Saturday, 29 August 2020

Wolfsbane in the MC2

 

Well, it looks like the New Mutants movie is finally being released after several delays. I figured it might be worth a quick post to cover possibly the only connection between the New Mutants film and the MC2: the mutant Rahne Sinclair aka Wolfsbane.

 


As I’ve previously detailed in my History of the MC2: The X-Men entry, we don’t have a huge amount of information about the famed mutant team, the X-Men in the MC2. What we do know is that at some point in the past, Wolverine was the leader a team of X-Men that included Cain Marko (Juggernaut), Synch (Everett Thomas), Siryn (Theresa Cassidy), 'Hopper' and of course Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair) as seen in J2 #7J2 #12 and Wild Thing #5.

 


Rahne remained a member of this X-Men team for some time and participated in a mission to save the Earth from the Overlords Eight. While on their way back from the Crossroads of Infinity, the X-Men ran into an army of creatures called Darklings. Rahne and her fellow teammates managed to escape the creatures thanks to the sacrifice of Cain Marko who stayed behind to destroy the X-Men’s dimensional jumpjack transport device, preventing the Darklings from following them to Earth (J2#7, J2 #12). Cain would spend many years trapped in the evil Nemesus' dimension, eventually inadvertently transferring much of his powers as Juggernaut to his son, Zane (J2 #1).

 




We don’t know what happened to this particular team of X-Men after this mission, though as we know Wolverine retired, we can assume the other members went their separate ways. Presumably Wolfsbane is still out their fighting to protect a world that hates and fears her.

 


Until I develop lycanthropic abilities, I remain

 

frogoat

Sunday, 23 August 2020

Betty Brant in the MC2

 

A while back, I was wondering what became of Betty Brant in the MC2. I knew she’d appeared in the time travel adventure seen in Spider-Girl #10 and #11 but as far as I could recall she didn’t appear anywhere in the present day and we knew nothing of her fate. Well, I was wrong.

 

Here’s Betty Brant’s appearances in the aforementioned Spider-Girl #10-11 when Mayday travels back to the events of Amazing Spider-Man #25, which is incidentally my all-time favourite Lee/Ditko story.

 


But where does she appear in the MC2’s present day? As far as the internet is concerned, Betty Brant doesn’t appear again. I’ve consulted both Marvel Fandom and the Marvel Chronology Project to confirm this, and neither lists any further appearances for this version of the character.

 

But here she is, tucked away in a single panel of Darkdevil #1 interviewing mayoral candidate Glynis O’Neil. So, what can we learn from this cameo appearance? Betty continued to work as a journalist and is apparently highly regarded enough to interview prominent New York City politicians. While we don’t know who exactly she works for, the fact we see a tape recorder instead of a microphone suggests Betty continues to work for print media. I wonder if she still works for the Daily Bugle?

 

Until I run out of things to talk about in the wide world of the MC2, I remain

 

frogoat

 

Saturday, 15 August 2020

American Dream Handbook Correction

 

I'd like to preface this little post by saying I love the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series and have a lot of respect for the hard work and dedication of the people who work on it's various entries. I'm also aware that there are time and space constraints and that no one is infallible and errors sometimes slip by unnoticed. So, with all that said, here's another really pointless correction I'd like to make.

So, in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Update #1 (published in 2010) American Dream received a full-page entry. Now, I could point out that Shannon Carter’s level of education in the entry is listed as ‘unrevealed,’ despite the fact that we know that she obtained her job as a tour guide ‘right out of high school,’ as I mentioned in my last post. Here's the original handbook entry for reference:

 

But, that’s not what I really wanted to address today. It’s the section that mentions the Dream Team. According to the handbook entry ‘Barton dubbed his trainees the “Dream Team,” and intended them to replace the Avengers, who had fallen in battle years ago but before they could do so, a new team of Avengers formed.’ Obviously, this explicitly identifies the former Avenger Hawkeye aka Clint Barton as the one who named his group of special students the Dream Team. But this is clearly not the case, as we see in American Dream #4, where Brandon Cross aka Freebooter is inspired by fellow student Shannon’s speech and gives the group the name.

 

 

There are obviously other minor issues in the write up, but mostly these come down to compressing information to fit on the page, and usually don’t explicitly provide factual errors.

 

Until I stop picking nits, I remain

 

frogoat