The final chapter of my Excalibur Trilogy. It’s been quite a journey, and I did my best to bring a meaningful conclusion to the Otherworld saga I began back in Angels and Demons in 2024.

No title available
🪼
Three Goblin Art

Janaina Medeiros
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Mike Driver
Jules of Nature
KIROKAZE
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

Origami Around
Cosmic Funnies
Game of Thrones Daily
$LAYYYTER

Discoholic 🪩

⁂
occasionally subtle

Kiana Khansmith
Claire Keane
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
wallacepolsom
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Bangladesh

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Spain

seen from Malaysia

seen from United States

seen from Netherlands
seen from Italy
@betsybraddockagentofstrike
The final chapter of my Excalibur Trilogy. It’s been quite a journey, and I did my best to bring a meaningful conclusion to the Otherworld saga I began back in Angels and Demons in 2024.
It's a very interesting and cool project, and I don't mean it with any disrespect- but do you use ai to generate the images? I spotted some telltales and became curious. I'm not gonna stop enjoying it or anything, I'm just curious. I think it's cool you get to make a comic without having to spend so much time on it.
I openly use AI, but since the final panels and pages are collages/manipulations of AI renders, it still requires a lot of time to assemble an entire chapter. Complex panels sometimes involve Photoshop work combining three or four different renders into a single image. I’m not trying to make it sound meaningful or elevate it, though. It’s still not artwork in my opinion… just letting you know this is going to take a lot of time if you want to do it.
The fourth chapter of my new Fan Series! Excalibur: The Lost Captain.
Writer's room - Interlude
Hey folks,
A few of you have asked when The Lost Captain will resume. First off, thank you for sticking around.
I know it’s been quiet on this front lately. The truth is, work has been relentless, time has been scarce, and I, like many of you, don’t make a living from writing. I wish I did. But creativity has to survive where it can... between shifts, deadlines, and the occasional stolen hour at night.
The next chapters are underway, though I still don't know exactly when they'll land, and I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what The Lost Captain is, how it began, and where it’s heading.
This arc began when the Coven Akkaba lured Excalibur to an ancient ruin in Syria, where Betsy released someone long buried by her own legacy: the Lost Captain. A former member of her father's iteration of the Captain Britain Corps, believed to have been killed by James Braddock himself.
But what makes Ser Haldrin (AKA Dragonslayer AKA The Lost Captain) a compelling antagonist is that… he’s not wrong. His world was erased. Not by war. Not by fate. But by Merlyn, who feared the rise of its Sorcerer Supremes and their magic, perhaps stronger than Otherworld’s own.
Well, Haldrin is back, and he’s not out for revenge. He’s out to end the entire system that gave Merlyn the right to erase worlds. The Starlight Citadel. The Omniversal Throne. The belief that one realm has the right to rule over all others.
Betsy isn’t his target. But she’s in his way. And that’s enough.
So Haldrin took what he needed. He cast Avalon in a Blightswill fog that neutralized all mutant genes. He killed Saturnyne. He destroyed the Citadel. So he ended its rule, but also shut down the Captain Britain Corps' powers and severed their path back to Earth.
No Citadel. No power source. No escape.
That’s where we left off.
Otherworld lies fractured. The Corps is scattered. Betsy is trapped in Avalon, powerless and isolated, trying to hold together what’s left. To survive, she’ll need to forge uneasy alliances, face Haldrin and his Blade of Dominion, a weapon that contains what little magic remains of his erased world and, harder still, confront the truth of who her father was.
A hero? A blind soldier? Or a silent accomplice to a tyrant?
And more importantly: is she destined to repeat that pattern?
Those are the questions we’ll wrestle with as we move toward the conclusion. Just two more parts, and the Excalibur trilogy wraps.
After that… maybe a new story.
Thanks again for reading. And for waiting.
The third chapter of my new Fan Series! Excalibur: The Lost Captain.
