Shang Chi and the Very Long Subtitle About Obscure Marvel Lore

[Friv]

No one remembers Xian Coy Manh? Founding member of the New Mutants?

A movie about her assembling a team of superheroes during the Blip is something I’d pay money to see.

That would be pretty good, but unfortunately I think the recent New Mutants movie took out most of her likely supporting cast (and team name) and Marvel's going to want to wait a bit before bringing the New Mutants back into the limelight.

Similarly, I'd love to see the Runaways get more prominence, but their TV show may have been pretty much it, and I don't know if it's getting properly integrated into the MCU.

Maybe Jolt? Her backstory could be adapted to a government-based Thunderbolts, if they're going that route, but she's a pretty deep cut.

After his role in WandaVision I would be up for Jimmy Woo to make the jump to big screen lead for an Agents of Atlas movie.

[The Glyphstone]

I don't think anyone is blaming Xavier the character. It's Marvel who is being mocked for over-using the trope.

[Gallowglass]

I mean, n Xavier's case that wasn't really his twin.

Cassandra Nova is a Mumandrai, an evil parasitic alien spirit, that latches onto someone to become their exact equal and opposite.

She simply copied Xavier's genetic makeup and used it to create a body for herself to better oppose him.

retcon is retcon

And I don't think you can really judge someone for something they did on instinct before they were even born.

I didn't.

and he's hardly the first person who instinctivly murdered their twin in the womb.

Personal experience?

[Rater202]

Personal experience?

No, it's just a surprisingly common thing that happens.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Friv
That would be pretty good, but unfortunately I think the recent New Mutants movie took out most of her likely supporting cast….

It was very sad that she was cut from the New Mutants movie, presumably because her abilities would have made it too easy for them to escape.

If the movie hadn’t built up such a legend of disaster about itself, I’d say a sequel introducing Xian would be feasible. But alas, that doesn’t seem likely.

Originally Posted by Friv
After his role in WandaVision I would be up for Jimmy Woo to make the jump to big screen lead….

Sounds like Ant-Man 2½.

[Gallowglass]

Sounds like Ant-Man 2½.

I'm not excited about a Shang Chi that feels like Ant Man, but I'd be very happy with an Agents of Atlas that does.

Mostly because there can never be enough Talking Apes in the world.

[Peelee]

No, it's just a surprisingly common thing that happens.

Uhhhh... Source? A twin being stillborn has a higher chance than a single birth being stillborn, but it's still something like >1%, so even that I wouldn't call "common", and that's just being stillborn. A fetus instinctively murdering another? Are there even stats on that?

[Traab]

I mean, they could have instead established the Asian super heroes groups.
Jubilee is an X-Men so can't have her yet.

There is Excalibur, she can dissect (and reassemble) stuff after being attacked by a Skrull weapon. They made her religion part of her but not overt (she is Muslim doesn't preach about it in comics).

Cybermancer is a cybernetics genius. Her suit is similar to Iron Man in that it can fly, but she is good at hacking. Unlike Iron Man, she is part of Suit.

Komodo is similar to The Lizard from Spiderman (she worked with Connors), but they can change her origin. She can transform into a lizard-like creature with an accelerated healing factor and razor-sharp claws. Unlike Connors who has no control over The Lizard, Kusuma has full control and uses her mutation to become a superhero.
When she isn't transformed, she is wheelchaired bound due to losing legs in a Street racing car crash.

Silhouette is Cambodia makin their own super soldier, but with magic. During the Vietnam war, a cult in Cambodia decided to use selective breeding and powerful energy source called the "Well of All Things" to create a race of superior humans. After she and her twin brother were born her mother hide them in an orphanage in Chinatown. The two discovered their latent powers as teenagers. She developed the ability to teleport through what's called the "Darkforce dimension" into and out of shadows. She also has enhanced speed, strength, agility, and a type of enhanced sensory perception.

1) Only Excalibur I knew from marvel was the british team. had to look that one up. Im at an interesting point where I know a good bit about marvel, more than someone uninterested in comics utterly, but ive never been a huge follower of comics, so I know a little about a lot of characters but dont ask me to quote chapter and verse on all the variations that have existed.

