InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "i can't help it!!"

proteus_lives (proteus_lives) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-05-03 21:35:00

Current location:	Outer Dark
Entry tags:	char: captain britain/brian braddock, char: cypher/doug ramsey, char: mirage/danielle moonstar, char: mojo, char: psylocke/betsy braddock, char: spiral/rita wayword, char: warlock, creator: alan davis, creator: chris claremont, publisher: marvel comics, theme: otp, title: new mutants

Doug Ramsey and Betsy Braddock: So Wrong yet So Right.
Greetings True Believers! In my last Doug Ramsey post I showed you his tragic end. In this post, let's visit one of his greatest triumphs. When he met, saved and perhaps won the heart of Betsy Braddock a.k.a Psylocke. Some backstory is required. At one point Betsy assumed the mantle of Captain Britain and was blinded by Slaymaster (One of her brother's old foes) She's blind but uses her telepathy to get around. In prologue (set a year in the past) she's hitting the slopes in Switzerland when she's kidnapped by Mojo and Spiral.....Enjoy!

(The art is wonderful.)

Mojo and Spiral were fucking creepy back in the day!

Mojo turns Betsy in the host of the world's most popular kid's show, "Wildways" It's beloved by all the children (Superpowered children most of all like Rahne, Sunspot and some superpowered tykes from Longshot's mini. Mojo has it in for them as well.) Meanwhile Doug is having doubts about being a New Mutant. He's unsure of his place on the team, being isolated from society at the mansion and other things. Dani gives him a pep-talk.

Brian Braddock a.k.a Captain Britain also saw the Wildways program and is scouring the globe for Betsy. He tracks down the transmission to a slum in New York but is attacked and overpowered by Slave-Betsy's psi powers. (Backed-up by Spiral's reality-warping and spells.)

The spell cast over the children takes effect and people like Sunspot and the Bratpack travel willingly into the Wildways. Sunspot is replaced by a double. The double is accidently killed by Doug and Warlock while clearing some trees. Doug goes to angst over the body when Warlock discovers something amiss...

The New Mutants go to investigate while we turn back to Mojo and Spiral messing with Betsy.

Those bionic eyes are creepy and they will haunt Betsy for years to come. Meanwhile Mojo takes the children he's seized and alters them into evil adult forms. (Rahne, Bobby, Karma's siblings and the Bratpack children.)

The New Mutants travel to the slum but they fucked by Betsy's psi powers and turn on each other and then they are attacked by the altered children. Doug and Warlock escape but watch as the New Mutants give into the lure of getting their hearts desires and are altered into adult forms. All except Magma who fights back and is instead regressed back to childhood. Then Doug finds out what happened to Brian Braddock...

Magma fights back and Doug convinces Braddock to go and rescue her. Then Doug and Warlock meet Betsy for the first time.

(It's really great how Doug and Warlock work as a team.)

BB and Magma continue fighting the Bratpack while Doug and Warlock make a dangerous and heroic decision.

Matrix/Borg time. Once again the art really works here.

Douglock's and Betsy's mind interweave and He sees what She and Mojo are doing to the kids. BB and Magma fight a losing battle. Doug tries to reason with Betsy but she attacks him with the help of Spiral. Douglock figures out how to psionically restore Betsy to her true self.

The art here is trippy, the story is cool and with a really wicked mindscape. I wish I could post it. Doug begins to rescue the trapped people. He's starting merge with Warlock intensely.

Spiral's spells and dances end but she tries one last trick to destroy everyone.

Warning! Angst and Doug/Betsy cuteness ahead!

Claremont so enjoys saying it without saying it.

Oh these two are so cute. Check it out!

Methinks Brian might have reacted differently if he realized his twin sister was basically the meat in a alien/boy sandwich.

In this era Doug and Betsy are ALWAYS a half a bottle of wine away from doing something that might put Betsy on another federal list. It's cute because Doug is heroic and so shy. Betsy is conflicted but full of emotions and desire. It's one of Marvel's great "If Only...."'s

What do you think? Betsy/Doug, OTP??? I liked them a lot better then Doug/Kitty or Doug/Rahne. Doug also beats the pants off of Warren, Neal or any of Betsy's other men.

The last lines of the Annual are, "It's hard to be a hero but, occasionally well worth the price." That is Doug Ramsey in a nutshell.

(It's 16 scans. The annual was giant-sized and 48 pages long. So I think I'm good.)

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icon_uk
2009-05-04 05:24 am UTC (link)

I confess Doug/Betsy was always just a little TOO weird for me (Kitty and Doug forever! Or possibly Tarot and Doug, had that gone anywhere, as it has in a couple of really excelletn fanfics).

Doug's reaction to Betsy is obvious, he's a walking pile of teenage hormones with self image problems, and she's a supermodel who thinks he's cute. The fact he's capable of standing upright in front of her without a well placed desk between them is a remarkable testament to his self control. Her attraction to him just isn't quite right, for all the same reasons. I'm rather glad it never went anywhere.

So many great moments in this. The bit (not shown) where Doug admits to "Sunspot"'s body that had never really gotten on was a nice bit of honesty.