The second chapter of my new Fan Series! Excalibur: The Lost Captain.
Another story begins! Don’t miss the first chapter of my new Fan Series!
Excalibur: The Lost Captain. Part 1
Hey folks,
A few readers have been asking what’s next for my Excalibur fan series. I’m finally back at the keyboard (though at a slower pace than I’d like.) Work has been relentless and free time scarce, but the good news is the third arc is nearly fully penned.
This new chapter picks up right where Angels & Demons left off. Otherworld may be stabilizing after the war, but its fragile balance is already starting to fracture. Saturnyne’s course for the Starlight Citadel doesn’t sit well with Avalon’s throne… and when a figure from the Braddocks’ distant past resurfaces, tensions ignite into something far more dangerous.
I don’t want to spoil too much, but longtime fans of Captain Britain will be happy with the return of S.T.R.I.K.E., and with it, the resurfacing of ghosts from the Braddock family’s past. Expect clandestine operations, fractured allegiances, and the brand of political and mystical intrigue that has defined Excalibur from the Chris Claremont era to Tini Howard’s recent trilogy.
The arc opens with Pete Wisdom and Tom Lennox embedded deep in an abandoned Syrian citadel, where a relic of the Crusader wars that has become the resting place for something the Coven Akkaba is hunting as well... What begins as quiet surveillance quickly erupts into bloodshed, drawing Betsy Braddock, Kwannon, Kurt Wagner, and Warren Worthington into the fight. But what they uncover buried in the ruins stretches beyond desert sands… and threatens to shake the very throne of Otherworld.
Thanks for sticking with me through these sluggish months. Your support means everything. More soon.
Postface — Excalibur: Crimson Dawn
Scars don’t vanish. But they can stop bleeding.
After Angels and Demons, I knew my journey through Marvel’s magical corners wasn’t over. So I dove straight into researching the next one.
I’ve always been fascinated by the Crimson Dawn storyline. Let’s be honest, who could forget Joe Madureira’s stunning art in the '90s? Even though the concept added yet another layer of convolution to Psylocke’s already tangled continuity, it always struck me as incredibly cool. The shadowporting. The crimson mark. The cold detachment it brought to her personality. It wasn’t just a power-up. It was a descent. Another step in the long road of self-erasure and identity loss.
To me, that era marked Psylocke’s lowest point. So of course I wanted to revisit it now at her full maturity.
But here’s the catch. Today, Psylocke is two women.
There’s Betsy, now Captain Britain. The original mind and soul. And there’s Kwannon, whose body was the one saved by the Crimson Dawn all those years ago while she was dead.
That detail always stuck with me. A mystical dimension left its mark on a body and soul. But what happens when that body and soul split?
Who does the Crimson Dawn remember?
That question became the seed of this story.
Betsy Braddock and Kwannon are two women shattered and rewritten. Victims of mysticism, manipulation, and editorial mandates. But comics never properly explored what happened after their wars. When the mirror no longer lied. When the face staring back was truly their own, but still carried the pain they once shared.
So they were my dual leads. Not rivals. Not echoes. Just two survivors of the same wound.
While Betsy has finally learned to let go of the guilt of having, even if not by choice, worn someone else’s skin, Kwannon still wrestles with the lingering imprint of what was done to her.
And then there’s Matsuo Tsurayaba. Kwannon’s former lover and the man responsible for merging her soul and body with Betsy’s.
In Psylocke (2009), Betsy gave him his end. But we never saw Kwannon’s side of it. We never saw what it felt like for her to know her great love was killed by the woman who had once worn her body, her face, her life.
Last we saw Matsuo, he had been mutilated by Wolverine. Hands gone. Face disfigured. And Betsy made sure he wouldn’t return by frying his mind and letting him fall from a cliff.
Maybe the Crimson Dawn was the only force dark and powerful enough to bring him back. So why not use it?
This new version of Matsuo is built as a synthesis of eastern warlords and mythic vengeance. His voice borrows from Claremont’s poetic antagonists. Here, he returns seeking to awaken the spirit Hadaruma Kuragari, a figure meant to embody all the rage, grief, and obsession of the dimension itself.