2) Never heard of cyber

3) Komodo I only heard of due to reading a marvel crossover fanfic where she got mentioned. Didnt even realize she was an actual character, thought they made her up for the story. But going by the loss of legs in a car wreck looks like they took the same character.

4)Never heard of Silhouette. I HAVE heard of the darkforce dimension though. Isnt that a Cloak and Dagger thing? I think ive read a few others who use it too.

Not saying I wouldnt watch anything to do with them, but again, these arent exactly head liners in marvel. Which was really my original point. It kinda sucks that you have to go fairly obscure to hit these groups. Im sure if you look hard enough you can find someone from just about any group SOMEWHERE in marvel. Its just that most wont be easily recognizable to the casual fan. And that comes with another downside too. The big tentpole names like xmen or avengers? They have a truly MASSIVE library of arcs and characterizations to pick and choose from, offering a lot of flexibility when choosing to make a movie on them. Even down to swapping out characters like crazy as the lineups have pretty much never stopped changing for either. Or at least not for long.

[BRC]

Uhhhh... Source? A twin being stillborn has a higher chance than a single birth being stillborn, but it's still something like >1%, so even that I wouldn't call "common", and that's just being stillborn. A fetus instinctively murdering another? Are there even stats on that?

I know it's a thing that very early in development one twin will die due to lack of nutrients, and then get partially or completely absorbed by the other. But in this case, I don't think it's that one twin "Kills" the other, so much as there isn't enough nutrients for both, and whichever one dies first gets absorbed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanish...s%20papyraceus.

[Rater202]

Uhhhh... Source? A twin being stillborn has a higher chance than a single birth being stillborn, but it's still something like >1%, so even that I wouldn't call "common", and that's just being stillborn. A fetus instinctively murdering another? Are there even stats on that?

"surprisingly common" isn't exactly the same as "common"

"You'd be surprised how often this happens" is not "this happens all the time."

As for my source, tt was a documentary on genetic chimeras I saw a few years ago, I don't remember the name but it icited the case of a woman who was almost sent to prison for lying under oath during a custody battle becuase she DNA tests showed that she wasn't the biological mother of her children.

she was pregnant at the time and tested the child when it was born to compare to the children in question, who genetic testing had confirmed were not the woman's children despite her claims to have given birth to all of them... And the newborn child, with video documentation that it was her who gave birth, was not genetically her child but had the same genetic mother as their siblings.

Further research determined that she had two sets of DNA in alternating places in her body and dong research it was determined that she'd killed her Fraternal Twin in the womb and some of the twin's biomass had ended up merging with her on and stirubuted through her body and her ovaries were one or the organs that were genetically her sbling.

I want to say the documentary went over three other cases of women in the same position?

I also recall reading an article about a man who went in to have surgery to get an undescended testicle fixed... Only for the undescended testicle to be, in fact, an ovary becuase he'd cannibalized his twin sister in the womb.

And if it happens with fraternal twins you know that it probably happens identical twins as well, just statistics, and not every case of killing a twin.

I don't have exact numbers and honestly I'm not sure if the numbers would be accurate since this is the kind of thing that really only shows up in tests that nobody is going to get unless they're already suspected of being a chimera.

In this case "surprisingly common" means "happens more than once in the same lifetime."

[Tyrant]

As for the Ten Rings, their logo was indeed present in both IM1 and IM3. but most likely co-opted by a lesser organization rather than being even a legitimate independent cell.

I think it is fairly safe to say the Ten Rings group in IM3 was purely Killian's. It's the group in IM1 that's less clear. Had Killian already set up the fake Ten Rings by that point? Tony talks about creating your own demons and I could see the idea that his blowing off Killian set literally everything into motion. Killian creates the "new" Ten Rings prior to IM1 and then the events of the movies unfold. Or, the "real" Ten Rings group in IM1 was a cell of the group in Shang Chi and were all killed with the group in IM3 being the ones Killian controlled.

