Merge:Psylocke

Psylocke (Elisabeth "Betsy" Braddock) is a Marvel Comics superhero, associated with Captain Britain and the X-Men. A mutant, she possesses telekinesis and excellent hand-to-hand combat skills. She formerly possessed telepathy.

Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Herb Trimpe, she first appeared in the UK-only comic book Captain Britain #8 (December 1976). She was originally a supporting character of her brother Captain Britain and briefly substituted for him in the role.

In issue #213 of Uncanny X-Men, she joined the X-Men. Afterwards, the villain group The Hand kidnapped her and with the help of Mojo switched her mind and body with that of the assassin Revanche (aka Kwannon) to save the latter's life. Psylocke remerged with Kwannon's body and ninjitsu skills, plus a severely complicated psyche.

Character history
Elisabeth (sometimes misspelled as Elizabeth) "Betsy" Braddock was born in and raised in England. Born in the small town of Maldon, Essex, Betsy and her brothers had a very privileged life. She is the twin sister of Brian Braddock, better known as the superhero Captain Britain and first appeared in his eponymous series. After working as a commercial pilot for some time, she dyed her hair purple ( it has been suggested in previous story lines that her hair turned purple at the emergence of her powers during puberty, while her brother's hair remained blonde), joined the psi-division of STRIKE (the British branch of the US-based espionage outfit S.H.I.E.L.D.), and went undercover as a fashion model. One of her assignments was to infiltrate the Hellfire Club, but Tessa forced her to abandon the mission. A British crime lord, Vixen, hired Slaymaster to destroy the psi-division and he managed to kill all but Betsy, her lover Tom Lennox and their friend Alison Double before Captain Britain defeated him.

When reality warped due to James Jaspers's powers, Tom sacrificed himself to delay a group of superhuman-hunters to let the Braddocks escape. Following the repair of the reality warp, an evil version of Captain Britain from another universe named Kaptain Briton switched places with Brian, handed him over to the Technet (who were after the Kaptain) and tried to rape Betsy. In self-defense, she attacked him telepathically, killing him.

Betsy assumed his uniform and received training from Captain UK, another alternate Captain Britain, to become the new Captain while Brian was away working for the covert British agency RCX, which had replaced the defunct STRIKE. Vixen lured Betsy into a trap, where Slaymaster beat her almost to death, gouging out her eyes. Summoned by his sister's telepathic distress call, Captain Britain crushed Slaymaster's head under a rock.

She was later kidnapped by the other-dimensional television producer Mojo and his henchwoman, the six-armed, android sorceress Spiral and implanted with bionic eyes. Giving her the name "Psylocke", Mojo made her the star of the Wildways TV program. The New Mutants, the teenage sister team of the X-Men, got involved rescuing Psylocke from Mojo and took her back with them to Westchester County, New York. She decided to stay with the X-Men and learn how to better control her powers.

Her role in the Mutant Massacre, including pulling information about Mister Sinister from Sabretooth's mind, led to her induction into the X-Men. She was among the X-Men as they fought the Adversary in Dallas in the event known as The Fall of the Mutants, and subsequently transported to the Australian Outback by Roma. After a fight with the Reavers, Psylocke donned body armour to protect herself in physical confrontations. When Storm was thought killed in a fight with the entity called Nanny, Psylocke briefly took over as the leader of the X-Men.

Transformed
After going through the dimensional gateway known as the Siege Perilous, Psylocke was found by the Hand, a clan of ninja. Their leader, Matsu'o Tsurayaba, contacted Spiral to swap the mind of his brain-damaged lover, Kwannon, into Psylocke's body. Spiral not only swapped their minds but mingled various memories and skills, as well as certain physical traits. With some physical and mental conditioning, Psylocke (whose persona inhabited Kwannon's body) became the Hand's prime assassin and took the name Lady Mandarin. As Lady Mandarin, she alternated between a new armored costume and a more revealing one, gained highly remarkable ninja fighting skills, and learned to focus her telepathic power into a "psychic knife" which appeared as a dagger of energy projecting outward from her fist.

