Sunday, December 08, 2013

Psylocke Psunday #22: Otter, otter, candlelight / Doin' the town and doin' it right

1988's Marvel annuals introduced the most frightening, terrifying villain of all:


The Company-Wide Crossover.

Mind you, we did get Speedball out of it, so it's still up for debate.

Anyway: Psylocke had a minimal-to-invisible presence in the main story of '88's Uncanny X-Men Annual #12, but the back-up story features a return to the villain voted Bully's Least Favorite Comic Book Villain over a record-breaking seven years from 1986-1993 (and again in 2001-2004), Mojo. In it, we learn an important fact, Official handbook of the Marvel Universe-style: since the X-Men passed through the Siege Perilous and became invisible to electronic surveillance, Mojo can no longer watch through Betsy's Mojoverse-created bionic baby blue eyes, closing off a subplot that honestly pretty much never went anywhere. Quel surprise, Claremont!


Panel from "I Want My X-Men!" in Uncanny X-Men Annual #12 (1988), script by Chris Claremont, pencils by Art Adams, inks by Bob Wiacek, colors by Glynis Oliver, letters by Tom Orzechowski

Annoyed by the lack of X-Infotainment, Mojo summons his Brain Trust of designers, who...yeah, ha ha...resemble the editor and creators on Marvel's X-Men comic. From left to right: Bob Harras, Bob Wiacek, Glynis Oliver, Art Adams, Chris Claremont, and Tom Orzechowski.


Vanna White is in this story too. You may remember her stint working on X-Men. She was only on the book for a while. Well, just a spell.


Anyway, I know who you've come here about, and she begins with P-S-Y and she ends with C-K-E. And a L-O in the middle. And she is in here, although not immediately. First we see Mojo roll through a number of alternate X-Versions, but they don't test well in the ratings with Males 2,100-3,400 pounds. There's the Gender Swap Earth-11 X-Men-slash-Women:


Nor does Betsy appear among the Robot-X-Men or the Hellfire Club Leather Bondage X-Men.

But can you handle the intense cuddliness and the sheer plushosity of...

The All-New, All-Animal X-Men?!?


And Psylocke is

AN OTTER


That concludes this post on behalf of the People Who Like to See Other People Turned Into Otters Association.

OTTER!

2 comments:

Randi Mason said...

OTTER. Not a sea otter. MISSED A POTENTIALLY LUCRATIVE TRICK THERE, MARVEL.

SallyP said...

An..Otter? But Otters are cute and cuddly and do little human things with their hands! None of which really applies to Psylocke.