#tbt: Uncanny X-Men #256 – In Hong Kong, Matsuo Tsurayaba approaches the Mandarin with an offer of an alliance between his organization and the Hand, a ruthless clan of assassins. Matsuo's deal is for the Hand to help the Mandarin build an empire unparalleled by any in the past, in exchange for gainful employment in its service. To begin their alliance, Matsuo offers a gift; that of an ultimate assassin. This assassin is the long missing Psylocke, who has emerged from the Siege Perilous amnesiac and found by the Hand. Her body has been transformed into an asian one. Written by Chris Claremont and Art by Jim Lee. 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.
7 comments:
I enjoyed this original story much better than the retcon. Even though, it was confusing to me as a kid whether or not Mojo and Spiral were figments of her imagination or if they were in fact, involved. It would have been cool if they kept the original story and later still revealed Spiral's involvement (which did happen with the retcon). If only Lobdell actually just read. LOL.
I also really wish the writers would re-establish her friendship with Doug.
Nicieza wrote the retcon, not Lobdell. Just want to make sure the right guy gets the blame lol
Actually, if memory serves... Lobdell wrote it and it was completely wrong of actually contradicting things established as canon, such as Matsuo's men finding Betsy in her original form on the beach, naked and amnesiac. He wrote yhat Kwannon found her in her armor on the docks. Nicieza had to then retcon some more and bring in the deal Nyorin (spelling) and Matsu'o made with Spiralnto heal Kwannon... all to try and clean up the mess Lobdell made due to not reading the old story.
CmX, my bad. You're totally right. All Nicieza. Lobdell did all the Crimson Dawn crap.
Fantastic story! When I read it for the first time, it felt confusing how she would suddenly change her appearance, appear in random parts of the world from one moment to the other, and so on. Only years later I realized that everything is happening inside her mind (except the last pages), and that her "ripping off her skin" and "killing the X-Men" was a sign that the brainwash was adapting Psylocke to her new life by destroying the ties she had with her past.
Claremont may not be a perfect writer, some of his ideas were quite stupid (I'll never understand why he thought turning Storm into a child was a good idea), but this story showed how rich his work was when he was in his prime. Every X-Men fan should be grateful for his outstanding contribution to the legacy of the X-Men.
As terrible as the whole body swap storyline turned out, I actually really like Claremont's original idea for reinventing Psylocke. It's not his fault that other guy f***ed it up.
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