Lady Mandarin's first mission pitted her against Wolverine. Her psychic knife attack showed her his memories of who she used to be and broke the Hand's conditioning. Psylocke rejected her role as Lady Mandarin and escaped with Wolverine and Jubilee, eventually going with them to the island nation of Genosha (which built its wealth on the basis of mutant slaves).

In Genosha, Psylocke, Wolverine, and Jubilee discovered that the New Mutants had been kidnapped along with the X-Men's leader, Storm, by Cameron Hodge (a former advisor to the team of the X-Men's founding students calling themselves X-Factor). Psylocke, Wolverine, and Jubilee also encountered Havok, whom Psylocke had psychically nudged through the Siege Perilous, acting as a Magistrate (one of Genosha's gestapo-like military police officers). Following the defeat of Cameron Hodge, the X-Men reunited and returned to New York.

After the X-Men split into two teams in 1991, Psylocke joined Cyclops's Blue Team and eventually started flirting with him. When Phoenix found out, the two women started fighting, but were interrupted by the arrival of Kwannon -- now calling herself Revanche, in Betsy's former body. Revanche claimed to be the real Betsy, and not even Wolverine's enhanced senses could tell them apart. Further, attempts to gain an explanation from the Hand were unsuccessful. Eventually, Revanche revealed that she had contracted the Legacy Virus and explained to Psylocke what Spiral had done at Tsurayaba's request; dying, Revanche merged her mind with Psylocke's and the merger restored the full memories of both. Through as yet unexplained means, Psylocke was able to retain Revanche's martial arts skills upon Revanche's death. Afterwards, Phoenix trained Betsy in her telepathic powers and Betsy started a relationship with Warren Worthington III, the Archangel.

Crimson Dawn
In an attempt to save Boomer (now known as Meltdown) from Sabretooth (Victor Creed) who had been living at the Mansion while pretending to be mentally handicapped, Psylocke engaged the homicidal mutant in battle. Although a deadly martial artist, she was no physical match for Sabretooth. Finally realizing she had no other choice, she attacked him with her psychic knife. Unfortunately, Creed had been stabbed in the head by Wolverine, losing the part of his brain effected by psionic attacks and her knife had no effect on him. She was already exhausted from their battle and could not manage to fight back, and was consequently mauled by Sabretooth.

In a bid to save her life, Archangel and Wolverine went with Doctor Strange into the Crimson Dawn to retrieve a magical liquid that could heal her. The mission was successful, although the healing liquid produced side effects: A red dagger-shaped tattoo appeared over Psylocke's left eye, she gained the ability to hide in and teleport through shadows, and her personality took on a cold edge. Warren gave up a portion of his essence to free Psylocke from what turned out to be the evil influence of the Crimson Dawn, although she still retained the abilities associated with it. The couple retired from active duty with the X-Men. (For further elaboration on her adventures concerning this, see the article "Crimson Dawn".)

Psi-War
Psylocke later battled the powerful telepath known as the Shadow King in a fight that disabled telepaths across the globe and destroyed her astral form. She reappeared in a shadow form (another side-effect of the Crimson Dawn) and tricked the Shadow King into over-extending himself so she could contain him within her own mind. To keep the Shadow King imprisoned, Psylocke had to keep her telepathic powers focused on containing him and thus effectively lost the use of her telepathy.

Power Switch
During the six-month story gap before Chris Claremont's second stint as X-Men scribe, Phoenix attempted to help Psylocke deal with the Shadow King, and ended up with the two switching powers, so Psylocke's telepathic powers were added to Phoenix's telepathy, and Psylocke gained Phoenix's telekinesis. Psylocke returned to active duty. She started flirting with Neal Shaara, Thunderbird III and Warren broke up with her.

X-treme X-Men / Death
Psylocke then joined Storm's team, the X-Treme X-Men, to search for Destiny's diaries. On one of the team's first missions, she died fighting the man known as Vargas while protecting Rogue and Beast, who were badly beaten by the villain.

