Courtney Ross

Courtney Ross is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character originated in the Captain Britain comics as Brian Braddock's college girlfriend, and was created by Chris Claremont and drawn by artists Herb Trimpe and Fred Kida. Later she was murdered and impersonated by her multiversal counterpart Sat-Yr-9, a twisted version of Saturnyne; it has remained ambiguous whether Courtney has actually returned at all since her death or been Sat-Yr-9 all along.

Courtney Ross
Publication information
PublisherMarvel Comics
First appearanceCaptain Britain Weekly #3 (1976)
Created byChris Claremont
Herb Trimpe
Fred Kida
In-story information
SpeciesHuman
Team affiliationsExcalibur
Notable aliasesThe Ice Queen
AbilitiesNone

Fictional character biography

Courtney Ross came from a wealthy family and went to Thames University, London, where she met and started to date Brian Braddock, not knowing that Brian was in fact the superhero Captain Britain. She later found out about his secret life, but the two remained lovers. Captain Britain went missing shortly afterwards and Courtney assumed that he had died. When he returned, Brian fell in love with the mutant Meggan and it would be years before he would meet Courtney again.

Courtney met Brian Braddock again, when he had become a member of Excalibur. She had become a successful city banker nicknamed The Ice Queen.[1] She now no longer dyed her hair, and Brian was surprised that Courtney with blond hair looked exactly like his old acquaintance Saturnyne, her counterpart from another universe.[2]

Courtney Ross is killed by Sat-Yr-9, who takes her place. Art by Alan Davis.

Brian and Courtney resumed their friendship, shortly before she was attacked by Arcade and the Crazy Gang. Confronted in her offices, she manages to fight through the Crazy Gang's forces and escape the building, but Arcade, hiding in a fake police car, captures her and takes her to a new Murderworld. There she was forced to improvise comedy in order to survive, surprising both herself and Arcade by being sufficiently entertaining to survive until she was rescued by Excalibur. Returning home after surviving Arcade's assassination attempt and enjoying the thrill of danger, she was vaporized by another counterpart from an alternate universe, Opul Lun Sat-Yr-9.[2]

Sat-Yr-9

Opul Lun Sat-Yr-9 was the dictator of Earth-794, along with her lover Kaptain Briton. As a child, Sat-Yr-9 exhibited psychopathic behavior such as killing animals for amusement and later killed her parents and siblings at the age of 18, always dreaming about becoming Mastrex of the dictactorship True Briton. Her political rivals followed the same fate until she had achieved her goals. Unlike Saturnyne and Courtney, Sat-Yr-9 possesses mind-control abilities possibly derived from pheromone manipulation and hypnosis skills.[3] A similar counterpart exists on Earth-1124, where she is visited by the Deathlok of Earth-7484 and the Killraven of Earth-691, attempting to seduce and offering herself to Killraven, although he ultimately resists her and returns to Earth X.[4] When Kaptain Briton flees to Earth-616, where he has an identical looking counterpart, Captain Britain, Sat-Yr-9 sends armored troops to retrieve him.

Sat-Yr-9
Publication information
PublisherMarvel Comics/Marvel UK
First appearance(UK) Captain Britain vol. 2 #2 (Feb. 1985)
(US) Excalibur #3 (1988)
Created byAlan Davis
Jamie Delano
In-story information
Alter egoOpul Lun Sat-Yr-9
SpeciesHuman
Team affiliationsHellfire Club
Notable aliasesCourtney Ross, White Queen
AbilitiesPheromone and hypnosis-based mind-control[3]

They mistakenly attack Captain Britain twice, but are repelled on each occasion. Sat-Yr-9 hires the interdimensional mercenary group, the Technet, but Briton swaps places with Britain, and the Technet take the wrong man back to Earth-794.[5] Britain later convinces the Technet of their error. When Sat-Yr-9 tries to stop them departing with Britain, the Technet slaughter her soldiers; the already psychotic Sat-Yr-9 becomes completely unhinged.[6] She kills her subjects, leading Roma to send Captain UK on a mission to overthrow and imprison her.[7] Later, Sat-Yr-9 seizes the opportunity to escape when an unassuming dimensional traveller from Earth-616 inadvertently enters her cell; she kills him, steals his suit and exits through the portal he came through.[8]