But seriously though, we all have seen the outrage any time marvel casts a character as another race. Honestly I LIKED michael clark duncan as kingpin. That dude was physically built for the role, and did a good job of being the kingpin, but even so, it was a little jarring to see the big beefy white dude replaced by a big beefy black guy, no matter how awesome. Of course, im honestly fond of most of the casting in that film even if the film itself was kinda meh.

It bothers me when they race and gender swap long running characters from one primarily visual medium to another. But, when I say it bother me I mean it bothers me just about enough to occasionally make an online comment. I don't get anywhere close to "upset" or "mad" about it and definitely not enough to get me to not watch the movies or be upset at the actors they chose (they're just trying to do a job, I don't fault them in any way). I do agree on MCD Kingpin though. He's one of those cases where there just might not be a good fit that checks all the boxes so you've got to look outside the box. They needed someone who wasn't just physically intimidating without being a muscle bound hulk, but that could also actually act. The names thrown around at the time were mainly wrestlers and guys like Butter Bean. As much as I like things looking the same, I like well acted even more so MCD was a good choice.

I think how much I know about the character also matters. I know approximately zip about the Eternals (other than parts of their origin) as characters. So when I hear that some characters are different races and sexes (I guess, I didn't bother to actually read the article), I don't really care. I have no attachment to them as characters and no real expectations.

Digression aside, yeah, kinda sucks they had to go so deep into the depths of marvels lineup to find a main character. But thats what happens when 90% of your biggest properties were created in the 50s/60s or whatever. Nobody really wanted to taste the rainbow and stuck with what worked for the time. White dudes with minorities in subordinate roles (heya pie face! Hal says hello!) I GUESS we can have a woman, maybe two, in main-ish roles, but mostly wives and girlfriends only. /nod Also, keep the fridge handy so we can motivate the real heroes.

This is why I am totally okay with them creating new characters for the movies or using more recent characters from the comics. I want characters to stay who they have been. I also understand that given the time period most of them were created they will be mostly white men so the need for other people to be represented is real. I think creating competently written new characters is a better approach than changing existing characters though. We can always make the table bigger (and we should) instead of just shuffling who's sitting in the seats.

Or there's always the comic book solution of alternate reality versions I suppose. The MCU seems like it's about to plunge into the multiverse idea so now's as good a time as any.

Re: Jimmy Woo: I saw an idea, likely on here, of an X-Files like show with Jimmy Woo. I would be very in favor of that.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

4)Never heard of Silhouette. I HAVE heard of the darkforce dimension though. Isnt that a Cloak and Dagger thing? I think ive read a few others who use it too.

I haven’t heard of any of those, but I’m also someone who hadn’t heard of Shang Chi until the movie was announced. I think Darkforce got mentioned in Agents of SHIELD?

Uhhhh... Source? A twin being stillborn has a higher chance than a single birth being stillborn, but it's still something like >1%, so even that I wouldn't call "common", and that's just being stillborn. A fetus instinctively murdering another? Are there even stats on that?

My first thought was sand tiger sharks TBH. But it looks like Rater was talking about humans, so never mind.

[BRC]

This is why I am totally okay with them creating new characters for the movies or using more recent characters from the comics. I want characters to stay who they have been. I also understand that given the time period most of them were created they will be mostly white men so the need for other people to be represented is real. I think creating competently written new characters is a better approach than changing existing characters though. We can always make the table bigger (and we should) instead of just shuffling who's sitting in the seats.

Or there's always the comic book solution of alternate reality versions I suppose. The MCU seems like it's about to plunge into the multiverse idea so now's as good a time as any.

Re: Jimmy Woo: I saw an idea, likely on here, of an X-Files like show with Jimmy Woo. I would be very in favor of that.

There has been a push, these days the comics are mostly an Idea Factory to test-drive characters and concepts for eventual Film Adaptations.

Ms Marvel is probably the most successful example of a character created after Disney took over, with a specific eye towards diversifying the lineup. She's also a genuinely great character with a lot of popularity. (Yes, she took the name "Ms Marvel", but Kamala Khan is a completely new character). However, this process takes awhile, since they don't seem to even start production until the character has been proven to work.

