Betsy Braddock: Psylocke Appreciation 2018

[JeanGreyForever]

I liked it when her TK was part of her Psychoblast.

Wasn't her psycho-blast from her telepathic Claremont days though? A telepathic psi-blast that could affect the physical world and shatter objects.

[Tazirai]

Psylocke and Spider-Man HAVE met and worked together canonically. See Spider-Man Team-Up #1 from 1995.



Spider-Man and the X-Men on that cover dealt with the Hellfire Club in the issue.

Gonna have to look this up. I gave up on Psylocke during the 90's, so It's possible to have missed this. You can only take so much character assasination by Fabian.

EDIT: I just read it. They worked "together" and did meet, but only interacted in one panel and she questioned his joking manner. That was it. The X-men spent much of the issue just getting knocked around until the end.
Tessa played them like chumps lol. But back to Psylocke, she was there, but Spidey interacted with everyone else much more.
Psylocke was also still bitchy mcbitchy thong then also. Lol.

Wasn't her psycho-blast from her telepathic Claremont days though? A telepathic psi-blast that could affect the physical world and shatter objects.

Yep! That's why her hair would go all wild and stuff would get moved around when she Psychoblasted fools.

Extended Astonishing X-Men #1 preview:

http://www.craveonline.com/entertain...ishing-x-men-1

They will always use her weakness to mental domination against her. Man You'd think after all this time Elizabeth would have developed someway to mentally protect herself from domination. It's such a part of her I guess it's something that will always be there. That's why she is who she is today.
But damn even in my Fan Fiction, I figured out a way to stop her from constantly being manipulated by other minds. It was a simple thing. I had her fight herself in her own head, the part of her that allowed for such things to happen, after being dominated one time too many, and lock it away like Cyclops has. Then ROMA, Jean, and Professor X boosted that resistance. So that while not immune, her willpower is stronger.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

I've never viewed Fabian's work as character assassination as far as Betsy was concerned, he was the writer that did a lot to get me to like her in the first place, Betsy and several others...

[Akktim]

They will always use her weakness to mental domination against her. Man You'd think after all this time Elizabeth would have developed someway to mentally protect herself from domination. It's such a part of her I guess it's something that will always be there. That's why she is who she is today.
But damn even in my Fan Fiction, I figured out a way to stop her from constantly being manipulated by other minds. It was a simple thing. I had her fight herself in her own head, the part of her that allowed for such things to happen, after being dominated one time too many, and lock it away like Cyclops has. Then ROMA, Jean, and Professor X boosted that resistance. So that while not immune, her willpower is stronger.

On the other hand, it's important that Psylocke the character has weaknesses and failings. If she's too competent and perfect, she becomes boring. As a fan invested in Psylocke's success or what have you, it may feel great when she's always on top of things, but for the purposes of a story and for drama's sake, it's better that she fails and stumbles every now and then.

[WhiteQueenEmmaFrost]

I've never viewed Fabian's work as character assassination as far as Betsy was concerned, he was the writer that did a lot to get me to like her in the first place, Betsy and several others...

His issues helped me understand what was going on and why it happened. I read his issues a little after I started really collecting comics and as good as comics are about who someone is and what they can do they don't tell you why a character is a certain way or how they got there as much as "this is Psylocke british/asian telepath" mini box.

[Psyknight]

This one you'll go crazy over.

http://psylocke-butterfly.blogspot.c...ll-86.html?m=1

[LoganAlpha30X33]

I think that there's few characters that Campbell can't draw well...would love to see him do an X-book as the regular artist, he or Churchill...

[JeanGreyForever]

I've never viewed Fabian's work as character assassination as far as Betsy was concerned, he was the writer that did a lot to get me to like her in the first place, Betsy and several others...

Isn't he the one who tried to retcon Ninja Psylocke as having never been the real Betsy but Revanche dressed in the Outback Armor was the original British Betsy. But then he completely botched his explanation of this by ignoring a pivotal scene of British Betsy being washed up ashore after going through the Siege Perilous so in order to fix this, he had his explanation revealed to be a lie before spending another two issues revealing the actual truth, that both Psylocke and Revanche were body swapped and had their powers and memories merged, but Ninja Psylocke was ultimately the real Betsy.

[Tazirai]

This one you'll go crazy over.

http://psylocke-butterfly.blogspot.c...ll-86.html?m=1

AGHHHH I wants it.... Why an Exclusive...??? I'll spend good money on 3 out of 4 of those covers.
He should of just went ahead and added her heels. But i'll take it.

EDIT: I'm getting it. My friend is heading to SDCC, and i just aked her to pick it up for me. Cha ching!

On the other hand, it's important that Psylocke the character has weaknesses and failings. If she's too competent and perfect, she becomes boring. As a fan invested in Psylocke's success or what have you, it may feel great when she's always on top of things, but for the purposes of a story and for drama's sake, it's better that she fails and stumbles every now and then.