But the real villain is never just a man. It is the past. The inability to grieve properly. The seductive weight of what could have been.
I reimagined Hadaruma Kuragari as something more than a forgotten villain. Something closer to the Phoenix Force. Cyclical. Sentient. Not just a demon, but the dimension itself given shape and eyes. The flame that consumes all identity until nothing is left but obsession.
Structurally, this was a descent-and-return arc. A classic hero’s journey, inverted. The real danger wasn’t what they faced inside the Crimson Dawn. It was what it reflected back at them.
Kwannon is offered dominion, as a queen she would never choose to be. Betsy, once again, is asked to carry a burden that isn’t hers. And she accepts. Not out of guilt this time, but out of gratitude. Because she believes she owes that much to Kwannon.
Once again, I had to remind myself that this isn’t a solo. So while the spotlight stays on the two women, the rest of Excalibur embarks on a parallel journey. A mystical, dimension-bending detour through the deeper lore of the Crimson Dawn and its canonical link to the Crimson Cosmos of Cyttorak.
The temple. The stone Juggernauts. They came from a crossover game idea I sketched as a teenager. A Tomb Raider and Psylocke fan concept where Lara and Betsy hunted a relic hidden in the Crimson Dawn.
Sometimes old ideas just wait for the right moment.
In the original Crimson Dawn arc, it was Doctor Strange guiding Angel and Wolverine. This time, I brought in Doctor Voodoo. After teasing an alternate version of him in Angels and Demons, I wanted to finally write the real man. And I probably will again.
I also brought back Gomurr the Ancient. A character I find criminally underused. He is wisdom without ego. Mysticism without condescension. A little mad. A little kind. And deeply human beneath all the power.
As for the big victory — I didn’t want it to come from a final blow. I rarely do. I tend to favor endings that surprise, that bloom from where you least expect. That was true in Angels and Demons, and it wouldn’t be different here.
Gomurr had told Betsy that her connection to Otherworld and the magic coursing through her had long since begun to repel the Crimson Dawn. It had purged the arcane energies from her in the past: slowly, instinctively.
In my story, when Matsuo lay dying at Kwannon’s hand, Hadaruma Kuragari began to claim her as his next vessel. But Betsy didn’t let it happen. She intervened killing Matsuo before the pact could complete, and took the flame for herself.
She embraced the full essence of Hadaruma Kuragari, not to wield it, but to contain it. To extinguish it. To protect what was still worth saving of the Crimson Dawn.
At least for now.
In a nutshell, if Angels and Demons was mythic and loud, Crimson Dawn is quiet rage and spiritual weight.
It is about debts never paid. Scars that never faded. And the complicated grace of choosing who you are...
The final scene was always going to be Kwannon reuniting with John Greycrow. Finally as herself.
But the scene readers have enjoyed the most so far almost didn’t make it in. The ending had to be rewritten at the last minute to include the astral therapy session after a very dear reader asked for a moment of psychic healing between the two women.
And he was right.
Because if Crimson Dawn did its job, Then maybe, just maybe, they’re finally free.
*Dedicated to Mohammed, Tee, Pablo, Alice, Joanne, Alan, Hakka, Josue, Tony, Miguel, Matt, Vitor, Felipe, Will and to all the other readers who joined me in such thoughtful and pleasant conversations about this project.
Time for a new adventure. Check my new Fan Series.
Excalibur: Crimson Dawn. Conclusion
Time for a new adventure. Check my new Fan Series.
Excalibur: Crimson Dawn. Part 3
Time for a new adventure. Check my new Fan Series.
Excalibur: Crimson Dawn. Part 2
Time for a new adventure. Check my new Fan Series.
Excalibur: Crimson Dawn. Part 1
I can tell you're very knowledgeable about comics and very passionate about your story idea (which is very interesting, by the way), but using AI to generate your fan comic is incredibly disrespectful to comics as a medium. AI does not create, it only steal others' art and regurgitates it based on an algorithm. I would much rather see your fan comic drawn by your own hand, regardless of what you art looks like. You have such good ideas, and it's a shame to let them go to waste on AI slop.