And Comic Books are kind of a terrible place for a new character to get a following. Comics are expensive, and the type of people who buy them are probably already following about as many books as they want to be.

The MCU could just invent characters from whole scratch for film (They kind of do that anyway, plenty of characters in the MCU are name-only adaptations who share basically nothing with their comic counterparts), but part of the idea is that a sizable portion of these characters, specifically any of them who are superheroes, are drawn from the comic books.

This is especially true with any headliners. Part of the MCU Hype cycle is that as soon as the film gets announced, there's plenty of content for people online to talk about, as people wonder "Huh, who is Captain Starblade", and content creators get to tell everybody about Captain Starblade, which may or may not have any similarity to his film appearance, but serves as free advertising for the film.

Thus, even if the film characters are barely inspired by their comic counterparts, the existence of the comics feeds into the success of the film by encouraging the hype cycle.

I want to say the lowest-profile title to get an MCU adaptation was Guardians of the Galaxy?

[Rater202]

The Darfkroce Dimension and the Lightforce Dimension are two sources of mystical energy. Most people who can access them do it via either genetic mutation or the drug "D-Lite" which is a synthetic narcotic that has been said to generate a "tenuous" high that feels like you're doing crack and heroin at the same time.

D-Lite is supernatural in origin, coming from the Demon D'spayre.

D-Lite also has an LD50 tha'ts within spitting distance of it's effective dose and is instantly addictive even if you haven't taken enough to feel it.
\
This i your 90s DARE program nightmare "drug that gets you hooked on one pop and is being sold by dealers that actively want to ruin your life and kill you" drug.

Cloak and Dagger were teenager runaways who were forcibly injected with D-Lite by gangsters testing it for a "safe" dose to sell but becuase of their latent mutant potential and natural affinities(Dagger's not a mutant, but her father is and has a natural affinity for the Lightforce Dimension) and an human trafficker from China whose real name is unknown but who stole the name "Martin Li" from one of several illegal Chinese immigrants that he accidentally got killed smuggling into the country was found by the people he was hiding from for that screw up and sold to the same gang, being injected with D-Lite essentially destroyed his personality and created the distinct "Martin Li" who was the nicest and most generous man in the world who could channel Lightforce energy to heal people ad the selfish and malevolent "Mister Negative" who could channel Darkforce Energy to turn good people evil and give Evil People superpowers.

Details are sketchy, but there seems to be a connection between the Lightforce and Darkforce dimensions and Symbiotes.

When Martin Li used his powers to cure Eddie Brock's cancer, the Lightforce energy caused remnants of the Venom symbiote in Eddie's body to combine with his white blood cells and become Anti-Venom, which destroyed other symbiotes and had similar healing powers to MArtin Li.

Mor recently, when Knull, God of the Symbiotes, came to Earth in the King in Black storyline, one of the tie-in comics established that Knull's presence was adversely affecting Cloak's personality causing him to become darker and colder and shut down his psychic connection to dagger. And Something tha tlooked an awful lot like a symbiote dragon was chilling out in his pocket dimension until Dagger destroyed it.

[Psyren]

Honestly, the part about shang chi that bugs me isnt an objection about the choice, but more the slight cringe that marvel was clearly looking for a more diverse lineup of characters to work with, and someone who is c list, MAYBE b list, was the best they could come up with for an asian headliner. Meaning there just werent any major characters in the marvel lineup they could use without rewriting an existing character. (Hey, did you know that hercules was actually japanese?! Tune in next week!) But seriously though, we all have seen the outrage any time marvel casts a character as another race. Honestly I LIKED michael clark duncan as kingpin. That dude was physically built for the role, and did a good job of being the kingpin, but even so, it was a little jarring to see the big beefy white dude replaced by a big beefy black guy, no matter how awesome. Of course, im honestly fond of most of the casting in that film even if the film itself was kinda meh.

