#tbt: Uncanny X-Men Annual #217 – Muir Island, where the X-Men are running a training exercise. It's a night-op and it's Psylocke versus the rest of the team. Rogue and Dazzler hit her hard, but Psylocke manages to best them. It's not until Longshot's crazy luck enters the equation that Psylocke is beaten. Written by Chris Claremont and art by Jackson Guice. Read full summary here.
“For so long, my life has been out of control. Chaos and serendipity, wrapped in insanity. I have suffered, I have lost. Not just my life, but my very soul, my self. But no more. Now I know who I am.” – Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Braddock, daughter of Otherworld, mutant, telepath, telekinetic, defender of the realm and, above all, X-Man.
9 comments:
A prelude to Ali blowing off half of Betsy's face years later in San Franciso. A move I still thought was bad writing on Land's part as the former was fully in control of her powers by then and woukd never have done that to her friend.
Also, I miss the rivalry Psylocke and Rogue would get into in their training sessions, like this where Rogue would always go too far and Bets would clobber her, like the time she told Rogue to stop playing and she wouldn't, so she psycho-blasted her into unconsciousness and the Carol Danvers personality woke up in her stead and reminded Bets and Piotr that Rogue was still quite immature and sometimes was out of control.
Also, did they have a pretty fierce training session in Xtreme where Psylocke wentbliw to blow with her using telekinesis to boost her own punches to match Rogue's strength or am I imagining that?
You mean, bad writing on Fraction's part, right? Land only drew (I mean, traced) what the writer demanded...
About this story, the interactions of these X-Men were always great! Back then, Claremont was quite bold to replace most of the iconic X-Men with newcomers from other corners from the Marvel universe (really, look at these four: a former enemy of the Avengers, a former supporting character for Captain Britain, and two solo superheroes). And it paid off!
It's a pity that his current work isn't as good. But I guess Claremont could still make a great book if instead of using the X-Men (with whom he will often repeat the same ideas), he used a team of completely new characters, more detached from the main superhero books (kinda like the Runaways).
By the way, I think Jonathan Hickman's style is quite similar to Claremont's back in the days. Such a shame that he prefers to kill Psylockes from alternate Earths instead of giving more prominence to the real Psylocke...
"Also, did they have a pretty fierce training session in Xtreme where Psylocke wentbliw to blow with her using telekinesis to boost her own punches to match Rogue's strength or am I imagining that?"
You're not. She really did that, although if I remember correctly, she was deflecting Rogue's punches instead of punching her back. It was shown the issue after her death, among the many memories the other X-Treme X-Men had of her (dressing in typical clothes from India to please Thunderbird III, being scared away from the Hellfire Club by Sage...).
FSaker,
Thanks. I meant Fraction. For me the two of them working on Uncanny together were like the Greusome Twosome though... ome and the same even. From Fractions disgusting lack of real storytelling to Land's pornographic orgams face art... I really just loathed their entire run on the book.
"Is this the one??"
Yes, it is. It's a flashback from one of Rogue and Psylocke's training sessions in the Danger Room (Thunderbird III was also there).
I really liked this uniform Betsy had during X-Treme X-Men, by the way. I know, it's even more revealing than the blue swimming suit, but somehow it fitted with the modern theme that Morrison was pushing back then. But her current uniform is better - in fact, if Humphries's UXF run had one thing that deserves praise, it's the brilliant uniforms that Anka designed for Psylocke and Storm.
I prefer her astral projeciom as the butterfly with eyes in its wings and wish they used it more in modern times, like when we saw it in the Nightcrawler series. Another pre-ninja, unique trait. Most other telepath's astral projections looked like themselves.
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Bedlam_2008/media/psylocke%20only/PsylockeTraining239-15.jpg.html
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Bedlam_2008/media/psylocke%20only/PsylockeTraining239-16.jpg.html
http://www.littlestuffedbull.com/images/2013/psylocke/uxm239/uxm239b.jpg
Issue 239 is definitely in my top 10 favorites from Claremont's run and Uncanny in general: http://www.therealgentlemenofleisure.com/2014/07/x-amining-uncanny-x-men-239.html
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