Her body was returned to her family's estate, but later stolen by Vargas, who had it stuffed and mounted. Her spirit appeared to Bishop in a vision, but she was attacked by a skull-faced apparition and pulled through a glowing gate.

Back From the Dead
In Uncanny X-Men #455 Psylocke made a miraculous return from the dead. Shortly after her return, she and the rest of the X-Men found themselves in an adventure in the Savage Land. During this mission Psylocke displayed more creative uses for her powers, most notably the augmentation of her physical strength by using her telekinesis to back up her attacks.

Upon returning from the Savage Land, medical tests by the Beast conducted at the X-Mansion proved that she was indeed Betsy Braddock. She officially rejoined the team and was reunited with her other teammates. When the Scarlet Witch's reality warp altered the entire 616 universe in the House of M, Betsy Braddock temporarily became princess Elisabeth Glorianna Braddock, an adventurer and member of England's royalty. After the House of M ended, it was revealed that Betsy was one of the 198, the group of mutants who had retained their powers after M-Day.

The Foursaken
In the first part of The First Foursaken story arc, it was revealed that one year after her murder by Vargas, Psylocke was brought back to life by her eldest brother, Jamie Braddock. Jamie, a mutant who manipulates the quantum strings that comprise reality, claimed that when he resurrected his sister he also made her immune to the reality-warping abilities of other beings and impervious to mind control and psychic possession. Jamie claimed these steps were necessary in order to make Psylocke a weapon against the "Foursaken," who threaten all of creation, just before a mysterious portal opened and a horrified Jamie was spirited-away by strange, monstrous hands. Nightcrawler took Marvel Girl, Psylocke, Bishop, and Cannonball to Central Park. All but Psylocke were kidnapped by the Foursaken, the supposed end of the universe and Jamie Braddock's best friends. As Psylocke was the wild card (she could not be detected), it was up to her to stop this. She disrupted the Foursaken's magic with iron, and she, the X-Men, and the Foursaken were sucked elsewhere. She woke up in a strange city and met the First Fallen &mdash; who looked like an ancient Egyptian soldier with wings. He took her to the other X-Men, who were being lectured by the Foursaken, saying that they were trying to offer "eternal peace" to people on Earth like the people of their city had. However, only four of each species existed, with the First Fallen saying any more would be redundant. They and all the inhabitants in the city were under the sway of the First Fallen, who they learned from the Watcher is actually the male counterpart to the Phoenix Force, an entity whose goal is eternal unchangeable perfection, who invades the worlds of those who wish for perfection, taking four of every species into his own world. He had also cancelled everyone's powers except Psylocke's, with her immunity. She, in turn, used her psychic katana to short-circuit his power, and everyone rebelled, when the First Fallen itself vacated it's host body, preparing to attack them all. Jamie Braddock at that point decided to send everyone home and he locked himself in the First Fallen's dimension. Evidently at the last minute, he felt he could not sacrifice Psylocke and her team as a pawn.

The Shadow King Returns
After accompanying the other X-Men to Africa to help Storm liberate the locals under the dictatorship of Shetani, Psylocke visited New Excalibur in London to talk with her brother Brian over what happened with Jamie. Meanwhile, the Shadow King had returned, and using the body of a Professor X from an alternate reality, lured Psylocke and New Excalibur to him. Suddenly aware that the others were under his influence, Sage tried unsuccessfully to stop them from ambushing Betsy and Captain Britain. With Sage down, and Captain Britain brutally beaten by his possessed teamates, Psylocke created a telekinetic bubble in Dark Xavier's brain to give the Shadow King's host body a stroke. This freed the others from his control, but when Psylocke delivered the killing blow with her katana, she vanished in a flash of light.

-In the letters page of New Excalibur, Psylocke is said to join the Exiles in the coming months. Marvel editor Mike Marts also confirmed this on uncannyxmen.net. With her will go Claremont from Uncanny to take over the Exiles and oversee the character he created.