Digression aside, yeah, kinda sucks they had to go so deep into the depths of marvels lineup to find a main character. But thats what happens when 90% of your biggest properties were created in the 50s/60s or whatever. Nobody really wanted to taste the rainbow and stuck with what worked for the time. White dudes with minorities in subordinate roles (heya pie face! Hal says hello!) I GUESS we can have a woman, maybe two, in main-ish roles, but mostly wives and girlfriends only. /nod Also, keep the fridge handy so we can motivate the real heroes.

A big problem is that most of their major A-list/B-list characters from a diversity standpoint are mutants or mutant-adjacent, so it's hard to introduce them without having a clear strategy around how they plan to introduce that side of the universe to the MCU proper to begin with. That takes characters like Sunfire, Psylocke*, Jubilee, Mariko, Keniuchio and others off the table. Others that don't necessarily need to be mutants are also intrinsically tied to ensemble teams (e.g. Nico Minoru from Runaways), might be owned by Sony (e.g. Silk), or likely require considerable setup before they can debut in the MCU (e.g. Amadeus Cho.) Put all that together and the C/D-listers are the most logical place to start.

After Guardians' success and even Captain Marvel's, they've proven they can take C/D-Listers and catapult them to A pretty readily anyway.

*Yeah I know she's technically british + mind shenanigans, but 10:1 she'll be played by an asian actress in any modern portrayal.

I guess I don't see Shang-Chi as being any lower list than Guardians of the Galaxy.

Shang-Chi is, certainly, being chosen because of his ethnicity, but he's also being chosen for the same reason as the Guardians were. He represents a concept that lends itself well to being a movie property. A complex self-contained backstory, a powerset that translates well to a visual media. A genre to be infused the same way they infused superhero into space-opera and superhero into military-fiction and superhero into Spy fiction.

I think it works.

This.

Personally, I feel like we are about to fall off a cliff. I'm not terribly excited about Shang Chi or the Eternals. The trailer for Shang-Chi looked good to me until the silly comedic bus at the end which makes it look like Ant-Man. But, I'm fairly certain I'm wrong and that Marvel will prove me wrong.

After they made me care about Guardians and FATWS, I'm pretty much willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on anything that isn't Inhumans. Hell, I didn't think I would care about Runaways or Cloak & Dagger either, which aren't even MCU per se, but those ended up being fantastic.

[Rater202]

For the record, the character that most people know of as Psylocke, Betsy Braddock, is back in her original body as of Hunt For Wolverine: Mystery in Madripoor

However, Kwannon, the Japanese woman she was switched with, is now using the Psylock Name. Betsy is currently Captain Britain.

[Ramza00]

I mean, most of Marvel's East Asian characters are tied intrinsically to other characters.

Jubilee, Armor, Sunfire, and Kwannon are intrinsically tied to the X-Men. Kwannon in particular is forever tied to Betsy Braddock due to the whole "put in each other's bodies and then spliced with each other's DNA and mutant powers so we can't easily be put right" thing that took decades to resolve.

Silk is intrinsically tied to Spider-Man... And the movies have already established that Cindy Moon doesn't have powers.

Amadeus Cho is tied to Hercules and The Hulk.

And the New Agents of Atlas who aren't Amadeus, Cindy, or Shang-Chi are all very recently introduced characters who I doubt that most people have heard of, and if they were doing an Agents of Atlas Movie I imagine that they'd prefer to use the classic team and go full pulp action hero with it rather than a team of South Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, and assorted Asian Americans fighting a corrupt businessman who is trying to create a pan-Asian portal city and form his own sovereign nation out of cities stolen from other countries.

The immortal weapons are all tied to closely to Iron Fist.

It's pretty much just Shang-Chi. Everyone else is either even more obscure or would require too much work to set up.

Yep and the opposing case can be made as well.
Why do we have a Captain Britain? Well there is a UK marvel line and they wanted to sell a UK hero.
Why is all the superheroes based out of New York? Well in 1960 (and most of the comic heroes were created in 1960s and 1970s) ... during this time 20% of the US lived in New York State, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. People moved south and west with the rise of the air conditioner and the whole US being electrified. So on and so on.

