex Smith, Ben Affleck, Charlie Cox
3 votes, 71 points (Top voter: Adrenaline)
Matt Murdock was a pretty normal kid, living with his boxer father, when he saved a blind man from being hit by a truck, and was struck by a radioactive substance that left him blind as well. Luckily, it also enhanced his other senses, and in time he honed this into a "radar sense" that essentially allows him to see, although it can be thwarted by things like glass. After his dad was murdered for refusing to take a dive, Matt was instilled with a desire to bring criminals to justice. He trained in the ninja arts with a man named Stick and went to law school, and after graduating, started a small law firm with his friend Foggy Nelson. He also started wearing a costume and fighting crime under the name Daredevil.
Throughout his existence, the Daredevil book has generally been high quality, with a long line of good creators wanting to work on it. In an AMA, current writer Chip Zdarsky explained the appeal: "It's the title at Marvel where you can do almost anything. He's not an Avenger, not an X-Man, he's in his own world where you can fuck him up as much as you want. The title is, I think, the most prestigious title in Marvel's history with the best runs of any character." It's the "fuck him up" part that jumps out at me, because Daredevil's life has certainly been defined by tragedy. Being his girlfriend is one of the biggest risks a woman in the Marvel universe can take, with several of them dying or worse, although at least one has returned from beyond the grave. He's been in an out of jail, outed as a superhero, disbarred, moved coast to coast multiple times, become king of an undead ninja clan, and had his fake twin brother alter ego magically brought to life before getting killed. His most notable enemy is Kingpin, but Bullseye has probably caused him the personal grief, and Mister Fear, the Owl, Purple Man, and Typhoid Mary have also made his life difficult.
His first major live action appearance was in the 2003 movie starring Ben Affleck. There were some interesting ideas there but it didn't connect with a wide audience to the degree other Marvel movies at the time did. The Netflix series was more accurate to the characters, and while the violence was a bit extreme, it was the best of the Netflix MCU stuff before it was shut down. Daredevil is one of my favorite Marvel characters, largely on the strength of the stories told about him. The Daredevil comic has been pretty consistently excellent over the last 20 years, with good work by Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Mark Waid, Charles Soule, and Zdarsky. I have also heard good things about Frank Miller and Ann Nocenti's work. Whether he's teaming up with Frank Castle to bust out of jail or successfully arguing before the Supreme Court that superheroes should be allowed to give testimony without revealing their civilian identities, he's always up to something interesting.
I like that Spidey decided "punko" was good enough to trot out twice in the span of four lines.coincidentally, was sorting out some old files today and found this fun longshot/sider-man interaction
Without knowing why Spidey is harassing him I genuinely feel bad for Longshot there. He has no idea who this asshole is.
That joke usually kills, so Longshot presumably didn’t hear him