I understand and respect your position on AI. Personally, I believe that while its use in professional settings absolutely needs regulation, the recreational use when there’s no commercial intent or investment, doesn’t pose a real threat to creative professionals. For me, it’s just a way to visually explore the plots I come up with, purely out of passion.
I know our views may differ, but I truly hope this reads in the friendly spirit I’m writing it.
Overview — Excalibur: Angels and Demons
Why Excalibur?
The more I explored Betsy’s past in Agent of STRIKE, the more the story evolved from a solo narrative into a team dynamic. As an aspiring novelist, I found myself increasingly drawn to larger rosters and multi-faceted interactions.
Also, one limitation of writing a continuity-based prequel is that much of the characters’ established lore must remain untouched. Since Agent of STRIKE is tightly connected to late '70s and early '80s canon, I needed more narrative freedom. So I decided to start a new series set in the current publication timeline. This could be read as a “what if” what if Betsy recreated Excalibur instead of joining Forge’s X-Force?
The original pitch dates back to one of those classic “create-a-team” threads on the X-Forums. It centered around the three swordbearers, Magik, Betsy, and Kwannon, alongside Angel, for the mythological approach, and Kurt, as his polar opposite. Chamber and Pixie rounded out the roster, adding a “United Kingdom” touch.
The idea of a war between Otherworld and Limbo, two nexus realms, struck me as an untapped, high-stakes concept. A battle between light and darkness, order and chaos. Years later, I started fleshing it out more seriously. I teased it among the small community following Agent of STRIKE, and the idea resonated.
I had the big picture: a war between realms. But facing Limbo almost always means facing Belasco. And while he’s a classic villain, I wanted a twist, a different antagonist. That’s when I decided to bring Merlyn into the mix.
Last we saw Merlyn, Betsy had beheaded him. I needed to address that. I was inspired by two things: Shinnok’s severed, still-living head in Mortal Kombat, and Mimir, the talking head from God of War. My original idea was simple: Merlyn’s head would serve as Belasco’s reluctant counselor, a disembodied relic full of bitter wisdom, trapped in eternal defeat.
But another influence was the movie Skeleton Key, where voodoo spells are used to swap minds, imprisoning victims inside moribund bodies while their attackers walk free in stolen flesh. That sparked the idea of Merlyn using forbidden magic to switch bodies with Belasco, trapping the demon’s mind inside his severed head. While everyone believes Belasco is the one pulling the strings, the truth is far more disturbing: it’s Merlyn, hidden in Belasco’s body, orchestrating a grand plan to merge the realms. The reveal recontextualizes the entire story, and I knew it had to come only at the end.
Thematically, I loved when Tini Howard used “as above, so below” to explore mirrored realities. In my vision, Limbo is a dark inversion of the radiant Otherworld. That’s how I conceived the Fortress of Oblivion, an inverted Starlight Citadel that drains energy from its twin, sparking the crisis.
The first chapter had to be a classic recruitment story. Betsy’s investigation starts with a visit to Warren, not because of him, but because his Manhattan penthouse offered a perfect vantage point to spy on the Limbo embassy. When Madelyne Pryor refuses to help, Betsy turns to the next portal to Limbo, Illyana Rasputin. That gave me the perfect chance to bring in my second favorite character, Kwannon, who has been frequently paired with Magik in the comics lately.
I wanted the opening arc to evoke the spirit of the original Excalibur, hence Nightcrawler. But juggling the entire original lineup would be overwhelming. So I brought in Rachel and Kitty in a way that allowed me to write them off after the first arc.
Once the team was assembled, the real journey began. Madelyne plays a key role in Limbo, but her powers overlap too much with Betsy and Rachel. That gave me a perfect excuse to make her the secondary protagonist in a side story.
Her being transported to a magic-dead Earth came from an old pitch of mine. I wanted to explore the philosophical implications of a world without magic, dull, dry, and severed from Otherworld and all other realms. That becomes Maddie’s quest: to restore magic in that reality.