I Could not agree with you more. In my stories, I lessened this particular weakness, but since She never went through the siege, she has others. I love characters with weaknesses. When I used to RP a Marvel game. I made sure the other people I played with had weaknesses. I despise heroes that are too tough. Hell, I hate villains that are too unstoppable.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

Isn't he the one who tried to retcon Ninja Psylocke as having never been the real Betsy but Revanche dressed in the Outback Armor was the original British Betsy. But then he completely botched his explanation of this by ignoring a pivotal scene of British Betsy being washed up ashore after going through the Siege Perilous so in order to fix this, he had his explanation revealed to be a lie before spending another two issues revealing the actual truth, that both Psylocke and Revanche were body swapped and had their powers and memories merged, but Ninja Psylocke was ultimately the real Betsy.

Not sure, I remember that he explained that their memories and their bodies were merged, which was why even Wolverine couldn't tell them apart except that they had different hair styles, they smelled the same to Wolverine and none of the X-Men seemed to know that Revanche even existed until she showed up to challenge Betsy...

[Lorendiac]

EDIT: I just read it. They worked "together" and did meet, but only interacted in one panel and she questioned his joking manner. That was it. The X-men spent much of the issue just getting knocked around until the end.
Tessa played them like chumps lol. But back to Psylocke, she was there, but Spidey interacted with everyone else much more.

I paid for it on Comixology and read it, focusing (of course) on anything resembling Psylocke/Spidey dialogue. Looks like you and I agree that anything along those lines only happened in one panel. And here it is:

SpideyPsylocke.jpg

Spider-Man says: "Guys! Guys! Forget the Stealth Knight! Concentrate on Kine's Wack-a-Boys!"

Psylocke says: "And side with Shaw? Are you kidding?"

In context, Spidey's suggestion is obviously addressed to all five of the participating X-Men at once. (Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Archangel, Beast, and Psylocke.) That means Psylocke was 20 percent of the target audience. Or, to put it another way, he was not speaking directly to her as an individual; he was only twenty-percent-talking-to-her.

Her response, of course, was obviously directed at him and no one else.

I admit I did not anticipate this situation when I was writing the original post. I knew it might happen that Spidey and Psylocke's "first meeting" could turn out to be a time when they were briefly in sight of one another in a crowd scene, without actually exchanging words. But it never occurred to me that the closest they came to having a two-way conversation in their first encounter might be Spidey saying something to a group which included Psylocke, followed by her skeptical response aimed at him (to which he did not bother to reply directly).

Does this count as the two of them having their Very First Conversation? It's borderline, but I'm leaning toward "not really!"

I'd only call it a real Spidey/Psylocke conversation if he said something obviously addressed to her and her alone, and if she responded in kind. (Or the other way around, with her speaking first.) So, while this may very well be the first time that Betsy Braddock and Peter Parker were onstage in the same place at the same time, I feel their first true one-on-one conversation still remains unidentified!

Note: Another disappointing aspect of this story was the discovery that there is zero indication that Spidey did (or didn't) even know who Psylocke was! Comics.org says Mark Waid and Tom Peyer both get writing credit for this one, and then there's also the name of "Scott Lobdell (special thanks)," which leads me to believe Lobdell wrote little or none of the actual dialogue; he just offered a few suggestions. Maybe Waid and Peyer were not sure, offhand, if Spidey ought to recognize Psylocke, so they evaded the entire issue by not even mentioning whether or not he had any clue about who this purple-haired Asian ninja babe might be? (Personally, I probably would have had Jean say something like this: "Spidey, this is Psylocke. I don't think you two have met, although I'm sure you remember her brother -- Captain Britain!")

[Psy]

Wasn't her psycho-blast from her telepathic Claremont days though? A telepathic psi-blast that could affect the physical world and shatter objects.

Which is TK. No matter how you slice it only TK can affect the physical world. Which is why I never had an issue with her being a telekenetic. She showed the potential for it from the beginning.

[Psy]

Isn't he the one who tried to retcon Ninja Psylocke as having never been the real Betsy but Revanche dressed in the Outback Armor was the original British Betsy. But then he completely botched his explanation of this by ignoring a pivotal scene of British Betsy being washed up ashore after going through the Siege Perilous so in order to fix this, he had his explanation revealed to be a lie before spending another two issues revealing the actual truth, that both Psylocke and Revanche were body swapped and had their powers and memories merged, but Ninja Psylocke was ultimately the real Betsy.

Yes he is precisely the hack writer who was so lazy. He didn't even research just a few issues earlier.

[Psyknight]

Which is TK. No matter how you slice it only TK can affect the physical world. Which is why I never had an issue with her being a telekenetic. She showed the potential for it from the beginning.

I don't mind her being telekinetic for the same reason, although I have mixed feelings about what the extent of her tk should be.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

Or maybe it got dumped on him and he had to start things in a short amount of time and did the best he could, not nice to call a writer a hack...it wasn't perfect but it's not terrible and has now pretty much worked itself out these 20 some years later...