#tbt: Uncanny X-Men #349 – In Manhattan, while in quest of Joseph, the mysterious Maggott encounters Psylocke, who senses a great darkness within him and attacks him. Aided by Archangel, she succeeds in defeating him. Written by Scott Lobdell and Art by Chris Bachalo. 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.
11 comments:
This is the beginning of the Maggot obsession I mentioned in last week's #tbt thread. LOL. Scott Lobdell... sigh...
@Rahsaan, her fascination with the darkness in Maggott is only this issue and briefly again in the next issue.
I wish there was a conclusion to her crimson dawn influence. I mean, it seemed to have wrapped up nicely at the end of the CD mini, but long after it ended they still mentioned her change in personality.
Then Claremont comes along and blatantly ignored the CD even though it's still right on her face LOL God, what were the editors doing at that time?
The 6 month gap during Revolution would have been a perfect opportunity for them to just have Psylocke return in her British body. They made her telekinetic w/out any on panel explanation or acknowledgement, they could have done the same and just given her a clean slate.
I'm hoping they take this 8 month jump, after Secret Wars, as an opportunity to fix a lot of characters. Having Psylocke in her English body after the 8 month gap would be a great example. Doubtful though.
CmX,
Was it only issues 349 and 350, I rexall it going on for sevearl issues. That could easily be selective memory though as the whole Crimson Dawn storyline was painfully tedious to me back when I was a kid reading it. I found Psylocke to be an idiot during this time. From the very outset when she choose to physically fight Sabretooth at the mansion (after having faced him and barely escaping with her life when she first joined the team) to her unprovoked attack on Maggot. She was always jumping into fights without any thought to the consequences.
And the whole "dark" influence over her persona never seemed fully fleshed out and pointless. I was actually glad when Claremont scrapped fhat whole thing and really glad when Jamie resurrected her without that face tattoo.
I'm glad it was swept under the rug too, but it would have been nice to have concluded it w/out completely ignoring it.
Continuity isn't always a good thing, but it leaves an ugly stain on a character when it's completely dropped and ignored.
Mike Carey, for example, is great at this. He acknowledges the crap, but will either explain it away or fix it. Claremont just straight up ignores everything.
And yes, her fascination with Maggott was only two issues. I'm currently re-reading my Uncanny XMen comics.
Maggott... he was kinda lame, wasn't he? Still, I think there were more respectful ways for Marvel to get rid of him than just killing him. The poor guy could only decide to use his powers to help people in a different country, for instance, like they did with Thunderbird III (a.k.a. Psylocke's worst boyfriend ever) and Lifeguard.
As for Psylocke, superpowers are cool and all, but I must say I don't miss her Crimson Dawn mark and teleportation powers at all. Her current powers are more than enough.
And yes, Carey's explanations are the best. Remember how he managed to explain how Betsy regained her telepathy after Fraction showed her using it without any justification?
FSaker,
Did Carey actually explain her telepathy's return or just say that it was divided in strength when she uses her telekinesis? I thought Fraction did kinda explain after the wretched Sisterhood arc by saying that Red Queen (was it ever confirmed who that was if not Madelyne) putting her back in her birth body which was inherently telepathic allowed her to have the ability when her mind transferred back to the other body after she killed herself with the psychic knife to stop her evil self from committing more evil
in the wale if Dazzler scorching off half her face?
Fuck. Did that all sound as convoluted as I think it did?
Rahsaan, I guess I was mistaken. Carey didn't explain how her telepathy returned, although he did explore the division in strength between her two powers (since at the same time we would see Remender using her with omega-level telepathy but no telekinesis, while other writers focused more on her telekinesis).
Fraction's explanation for the return of her telepathy was much weaker than that, if I remember: right after the Sisterhood arc ended, Psylocke just told Beast that during her dimensional trips she regained some psychic ability (which she herself mentioned was NOT telepathy), and then Utopia came and she's suddenly talking to Cyclops through telepathy and that's it. I thought it was a frustrating explanation, although I did (and do) like to see her telepathy back.
@Rahsaan, the only thing Fraction did was in UXM #512, where Psylocke joins XClub to the past to visit Dr Nemesis parents. They request her because she seemed to have regained her psychic ability to perform illusions, while she was an Exile. After that he just gave her full blown telepathy and it wasn't explained. Her telepathy is never mentioned during the Sisterhood arc.
FSaker, was right that Carey gave a much better explanation, albeit brief.
@CmX,
Her telepathy was mentioned in Sisterhood. Red Queen stated that her birth body was a high-level telepath and she wanted to see if they could place her mind back in that body. Later while in that body, she used two psychic knives simultaneously while fighting Wolvie.
Granted, there was no explanation,but I assumed thag the whole switching of bodies back into a body that was inherently telepathic and then just transferring back to the body Jamie created for her was Fraction's lazy attemt at explaining how show got telepathy back.
I didn't take that from that, it was really just Red Queen recapping who Psylocke was to the reader.
And while her psychic knife is associated with telepathy, artists have been incredibly inconsistent and still have drawn her forging it even when she was strictly a TK. (Grummett in New Exiles, Land even drew her with her psyknife on the cover to New Exiles #1)
Also, at the end of #511 her caption is "telekinetic ninja"
There was never any acknowledgment that her telepathy had completely restored.
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