-----

Since everything was tied to a US and UK centric sales team this in turn made Asian and other ethnicities as tie in characters to other properties. Marvel / Disney want to create a separate "node" in the MCU where other heroes can arise from places outside of the United States. Choosing Shang-Chi gives Marvel / Disney but also the directors and so on they pick "freedom" to write a story that is separate from existing Marvel sales and canon. It is not just about the past it is also about this moment, this lived reality, and also about the future.

We as the people today live in a different world than 6 decades ago when the Fantastic Four was created in 1961. We trade differently due to cargo containers, and I can chat with someone on the other side of the planet with less than a half a second latency.

[Rynjin]

After they made me care about Guardians and FATWS, I'm pretty much willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on anything that isn't Inhumans. Hell, I didn't think I would care about Runaways or Cloak & Dagger either, which aren't even MCU per se, but those ended up being fantastic.

Urk. The Runaways series made me angry. I was super hyped for it, and then it turned out to be an in-name-only adaptation.

...Casting was ****ing excellent though, not gonna lie. If they could get that same cast and actually adapt the stories from the comics everyone liked, I'd watch it.

On the flipside, I feel like we're both in a minority that actually liked Cloak and Dagger (even if it was a bit cheesy), so high fives?

[Ramza00]

You know, you just made me go back and read the marvel.fandom.com/wiki on her. And boy... was she badly treated over her life as a marvel character.

I also find it hilarious how much they love mutants who kill/absorb their twin into themselves. Monet, Charles Xavier, Karma... its a thing.

Well with Charles Xavier and Cassandra Nova the author who wrote it has come out recently as Non-Binary and [cuts myself off before I gush about Grant Morrison when it is a distraction and not a segue] . But yeah Cassandra Nova is trying to tap into things we call primal horror, and it works fabulously with the art provided by Frank Quitely. It is like that Dune thing where one can not access the learning / ancestral knowledge of everyone that came prior to you if you are not willing to look, and thus not metabolize the past, thus you are condemned to repeat it in the present and future. Nova is the horror coming home to roost.

Likewise all of the Generation X kids, the 90s version of New Mutants had real life body horror / puberty focused powers. Monet and her two younger sisters is a complicated lore thing but the short answer of it is they are emulating how two younger sisters who "mimic" how perfect their older sister was, the sister being smarter and more beautiful a feeling that is common in all families when the siblings are more than 2 to 3 years apart and thus age means the older sibling is both a sibling, a rival, but also so far apart it is like a second parent / authority figure. Except it is way more complicated than this for Monet was so successful they retcon their own plans of what to do with the character and this is not talking about the last 20 years were Monet is far more popular than the 90s book that barely sold well.

For the record, the character that most people know of as Psylocke, Betsy Braddock, is back in her original body as of Hunt For Wolverine: Mystery in Madripoor

However, Kwannon, the Japanese woman she was switched with, is now using the Psylock Name. Betsy is currently Captain Britain.

Yep those events happened in 2018 and in 2019 the X-Men books were relaunched with a soft reboot where new stuff happened in something called House of X Powers of X where Mutants now have an island (skips over the more stuff)

Well Betsy, the british character, is now the main character in Excalibur. It is a very good book with over 20 issues so far (it publishes monthly.) That said it was a slow burn when it came out for issues were setting up events 12 issues prior and also the character avoiding her feelings and thus it worked better as a Graphic Novel for the first 12 issues. But it lands so well issue by issue now.

Kwannon (named after a buddhist saint / goddess / bodhisattva, note Kwannon is similar to Canon like the camera company) got her main series which stank and the author wrapped it up and is now writting movies, but since that time Kwannon is now in Hellions which is a Mutant Sucide Squad and it is so extremely good. Kwannon is the straight to business / no nonsense ninja assassin character in a team full of nonsense chaotic characters.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga
I haven’t heard of any of those, but I’m also someone who hadn’t heard of Shang Chi until the movie was announced. I think Darkforce got mentioned in Agents of SHIELD?

I haven’t heard a lot of these either, including Shang Chi.

In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., they opened up a portal to the “fear dimension,” as Fitz put it, and they also ran across the Darkhold. I don’t recall them ever mentioning a “darkforce dimension.”

