Okay, I'm going to be really honest, Tini Howard really got me with this one. I, like I suspect most people, read the end of the last issue and assumed that the Betys that came out of the sea at the end was our version of Betsy, and that the team was all back together again following X of Swords, but it looks like things aren't as simple as we all first thought.
The issue picks up with Rogue and Rachel Summers talking about Betsy, who since coming back seems to have retreated into herself somewhat, becoming distant from her friends. Where Rachel and the others think that this is due to stress and trauma, and that Betsy just needs time to come around, Rogue isn't completely convinced that Betsy is who she appears to be. With the multiverse in play, and the Captain Britain Corps showing that there are multiple versions of Betsy out there, this seems like a pretty fair worry for the team; they did speak to a dozen different versions of Betsy a while ago.
This worry about Betsy leads to the team doing some investigating, with the group splitting off into smaller units that are quite interesting. To be honest, this was a team line-up that I was excited to see from the very beginning; having grown up watching the 90's X-Men cartoon Rogue, Gambit, and Jubilee have always had a soft spot in my heart, and Betsy has always been something of an interesting character, even though she's been through some changes over the years. That being said, I never expected to enjoy the interplay and character focus as much as I have, especially with characters I didn't really know before, like Rictor and the extended Braddock family; but it's these interactions that really make this issue a lot of fun, especially when we get to see Gambit and Jamie interacting.
Things at the start of the run felt a little bit big for me to fully understand, possibly because it was dealing with Otherworld and the Captain Britain mantle, but now that things seem to have settled into a new status quo and we're able to focus on the characters a lot more the series has definitely improved. Not that it wasn't really good to begin with, it's just gotten better.
The most exciting part of the issue, however, comes shortly after the revelation that this is probably not really Betsy, or if it is there's something very wrong with her, when she attacks Rogue and Rictor in Apocalypse's old workshop on Krakoa. Taking the two of them by surprise this evil Betsy seems to have the upper hand, until Psylocke turns up on the scene to step in.
I said in the last issue review how good it was to see Betsy having to deal with some of the issues between her and Kwannon when she had to work with her in the other reality, but this seems like we could hopefully get the two of them having to come face to face in the 616 universe. It's a meeting that I've been wanting since the series began, and if Psylocke can help Excalibur deal with this fake Betsy, maybe she'll get to be there when the real one finally returns home.
Excalibur continues to get better with each issue, and this ending has me pumped to find out what happens next.
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