Meanwhile, I structured the main team’s arrival in Limbo by scattering them into groups to better manage character dynamics: Betsy, Kwannon, and Magik land on a battlefield; Kitty and Rachel arrive inside the Fortress of Oblivion; Kurt and Angel end up in Otherworld, affected by Limbo’s interference.
Betsy’s plan was to investigate quietly, but she was too late. Saturnyne and Otherworld were already waist-deep in a war against Limbo. The team had no choice but to join.
Kitty and Rachel weren’t there just for nostalgia. I wanted a proper X-Men-style soap opera, so the arc of corruption, mind rescue, love triangle, and eventual breakup was spread through the chapters. And since I’m a big Rachel/Kitty shipper...well, I finally got to put them together.
Maddie and her quest:
Although the book centers on Betsy, I worried she might lose panel time with so many subplots. That’s where Dr. Braddock came in: a version of Betsy from the magic-dead Earth. I write Betsy as a badass, and I hate when she’s portrayed as insecure or unsure...it erases the core of her character. But remembering where she came from matters. That’s what Dr. Braddock represents: the fragile girl who thought she wasn’t good enough to join a team of heroes… but who was, just like our Betsy, destined for greatness. And Maddie knew that.
Her transformation into Doctor Albion, that world’s Captain Britain, was essential to restoring the link with Otherworld and letting extra-dimensional magic flow back into her world. Only then was she ready to return and join the battle, becoming part of the Corps.
About the main plot:
There was always a desire to give the story an epic weight. Two mystical realms, one evoking Heaven, the other Hell. In my mind, Limbo has heavily inspired the biblical Hell, just as Mephisto is often associated with the Devil. Even Belasco is said to have inspired Dante’s Inferno. That led me to imagine the apocalyptic signs from the Book of Revelation (from the Bible) not as prophecy, but as remnants of ancient enchantments, spells Merlyn accessed through Belasco’s memories. With that power, he set out to turn Otherworld into a new Elysium for the denizens of Limbo, and in doing so, began to merge the realms.
So that’s how the story came together. There were many threads to tie, many characters to balance, and still, it had to be about Betsy. That was the hardest part. Much harder than in Agent of STRIKE, where she believed British espionage was the ultimate challenge. But that was just the beginning. Beyond Krakoa, what awaited her wasn’t secrets or politics...it was prophecy, myth, and the burden of protecting all realities.
I’ve always been drawn to the loose threads, the leftovers buried in the most forgotten corners of X-continuity. The Celestial Nullifier was originally introduced by Chris Claremont in his House of M tie-in, where Saturnyne threatened to erase Earth-616 due to its destabilizing frequency of reality warps. I brought it back as a narrative bomb: a way to shift the tides against Limbo and to cement Saturnyne as the cold, pragmatic antihero of my story. The idea of a reality being erased entirely, with its remnants leaking into Otherworld’s Blightspoke, came from another unreleased story I had written. Originally created by Hickman and Tini, Blightspoke is the wasteland where broken timelines and fallen realities resurface in fragments. It felt like the perfect place to Limbo, to become a broken part of Otherworld.
The final pages of the arc set the tone for the team going forward. And on a more personal note, I’ve always felt that one issue with bisexual characters in monogamous relationships is that we often lose the chance to see the full spectrum of their identity represented. That’s why I chose to leave Betsy single for a while...not out of indecision, but to let her breathe, reconnect with herself, and leave space open for possibilities.
I originally pitched Excalibur as a self-contained mini, so I could eventually move on to another concept. But the response was so positive, I knew I had more to say. The two bonus pages teasing The Quest for the Crimson Dawn had been in my mind for years, and seeing the story resonate gave me the confidence to move forward. So it’s safe to assume: whatever comes next, it will sprout from there.
Final Chapter of my Fan Series: Excalibur: Angels and Demon
Bonus pages!
Chapter 4 of my Fan Series: Excalibur: Angels and Demons.