Originally Posted by Rynjin
On the flipside, I feel like we're both in a minority that actually liked Cloak and Dagger….

I enjoyed the first season (apart from the disappointing climax), but lost interest partway through the second, never went back to it.

[Rynjin]

I haven’t heard a lot of these either, including Shang Chi.

In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., they opened up a portal to the “fear dimension,” as Fitz put it, and they also ran across the Darkhold. I don’t recall them ever mentioning a “darkforce dimension.”



I enjoyed the first season (apart from the disappointing climax), but lost interest partway through the second, never went back to it.

I...actually didn't know they'd made a second season. Haven't had an incentive to open up the Freeform app in a while.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., they opened up a portal to the “fear dimension,” as Fitz put it, and they also ran across the Darkhold. I don’t recall them ever mentioning a “darkforce dimension.”

Not that one. One of the villains-of-the-day got his powers from it, they didn’t visit it. IIRC it was the episode with Coulson’s musician girlfriend.

[Traab]

For the record, the character that most people know of as Psylocke, Betsy Braddock, is back in her original body as of Hunt For Wolverine: Mystery in Madripoor

However, Kwannon, the Japanese woman she was switched with, is now using the Psylock Name. Betsy is currently Captain Britain.

/head desk I swear comics are nothing more than General Hospital or Days of Our Lives with energy blasts. Wasnt her brother captain britain? Whats he up to? Temporarily dead? Gender swapped and pregnant with himself from an alternate timeline? Empowered by the mkron crystal to be the next alucard? Depowered by the mystic might of merlin and moved to canada where the lumberjack of light has empowered him as major maple syrup man?

[Peelee]

"surprisingly common" isn't exactly the same as "common"

"You'd be surprised how often this happens" is not "this happens all the time."

That's not how it works. Surprisingly common is still common. It's just surprisingly so. And in this specific case, even if you said "you'd be surprised how often this happens", we'd still probably be having this same discussion because...

As for my source, tt was a documentary on genetic chimeras I saw a few years ago, I don't remember the name but it icited the case of a woman who was almost sent to prison for lying under oath during a custody battle becuase she DNA tests showed that she wasn't the biological mother of her children.

she was pregnant at the time and tested the child when it was born to compare to the children in question, who genetic testing had confirmed were not the woman's children despite her claims to have given birth to all of them... And the newborn child, with video documentation that it was her who gave birth, was not genetically her child but had the same genetic mother as their siblings.

Further research determined that she had two sets of DNA in alternating places in her body and dong research it was determined that she'd killed her Fraternal Twin in the womb and some of the twin's biomass had ended up merging with her on and stirubuted through her body and her ovaries were one or the organs that were genetically her sbling.

Bolding mine.

Having not seen the documentary, I still feel I can probably safe with a fair amount of safety that they either didn't say that at all, or grossly sensationalized that. Animal chimerism seems to involve two fertilized eggs fusing, becoming one fetus carrying two distinct genetic codes. To say that calling that "killing her twin" is a stretch would be vastly understating it. And, upon further quick-and-dirty looking, we have recorded a grand total of 100 instances of human chimerism, which would fall under "You'd be surprised how often this happens" if you start with the belief of "this literally never happens". It's exceedingly rare.

Oh, and from what I can find, that woman (Lydia Fairchild) was never even charged with perjury, which is understandable considering the video evidence of the third child's birth was due to court-ordered supervision, so first-degree perjury and false swearing were invalidated, and second-degree perjury wouldn't even be applicable. And it's hard to believe that the court would even have ordered supervision for the birth of the third child if her claims weren't credible to start with. So again, either some sensationalism on behalf of the documentary, or just memory playing tricks (which it does on us all).

[Rynjin]

Depowered by the mystic might of merlin and moved to canada where the lumberjack of light has empowered him as major maple syrup man?

No, this is actually what happened to Cyclops recently

He shoots a sticky brown substance out of his eyes now but on the bright side he doesn't need the visor anymore, so he's pretty content with the situation

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Depowered by the mystic might of merlin and moved to canada where the lumberjack of light has empowered him as major maple syrup man?