I love that Doug's reaction to Betsy's predicament, despite what she's done, is "poor lady", Wolverine this kid ain't.

Love the merging sequence, and Doug's reaction to it, and I think this issue was the start of Warlock referring to Doug (and only Doug) as "selfsoulfriend" rather than "selfriend", but he'd earned that I think.

The whole mindscape sequence is goregous, from Douglock ripping off the false face Spiral had given him (Again, sorry not shown), to Betsy's psychic form at the end.

"In a psychic environment, strength is a function of will and determination" is just an awesome line and so worthy of Doug and Warlock!

I wish though, that Betsy HAD removed her eyes, it made no sense at all that she would keep them (still less that she wouldn't tell anyone other than Doug and Warlock), and a telepath who can see through the eyes of others would have been an interesting twist.

Brian hugging Doug at the end SHOULD be slightly slashy, but it's so clearly an English-public schoolboy fraternal-style hug that it's not. The fact that it looks like it would take about six Doug's to equal one Brian in terms of bodymass is also cute, though considering he's got a bruised chest from his earlier punch I can imagine that Doug would be nursing some seriously squeezed ribs for a while

Ah... just such a great issue! Thanks for posting!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	unknownscribler 2009-05-04 08:05 am UTC (link)
	Betsy/Doug is far far less squicky than Piotr/Kitty (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-05-04 08:40 am UTC (link)
	Neither exactly win points for appropriateness. The age difference is a lot less with Piotr/Kitty (Piotr's 19 or so versus Kitty's 13/14) than Betsy/Doug (Betsy's mid to late 20's to Doug's 15 or so), but Kitty was younger when her's started.... (Reply to this) (Parent)

	aaron_bourque 2009-05-04 12:01 pm UTC (link)
	I wish though, that Betsy HAD removed her eyes, it made no sense at all that she would keep them Stockholm Syndrome? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	cricharddavies 2009-05-04 03:15 pm UTC (link)
	I wish though, that Betsy HAD removed her eyes, it made no sense at all that she would keep them Lose your sight. Have it restored, with conditions. Voluntarily give it up again -- by clawing your own eyes out. Then you can talk about what someone else should do in that situation. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

icon_uk
2009-05-04 06:12 pm UTC (link)

She doesn't NEED to claw them out, there are doubtless less... visceral methods.

And if you knew that your new eyes were a gift of a real, live, sadistically violent malevolent god (essentially) who you had actually MET and loathed with every fibre of your being, and you KNEW it had strings that might bring death and destruction to your team-mates, and the cute blond kid who'd just risked his mind and soul to save you, that MIGHT swing things back around, no?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	cricharddavies 2009-05-04 09:13 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, well. I'm sure that a less visceral method WOULD be available. But she'd still be in the dark afterwards! Until you are in that situation, you cannot possibly judge someone for what they do, what they endure, to get out of it! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-05-05 01:20 am UTC (link)
	She had already said in the past that as a telepath she was never truly blind, as she saw through the eyes of others, so she wasn't in the dark. And it's not what she was enduring which was the issue, it's what she's risking inflicting on thos around her. (Reply to this) (Parent)

proteus_lives
2009-05-04 01:34 pm UTC (link)

I wish I could posted all of the mindscape scenes, they were wonderful.

The merging/friendship between Doug and Warlock is one of the coolest things about the comic. There were so many bits I wish I could have posted!

Doug and Brian are cute pals! One of the reasons I would have hoped for an eventually Doug/Betsy relationship was this. After he get over the age difference I think he would assumed an "older-classmate/friend" dynamic with Doug. Also, Meggan would thought Doug was adorable and been such a fangirl for Doug/Betsy.

""In a psychic environment, strength is a function of will and determination" is just an awesome line and so worthy of Doug and Warlock!"

Agreed! It was their "There is no spoon" moment!

Betsy/Doug can be wrong. But I liked them for the future outcome. If Doug had lived I think they would have ended up together somewhere down the road. Did you ever see the movie Sandlot? They actually reminded my of this. Ok, a bunch of nerds/outcasts/dorks form a rag-tag sandlot baseball team. One of these boys (who are between 10-12) is a scrawny, bookish-nerdy type. In one scene they go down to the public pool on a hot summer day. The reason is the ultra-foxy 16-17 year old life-guard that the nerd is crushing on hardcore.
The others mock him for this crush and he makes a decision to do something about it. He jumps off the diving-board and pretends to be drowning. She dives in and pulls him out and starts CPR. He, of course uses this opportunity to steal a kiss. Everyone cheers him and the girl is furious and tosses them all out. They run off but the nerd looks back and the they see each other and she gives him a smirk.
In the epilogue of the film where they tell what happened to the sandloters as adults, this nerd eventually married the lifeguard and had six kids together.
Doug/Betsy should have been a "down-the-road" OTP.

Your posts are great too! Very inspiring!

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-05-04 02:46 pm UTC (link)
	Oh if Betsy was going to wait for Doug, then I have no real problem with it provided both were in their right minds (or maybe in Betsy's case, right brain... or body, with her the terms get terribly confusing). But as it was presented, nope. Likewise I can see Brian liking Doug, but wondering about his sisters choice of beau at this point as he IS so young. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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