Telepathy and shadow teleportation (former powers)
Psylocke was initially a telepath, and the use of her abilities often triggered the appearance of a butterfly-like mask of psionic energy on her face. With her telepathy she was capable of mentally communicating with and facilitating communication with others, altering a person's sensory perceptions (i.e. cast visual and auditory illusions), seeing and hearing through the minds of others, and projected devastating blasts (psychoblasts) of telepathic energy that could stun, cause a person to lose consciousness, and even die. Psylocke also had limited precognitive abilities. In her early days when she still had her original Caucasian] body, she deployed traditional telepathic attacks in battles. She was not a skilled hand-to-hand combatant during this stage, so she relied on fighting from a distance using psi-blasts and similar tactics. Because of her physical vulnerability she was given body armour for a short while to off-set any physical attacks received.

During the brief period when she served as Captain Britain, her costume gave her abilities similar to her brother Brian's.

It is notable that in her early appearances Psylocke was written as not being a mutant, her powers instead stemming from her nonhuman heritage. This was retconned shortly after she joined the X-Men, quite possibly by writer error.

After her physical transformation into an Asian ninja assassin, she gained highly remarkable fighting skills in addition to her telepathy, which at this stage were not as strong as they had originally been before her transformation. Before Kwannon was slain by Matsuo Tsurayaba, she merged her mind with Psylocke's and returned the other half of the psionic power she retained, thus restoring her full telepathic might. The most common usage of her powers was the manifestation of a "psychic knife," described as "the focused totality of her psychic powers," which she often used to disrupt the neurons of her foes by driving the glowing "blade" of mental energy into their heads. It is noted that during this stage she chose to fight up-close most of the time, although she could still utilize distanced telepathic assaults.

After her exposure to the Crimson Dawn, she also gained the ability to teleport herself or others via shadows. Although this form of teleportation was not as controlled or precise as variations of teleportation used by others, it could cover huge distances; on one occasion she transported the X-Men from America to Africa in a few seconds.

Telekinesis (current power)
To keep the Shadow King imprisoned in the Astral Plane, Psylocke sacrificed the use of her telepathy and power to teleport through shadows, but gained telekinesis thanks to Phoenix. At first, due to the relative newness of her telekinesis, she couldn't exercise fine control over her powers (she could blast an enemy through a brick wall, but couldn't levitate a small dime). As time progressed, Psylocke grew more proficient at using her powers. Instead of her psychic knife, Psylocke can now manifest a telekinetic katana blade composed of raw psi-energy, which at its lowest intensity, functions much like her psychic knife, short-circuiting the victim's nervous system, and at its highest level, her katanas can slice through almost any material. Her control over her sword is so great that she can slice an armored opponent and cut through the armor, but leave the attacker physically unharmed (but with a nasty headache). She can also, as seen in Uncanny X-Men , use her sword to shatter telepathic power-inhibitors imposed on others, despite her own lack of telepathy. With no telepathy to guide her when performing this task, she must rely on her instincts to give the blade the sufficient strength nessesary to break the inhibitors, without doing permanent damage to the subject in question. During the events of the House of M, Psylocke showed the ability to summon two telekinetic katanas at the same time.

Aside from the blade, she uses her telekinesis to enhance her speed, strength and fighting skills into super-human levels. She can also move and levitate other people. While she can move objects from a distance and fly as other telekinetics do, she has shown little inclination to do either in combat situations. She can also create telekinetic shields of various sizes and strength and she can fire mental force blasts that can "shatter mountains". Her telekinesis is also much stronger now than it was before her death. After her resurrection, writer Chris Claremont noted that, in addition to no longer having the use of her own telepathy, she is immune to any form of others' telepathy– including telepathic attacks, probes or even attempts at communication (a result of her brother Jamie's manipulation of the quantum strings that comprise her body). She's also immune or at least highly-resistant to other forms of psychic based powers like ex-marauder Vertigo's extreme disorientation powers. Due to Jamie's alterations, Psylocke is also immune to any physical and mental alteration by beings who can radically restructure reality, like Proteus or the Shadow King (although she can still be killed in more traditional manners, such as being stabbed or shot). Her current psi-shields are also of enormous strength and completely out of her control (she can not lower them to "invite" telepaths or other psychic beings into her mind etc).