I just checked the wiki and it looks like there aren’t actually any maple syrup themed heroes (or villains), at least not yet.

Now I’m kind of curious what a syrup-powered superperson could do. Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Maple Tree Rings: now a part of this complete breakfast!

[Rater202]

/head desk I swear comics are nothing more than General Hospital or Days of Our Lives with energy blasts. Wasnt her brother captain britain? Whats he up to? Temporarily dead? Gender swapped and pregnant with himself from an alternate timeline? Empowered by the mkron crystal to be the next alucard? Depowered by the mystic might of merlin and moved to canada where the lumberjack of light has empowered him as major maple syrup man?

Morgan Le Fae got really pissy when a Krakoan gate opened up in Avalon... Without any direct involvement from Krakoa. She insisted that it was an invasion but in truth Otherworld was inviting Krakoans to itself and the gate happened to be in Avalon.

So Morgan kidnapped Brian and magically enslaved him, among other things, to kill all mutants. Before he was controlled, he gave the Amulet of Right to Betsy where it judged her worthy and gave her the Captain Britain powers.

Brian was eventually freed but let Betsy keep the amulet because the experience was rather traumatizing for him... And becuase he had a Dream of Merlyn presenting him with the Sword of Might, himself taking it and becoming Captain Britain with it, and taking revenge on Morgan... And then worked up with the Sword which just really fraked him out.

However, after getting his head back together he took up the Sword of Might and became a Captain Britain, but he's being referred to as Captain Avalon and is mostly hanging out there becuase after they deposed Morgan they put Jamie Braddock on the throne as a figurehead until the rightful rulers of Avalon turned up.

Despite being an insane reality warper, Jamie is actually doing a pretty good job ruling Avalon, but the implication is that brian wants to keep an eye on him... Though the implication is very much that Apocalypse(who had a Face Turn in Age of X-Man just prior to the current X-Men run and was a member of Excalibur until the X of Swords event) was the one really running things.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Urk. The Runaways series made me angry. I was super hyped for it, and then it turned out to be an in-name-only adaptation.

...Casting was ****ing excellent though, not gonna lie. If they could get that same cast and actually adapt the stories from the comics everyone liked, I'd watch it.

On the flipside, I feel like we're both in a minority that actually liked Cloak and Dagger (even if it was a bit cheesy), so high fives?

Actually binge-watched Cloak and Dagger about a couple of months back, it was pretty good!! I liked it!!

[Traab]

Morgan Le Fae got really pissy when a Krakoan gate opened up in Avalon... Without any direct involvement from Krakoa. She insisted that it was an invasion but in truth Otherworld was inviting Krakoans to itself and the gate happened to be in Avalon.

So Morgan kidnapped Brian and magically enslaved him, among other things, to kill all mutants. Before he was controlled, he gave the Amulet of Right to Betsy where it judged her worthy and gave her the Captain Britain powers.

Brian was eventually freed but let Betsy keep the amulet because the experience was rather traumatizing for him... And becuase he had a Dream of Merlyn presenting him with the Sword of Might, himself taking it and becoming Captain Britain with it, and taking revenge on Morgan... And then worked up with the Sword which just really fraked him out.

However, after getting his head back together he took up the Sword of Might and became a Captain Britain, but he's being referred to as Captain Avalon and is mostly hanging out there becuase after they deposed Morgan they put Jamie Braddock on the throne as a figurehead until the rightful rulers of Avalon turned up.

Despite being an insane reality warper, Jamie is actually doing a pretty good job ruling Avalon, but the implication is that brian wants to keep an eye on him... Though the implication is very much that Apocalypse(who had a Face Turn in Age of X-Man just prior to the current X-Men run and was a member of Excalibur until the X of Swords event) was the one really running things.

What... I jus... /sobs hysterically.

[Rater202]

What... I jus... /sobs hysterically.

Welcome to American Superhero Comics.

For you, this complicated cross between epic fantasy and the cheesiest Televoela you can find is the most mind-breaking event of your life.

For me? This was Wednesday.