After murdering Courtney on Earth-616, Sat-Yr-9 takes on her identity. Sat-Yr-9 knew about Jamie Braddock's reality warping powers before anyone else (including Jamie himself), since she has already encountered Jamie's alternate reality counterpart. Sat-Yr-9 challenges Ross's coworker (and secret admirer) Nigel Frobisher to a high-stakes card game at the London Hellfire Club, and wins. Frobisher agrees to serve her, and she orders him to rescue the Earth-616 Jamie Braddock from Doc Croc, intending to use his powers as a living weapon against her adversaries.[9] Sat-Yr-9 takes Kitty Pryde under her guidance,[10] enrolling Kitty in the St. Searle's School for Young Ladies, and arranges a deal to save St. Searle's from bankruptcy.[11] Sat-Yr-9 later unmasks herself, revealing to Brian that she murdered Courtney and has taken her place; he swears revenge on the impostor for the crime as she and Jamie leaves.[12]

Still posing as the Earth-616's Courtney Ross, she has joined the Hellfire Club as its White Queen, with Viper, a former HYDRA assassin, as her self-proclaimed "White Princess" and bodyguard.[13] Someone claiming to be Courtney Ross has been seen in issues of Uncanny X-Men during the House of M crossover, as well as in the early issues of New Excalibur. Upon meeting Captain Britain during the House of M event, she was attacked and was accused of being her impostor, Sat-Yr-9, but upon revealing that she did not possess a tattoo on her thigh, was believed to be the true Courtney Ross (possibly resurrected as a side-effect of House of M).[14] The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe does not confirm if this was the true Courtney Ross, resurrected, or Sat-Yr-9 continuing to pose as her.[3] She is then shown sacrificing herself to save Captain Britain from an attack by the Omega Sentinel.[15] After the events of House of M, Sat-Yr-9 returns. She tries to convince Captain Britain that she is the real Courtney Ross, although he is still unconvinced.[16] Later on, he has warmed up to the idea of Courtney actually being herself again, referring to her as Courtney and confiding in her.[17]

Development

According to Alan Davis, Courtney was retroactively fitted to be the Earth-616 counterpart of Saturnyne and Sat-Yr-9 after it was established that neither was from Earth-616 and Chris Claremont looked at who their counterpart might be. He settled on Courtney Ross, a character Claremont had created himself.[18] He had Courtney switch hair color to platinum blond, the same as Saturnyne's, establishing that it was Courtney's original hair color and she had dyed her hair auburn years ago, fearing that she would not be taken seriously as a platinum blond, before meeting Brian Braddock; thus, Brian had never seen Courtney as a blond until then and did not instantly make the connection when he met Saturnyne later.[1][2] Unsure of what Chris Claremont had originally intended with the Kitty Pride-Courtney/Sat-Yr-9 substory, Alan Davis, taking over the writing, had treated the relationship as a lesbian affair.[19]

References

Inline citations
  1. Chris Claremont (w), Alan Davis (p), Paul Neary (i), Glynis Oliver (col), Tom Orzechowski (let), Terry Kavanagh (ed). Excalibur #1 (October 1988), Marvel Comics
  2. Chris Claremont (w), Alan Davis (p), Paul Neary (i), Glynis Oliver (col), Tom Orzechowski (let), Terry Kavanagh (ed). Excalibur #5 (February 1989), Marvel Comics
  3. "Sat-Yr-9". Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z. Vol. 1 no. #10. Marvel Comics. September 2009. ISBN 978-0-7851-3028-4.
  4. Jim Krueger, Alex Ross (w). Paradise X Heralds #2 (January 2002), Marvel Comics
  5. Captain Britain Vol. 2 #2
  6. Captain Britain Vol. 2 #6
  7. Captain Britain Vol. 2 #14
  8. Chris Claremont (w), Alan Davis (p), Paul Neary (i), Glynis Oliver (col), Tom Orzechowski (let), Terry Kavanagh (ed). Excalibur #3 (December 1988), Marvel Comics
  9. Excalibur #9, 11
  10. Excalibur #21
  11. Excalibur #32, 34
  12. Alan Davis (w). Excalibur #56 (October 1992), Marvel Comics
  13. Chris Claremont, Olivier Coipel (w). "To Slay a Queen" Uncanny X-Men #449 (November 2004), Marvel Comics
  14. Chris Claremont, Alan Davis (w). "Season of the Witch" Uncanny X-Men #463 (October 2005), Marvel Comics
  15. Chris Claremont, Chris Bachalo (w). "Season of the Witch" Uncanny X-Men #465 (December 2005), Marvel Comics
  16. Chris Claremont, Michael Ryan (w). New Excalibur #1 (January 2006), Marvel Comics
  17. Chris Claremont, Scot Eaton (w). New Excalibur #17 (April 2007), Marvel Comics
  18. Alan Davis (April 10, 2008). "Alternate Saturnynes". Alan Davis Forum. Archived from the original on April 26, 2020. Retrieved April 26, 2020.
  19. Alan Davis (January 5, 2006). "dangling plot lines?". Alan Davis Forum. Archived from the original on March 15, 2009. Retrieved March 15, 2009.

General references
  • Courtney Ross at the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe
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