Fighting skills
Psylocke is skilled in several forms of combat, including ninjutsu. Even though she is classified as a ninja and worked for The Hand as one, her fighting skills and techniques far surpasses those of the average Hand ninja or Crimson Dawn Undercloak. Her skills have even been said to rival those of a ninja master (as mentioned in the miniseries Crimson Dawn #3). Psylocke has after her body transformation had an additional extensive training of her physical skills in the Danger Room with an equally broad field experience as a member of the X-men. According to Chris Claremont, Psylocke's physical strength is somewhat higher now than it was before her death. She also has peak human agility and speed.

As a telepath, Psylocke used to take advantage of her powers in a fight by reading her opponents movements seconds before they made them, giving her the opportunity to counter-attack faster. She also used to create telepathic illusions to distract her enemies while fighting them and as a ninja she used her psychic knife to disable an enemy instead of killing him or her. She also has fewer qualms about killing an opponent in a fight than she did in her original body and will do so if necessary. As a telekinetic, she now uses her powers to augment her strength and speed, which makes her fighting skills so strong that she's been able to match, and even outmatch other super-strong opponents like a holographic version of Sabertooth in the Danger Room (as seen in X-Men and Uncanny X-Men ). Psylocke was also able to match Rogue's attacks during a training session, despite the fact that Rogue had her super-strength and super-speed at the time (as seen in a flashback sequence inXtreme X-Men #3).

Body armor
Psylocke's body armor is a unique set of armor. The first appearance of the armor is in Wolverine Vol 1. . Wolverine had the armor custom ordered through a firm named "Landau, Luckman & Lake" for a colleague (presumably Psylocke). Mr. Chang, an agent of Landau, Luckman & Lake, loaned the armor to Linsday McCabe since she had been sent to him by Wolverine. Issues #6-7 of Wolverine Vol. 1 feature Tyger Tiger wearing the body armor. Tiger gets trapped in the armor due to a built-in security mechanism, but Wolverine gets her out before she is in any real danger. Psylocke wore the armor from issue #232 of Uncanny X-Men to issue #251. The impervious nature of the armor allowed her to go out into the field with the group more often than she was able to before.

Age of Apocalypse
Originally, Psylocke was the only X-Man not depicted in some form or another in the X-Men crossover "Age of Apocalypse", and it was believed Betsy Braddock had been one of the unfortunate telepaths to have been remade into Apocalypse's brain trust, a telepathic defense system for his citadel. However, for "AoA"'s 10th anniversary, a new miniseries was created and Psylocke made an appearance, hot on the heels of her canon resurrection.

Psylocke in the "Age of Apocalypse" appears as a ninja, with black hair and blue eyes. She is a telepath, and an old acquaintance of Wolverine. It also appears that Psylocke has an affinity for the shadows, but bears no Crimson Dawn mark, and it is unclear whether Elisabeth is Asian. However, hair dye would be difficult and frivolous to procure in this war-torn world, and her black hair is likely natural.

Psylocke's Asian appearance in "AoA" isn't explained, though the most simple of explanations is that this isn't Elizabeth Braddock at all, but actually the AoA version of Kwannon (herself a mutant psychic), who survived Apocalypse's destruction of Japan. The likelihood of this is high as Kwannon was probably Japan's top female ninja (being good enough to be the rival/lover of Matsuo Tsurayaba, who in 616 continuity led the Hand, Japan's deadliest ninja clan), and so could have been skillful enough to manage to escape the massacre of her people, like fellow mutants Silver Samurai and Kirika.

Ultimate Psylocke
In the World Tour story arc of Ultimate X-Men, Agent Betsy Braddock, along with her partner Agent Dai Thomas, were introduced as a Colonel for the British Secret Service. She is a psychic and, judging by Braddock's assertion, the best psychic in all of England.

Her body is possessed by the Ultimate version of Proteus, but Betsy resists just long enough to allow Ultimate Colossus to drop a car on her, killing them both.

However, her consciousness survived, floating into the comatose body of an Asian girl called Kwannon. This body switch was actually a blessing in disguise, since Betsy had breast cancer, which would have killed her anyway, and she regards her near-death experience as deeply fascinating, but it has also led her to bear a less formal look, as she now wears a number of piercings. Currently she is building up S.T.R.I.K.E., the British division of S.H.I.E.L.D. Betsy has yet to be seen again in Ultimate X-Men or any other Ultimate title.

As in the mainstream Marvel Universe, Betsy is the sister of Brian Braddock, who is now a member of the European Defense Initiative (the European Union equivalent of the Ultimates), code named Captain Britain. Her father, Professor Sir James Braddock oversees the EDI super soldier program.

Days of Future Past
In the Days of Future Past timeline, Psylocke has forsaken Xavier's dream and is the Red Queen, one of the Lords Cardinal of the Hellfire Club, alongside Shinobi Shaw, the Black King.

Appearances in other media

 * Psylocke has appeared in a few X-Men-based video games, beginning with the 1990's PC game X-Men 2: Fall of the Mutants in her original Caucasian body, and could fire "psyche-blasts" that stun her enmies in the game. She later appeared in Capcom fighting game X-Men: Children of the Atom and a notable appearance in Marvel Super Heroes in that she was the only female character, ignoring the Japanese version, in which Anita from Darkstalkers appeared as a secret character.
 * She also has a cameo appearance in the Cammy ending in X-Men vs. Street Fighter and resurfaced as a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
 * She was also the sole female playable character in X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse for the Super NES, as well as X-Men 2: Clone Wars for the Sega Genesis. She was in Activision's X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 and recently, she has appeared in X-Men Legends. She also made a less notable appearance as a playable character in X-Men: Next Dimension, as both Betsy and Psylocke.
 * She appears in the game X-Men Legends as a playable character, but is not featured in the sequel. She will however, return as a playable in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance


 * Psylocke appears during the fourth season of the X-Men animated series, in Episode 51 entitled "The Promise of Apocalypse" (Beyond Good and Evil, Part 2), and in Episode 53, entitled "End and Beginning" (Beyond Good and Evil, Part 4). Psylocke also makes two quick cameos: during Season 2 in Episode 18, "Repo Man", and Episode 24, "Mojovision".

X-Men: The Last Stand
Psylocke appears in the feature film X-Men: The Last Stand, played by actress Meiling Melançon. In the film, she fights against the X-Men as a member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants.

During an interview with Wizard magazine, Melancon said that in X3, Psylocke has the power to turn into a shadow and create psi-blades (which suggests that the Psylocke in the film is the "Crimson Dawn" version of Psylocke). However, in the film, she doesn't appear to create psi-blades (though rumor has it that the X3:The Last Stand DVD there will be a deleted scene which will include Psylocke using her psi-blades against an X-man), but she appears out of nowhere, indicating a blend into the shadows, although there were no shadows present when she appeared. In the film, Psylocke is apparently killed by Phoenix's disintegration wave, along with her allies Arclight and Kid Omega, while novelization states that Psylocke teleported away at the last minute. It is important to note that, even though the end credits call her Psylocke, this may change in a future film and she may just be another character such as Kwannon, the asian mutant Psylocke switched bodies with in the comics.

According to scriptwriter Zak Penn, the character played by Melançon was not named as Psylocke in the original script. In a Q&A on thexverse.com, he claimed that: "There was some switching of character names later in production, and I'm not exactly sure how Psylocke got thrown into the mix."